Tutti Frutti Cookies

Another best treat for the little ones. The colourful tutti frutti is the main pulling factor. Adding salt will not only overpower the sweetness, but also masks the odour.

Ingredients:
Plain flour – 1 cup
Butter – 6 tbsp
Sugar – ½ cup (Powdered)
Tutti frutti – 1/3 cup
Milk – 1 tbsp
Salt – small pinch
Baking soda - 1/4 tsp

Method:
Cream the butter and sugar
Add Plain flour, salt, baking soda and tutti frutti to the cream along with milk and mix everything into soft dough. Now roll the dough into logs.

Cover each log with plastic wrap and place them in the refrigerator to chill until firm.
Cut into medium thick slices and spread them in a baking sheet.

Pre-heat the oven and bake them for 10 – 12 minutes at 150 degree C

Cheese Biscuits

I had some left over soft cheese with herbs which no one wants to have it. Quickly thought of making the cheese biscuits. So simple to make and it takes just few minutes .

Cheese biscuits in duckling and butterfly shapes for the little ones

Ingredients:

Plain flour – 1 cup 

Soft cheese – 3 tbsp 

Salt ( Make sure to add very little as cheese might contain traces of salt ) 

Baking soda – 1 large pinch

Method: 

Add salt and baking soda to the flour and mix thoroughly. Now fold the soft cheese into the flour and mix it well. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of water if required and make a soft dough. Cover the dough and keep it aside for 10 minutes . 

Pre-heat the oven Gas mark – 4 

Roll the dough into thin disc, poke it with fork and make desired shapes or simply cut into diamonds or squares. 

The rolled dough has been cut into diamonds

Spread them on a baking tray and bake for 7 to 10 minutes or till they change the colour and gets crispy. Turn them once in between.

Cheese biscuits

Banana Bread

Ingredients:
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
Ripe Banana - 2
Melted Butter - 2 tbsp
Egg - 1 large
Sugar  - 5 tbsp
Dates - 10 Chopped into tiny pieces
Walnuts / Almond flakes - 2 tbsp
Cinnamon powder - 1tsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Wheat flour, Pitted Dates, Almond flakes, Banana, egg and Sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place oven rack to middle position. Line the pan with baking sheet and set aside. Alternatively you can butter and flour the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, dates and nuts. Set aside. 

In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla.

With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth.)

Scrape batter into prepared pan.

Bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan.

Serve warm or at room temperature with a cup of tea.

Quick oats cookies

Oats Cookies

These cookies are very easy to prepare and takes very less time. I have used quick oats which is nothing but powder form of oats. You can also replace the quick oats with rolled oats grinding into coarse powder.

Ingredients:

3 cups Quick cooking oats

1/4 cup self raising floor

¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 tbsp Milk

3/4th cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Tutti – Fruity – ½ cup

Quick oats and Tutti frutti

Oatmeal Cookies: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

In the bowl beat the butter and sugar until creamy and smooth (about 2 - 3 minutes). Add the vanilla extract and beat to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, quick oats, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, sprinkle the milk and mix until incorporated. Finally stir in the tutti frutti.

Cookie dough

To make cookies, use a spoon and scoop the dough (I like to use an ice cream scoop) and space the dough about 2 inches (5 cm) apart on the baking sheet. Then wet your hand and flatten the cookies slightly with your fingers so they are about 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) thick.

Bake the cookies for about 12 - 15 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges but still soft and a little wet in the centers. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

Oats cookies

Eggless Chocolate cake

Chocolate cake 

This is a two-tiered chocolate cake with very light texture importantly without the use of eggs. The cake’s light texture is mainly due to the sour milk.

Ingredients:


125g (6-7 tablespoons) butter, room temperature
1 cup – sugar
1 tsp – vanilla essence
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ cup – hot water
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk
1 2/3 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp – baking soda
Pinch salt

Method –

Preheat oven to 180C / 355 F

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence until light and fluffy.

whisk cocoa powder into the hot water and mix to a smooth paste.

Fold together cocoa mixture and butter-sugar mixture.

Combine the lemon juice with the milk and keep it aside to sour it which makes an excellent egg replacer.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) salt and add it to the creamed mixture alternatively with the sour milk. Mix thoroughly.

Spoon the cake mixture into two buttered 9 inch cake tins.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Allow the

cakes to cool in their tins for 10 minutes.

Turn out and allow to cool completely. Fill with chocalate cream and ice with whipping cream. Finally decorate with glazed cherries.

 

For Whipped Cream:

1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon sugar

For whipped cream, in a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, vanilla extract and sugar and stir to combine. Chill the bowl by placing it in an ice cubes container and beat the mixture until stiff peaks form. It takes approximately 5 mins.

For Chocalte cream

To the above mentioned ingredients add an extra tablespoon of sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Chocolate cake

You can find Plain Cake recipe with more tips.

Casatta ice cream

The word "cassata" literally means "little case" due to its brick shape. Cassata is an ice-cream, shaped like a brick, consisting of different  layers of ice-creams on a sponge cake.

I have chosen ready-made ice-creams layered on home made cake to make a quick dessert. You may choose the ice-cream flavours as per your wish. You can prepare the cassata up to 2 to 3 days in advance and keep it frozen. A classic dessert.

 

Classic Casatta

For the base I have prepared a plain cake in the form of thin layer as shown below

Cake for Casatta

You can choose any number of flavours. I have used 3 flavours. Vanilla, strawberry and mango. You can also use any dry fruit and nuts. As my little one doesn’t like nuts in between the heaven, I have avoided them.

Choose a box and cut the cake into the box size and arrange it at the bottom as first layer. I have chosen my son’s lunch box. You can use the ice cream box itself.

Ice cream beaten into smooth cream

Scoop the ice cream into a bowl and beat just until it becomes creamy (like spreadable butter) and spread it on top of cake as second layer and freeze it for 20 – 30 min.

Remove from the freezer and repeat the above step with different flavour as third layer and freeze it again.

I have added another cake sheet as fourth layer and repeated the above steps.
Cut into wedges and serve chilled, with or without garnishing.

Cool cool Casatta

Tip: Place a cling film as a thin layer inside the box and then arrange the cake and ice cream layers

which makes easy to remove the whole chunk. Bread tin will gives you the perfect shape of cassata.

Carrot Cake

This rich and moist cake, full of grated carrot and toasted nuts, has great flavour. You just can’t stop with one bite. The interesting part is that while those pretty orange flecks of grated carrot give the cake colour and texture, along with sweetness and moisture, its flavour is almost indistinguishable. This is a healthy cake as it is made up of carrots, almonds and dates which are rich in nutrients and also natural sweeteners and require less sugar. Note that you may need to bake the carrot cake a few minutes longer than the plain cake.

Carrot cake with dates and almonds

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

Plain Flour – 150 gms
Sugar – 100 gms ground into fine powder.
Spreadable Butter – 150 gms (Room temperature)
Grated carrot - 3/4th cup
Almond flakes - 3 tbsp
Pitted dates chopped - 3 tbsp
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Butter, sugar,grated carrot,plain flour,eggs,pitted dates,Almond flakes

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C/ Gas Mark 4 and place rack in centre of oven. Butter or spray two 7 - 9 inch cake pans or line the bottoms of the pans with a circle of parchment paper.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour and baking powder and set aside.

In another bowl, beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute with electric mixer or about 4-5 minutes with hand mixer). Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored (about 3 - 4 minutes). Add butter bit by bit and then beat in the vanilla extract.

Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. With a large spatula or flat spoon fold in the grated carrots, dates and almond flakes.

Folding the grated carrot,almonds and dates into cake mixture

I have used the below cake pan. Cake tins or pans come in a variety of depths, sizes and shapes for baking the perfect cake. A spring form pan is a cake tin with an expanding sidewall, which is clipped shut during baking and unclipped afterwards to remove the cake. It's also useful for making cheesecakes.

Cake tin greased with butter

Spread the batter between the pans evenly

Bake the cake 30 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick or knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Fully done cake

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack and allow to cool completely

I did not add any cream, as this tastes good enough without any cream.

A rich carrot cake

Plain Cake

As a learner I faced few difficulties in making this simple cake and ended up with few disasters like hard cake or burned cake. Few reasons for the failure are, not beating the ingredients well, not pre-heating the oven, not choosing the right butter etc.


Now as an expert, I can suggest you few tips.

No matter whether you beat the ingredients with balloon whisk, fork, spatula or an electric blender, you need to make sure that you beat them well as per the required consistency which is the most important thing in making cake.

Always pre-heat the oven as advised.

Do not pour the batter into thick layer, as we will end up in having raw batter in the centre and burnt in the corners. Instead divide the dough into two and bake.

In India most of the people use home made butter so no question of quality. Where as in here there are loads and loads of varieties and we need to be very careful while choosing the butter.

I have given the minimum measurements to start with and when you gain enough experience you can increase the quantities. My mom’s and sister-in-law’s standard measurements are Maida, butter, sugar 250 gms each, 1 ½ tsp baking powder and 4 eggs. Those days when the technology was not available to the common man, my mom used to bake the cake using pressure pan half filled with sand and bake the cake on stove top.

Ingredients:
2 large or 3 medium eggs
Plain Flour – 150 gms
Sugar – 150 gms ground into fine powder.
Spreadable Butter – 150 gms (Room temperature)
Baking Powder – 1 tsp
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C/ Gas Mark 4 and place rack in centre of oven. Butter or spray with a non stick vegetable spray or line the bottom of a 7 inch cake pan with parchment paper.

Sugar, Plain Flour, Butter, eggs

Before preheating the oven keep all the ingredients measured, bowls and required tools to beat the ingredients.

Take a bowl and beat butter and sugar until forms a smooth paste like ice cream

Butter and sugar powder

Butter and sugar beaten into smooth cream

In a medium bowl combine the eggs and vanilla extract, beat until frothy.

Egg beaten until frothy 

In another bowl mix all the dry ingredients and incorporate the wet mixtures and blend them all until forms a smooth batter. If you are doing manually beat for about 10 -15 minutes. If you are using electric one beat for about 4-5 minutes. First mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened and slowly increase the speed. If the batter is not loose enough you can add 1 or 2 tblsp of milk

Mixing the dry ingredients with wet 

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. As a finishing bit pat the pan with both the hands, so that the batter spreads evenly. Bake for about 25 to 35 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

 

Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool completely on a lightly buttered wire rack.

cake that has a very moist, light, and velvety texture. Will keep well up to 5 days at room temperature.

 Plain Cake