Facebook has its advantages. Especially if you don’t watch television or scour the internet much – like me, then facebook can serve as an inspiration sometimes. A friend uploaded a picture of her mud cake, and I was blown away. I searched for a recipe that used oil, since I find oil based cakes more moist and soft than butter based cakes.

I found my salvation in a recipe by a brand of sugar.  They used refined flour, and that’s what I used the two times I made it, but chocolate cakes are very flexible and one can easily substitute whole wheat flour and jaggery for plain flour and sugar.

Ingredients

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup milk
½ cup oil
250g dark chocolate, broken up or roughly chopped
1 cup hot strong coffee, can be strong instant
2 cups plain flour (or whole wheat flour)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup cocoa
2 eggs
¼ tsp nutmeg powder
¼ cup walnuts (optional)

Chocolate Ganache Icing:
400g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 cup cream

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 9 inch spring-form tin with baking paper and butter it.

Mix lemon juice with milk and set aside for it to sour.

Place oil, chocolate and hot coffee in a small saucepan and heat gently, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and the mixture smooth. Cool.

In a large bowl, mix the flour baking soda, baking powder, sugar and cocoa.

Mix the eggs and soured milk into the cooled chocolate mixture, combine thoroughly, and then whisk into the dry ingredients.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30 to 40 min. The cake is done when fudgy crumbs still stick to the skewer. This is the sticky mud cake consistency.

Cool for 15 minutes in the tin, then turn out and cool further on a wire rack.

When cold, cut the cake in half using a serrated knife.

If you like the cake moist like I do, mix ½ cup  chocolate with enough milk to make a thin chocolate syrup, and drizzle it on the cake before icing it. Spread the chocolate ganache on the bottom layer, place the top layer carefully and smear it with ganache too, garnish with walnuts.

Chocolate Ganache
Place both chocolate and cream in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Cool then refrigerate for 30 – 40 minutes until the mixture is a thick spreading consistency. Chill the frosted cake and serve with whipped cream.

When someone says that they’ve just baked the finest cake they’ve ever made, and then goes on to share the recipe, it makes you sit up and take notice. Someone on facebook shared this on a recipe forum, and I just had to give it a shot.

Banana cakes are awesome enough already, and what I like about them is that you can substitute whole wheat flour for plain flour without reducing the magic. The addition of orange only makes it even more delicious. I wouldn’t say it was the best cake I ever made, that would be stretching it. But it definitely was good. Soft and spongy and absolutely divine with fruits and custard. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ cup oil
2 tbsp vanilla essence
1 big orange
1 medium sized ripe banana
1 cup flour (plain or whole wheat)
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of baking soda

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 180 °C and grease and flour a 9 inch cake tin.
• Sift the flour with the baking soda and baking powder.
• Squeeze the orange to extract all juice. Grate the peel.
• Mix the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla essence until frothy n foamy.
• Grate and mix the orange peel with the banana. Mix this into the egg-sugar mixture, and add the orange juice. Mix well.
• Pour into cake tin and for 40-50 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

It was a special day when I found this recipe on the internet. That was the day I stopped looking for any brownie recipes! Brownies can be quite a mess to make if you’re going to melt chocolates, and the recipes I had found before weren’t so much fun.

I wouldn’t have tried this recipe if she hadn’t insisted that it is better than the ones that use melted chocolate, because usually I would look specifically for the melted chocolate recipes. How else would one get the richness? But this recipe… is just awesome. You cannot tell that it is a cocoa based brownie.

I went a step ahead and substituted the plain flour with whole wheat flour, and the sugar with the jaggery. Now, your only sin is the butter!

Time taken: 1 to 1.5 hours
Makes a 8×8″ brownie

Ingredients

150 gm unsalted butter
1¼ cups (250 gm) sugar
³⁄₄ cup + 2 tbsp (65 gm) unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, cold
½ cup (65 gm) all-purpose flour
²⁄₃ cup (75 gm) walnut or pecan pieces (optional)
¼ tsp salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C or 325°F. Line the bottom of an 8×8″ pan with parchment paper, leaving some extra paper on the sides to facilitate easy removal of the brownies.

Combine butter, sugar/ jaggery, cocoa and salt in a heatproof bowl and place the bowl in a larger vessel with gently simmering water.

Stir gently until the butter has completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Dip your finger in to test. If it is hot enough that you want to remove your finger immediately, take it off the heat.

Let it cool until it is warm. It gets grainy as it cools down, and this is ok and quite expected.

Add the vanilla and stir in the eggs one by one, whisking vigorously after each addition.

The batter should be thick and shiny. Now add the flour in parts until it is completely blended into the batter.

Beat vigorously for about 20 seconds. Stir in the nuts.

Spread evenly on the lined pan.

Bake for 30-35 min until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out slightly moist with batter.

Now, oven fresh brownies are hard to resist, but if you’re keen on clean, crumble free pieces wait until it is cool before cutting. You could even refrigerate it for a while, for really clean lines.

Cut into squares and serve.

Serving suggestions

Dust with powdered sugar using a sieve, and serve as is.

I like to microwave it until it is hot, top it up with chocolate sauce (melted chocolate mixed with cream and butter) and pair this up with ice cream.

If you have a little sizzler plate, heat the plate, pour some chocolate sauce, place the brownie, add some more chocolate sauce and a scoop of ice cream, and you have a sizzling brownie!

My father is a vegetarian, and my mother loves fish. When they got married, they made a pact. No cooking non-veg at home, but dad would take her out to a restaurant whenever she had cravings, or parcel some of it home.

Now, in those days, families would frequently exchange food items, and it was tradition to never return a box empty. This carrot cake has been a family trademark for decades, and in those days, Indian women rarely made cake. Eventually what happened was, every family that made good fish, would send us fish fry and request for carrot cake in return. Win-win for all!

So, here’s the carrot-cake family’s carrot cake recipe.

Time taken: 1 hour
Makes one 9″ cake

Ingredients

2 cups plain or whole wheat flour
2 cups white or brown sugar
2 cups grated carrot
1½ cups oil
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon powder
½ tsp clove powder
2 tsp cardamom powder

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F and oil a 9″ cake tin.

Put the flour, salt, baking powder and spice powders in a bowl and stir well with a whisk to remove any lumps.

Mix oil and sugar together, stir for a couple of minutes

Add the eggs one by one, stirring well after each addition. Beat well.

Add the carrots, and the flour in parts, until well combined. Do not beat anymore, just gentle fold these in.

Pour into the greased cake tin and bake in a preheated oven for 40-50 min. When a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean, you know it is done.

Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top using a sieve, or frost with sweetened cream cheese.

Note: As this cake is dense and rich, you can easily substitute the white flour for wheat flour, without much compromise.

Serving suggestion

This cake tastes even better the next day.

If you haven’t frosted the cake, serve it with custard and chopped bananas and grapes. The combination is delicious.

This is such a simple, easy dish really, but make it anywhere and everyone thinks you are a brilliant cook. It was something I threw together recently for a potluck during the group Reiki healing session. It was a hit and I had everyone asking me for the recipe.

I actually made this cake because I was feeling lazy. I just bought a cake mix, whipped cream, cherry pie filling and a bar of chocolate. The rest was cake walk.

Did you know that the name of the cake comes from a forest in Germany called ‘Black Forest’? The traditional name for the cake is schwarzwälder kirschtorte, which translates to ‘Black forest cherry liquor cake’. The main ingredient in this cake is the cherry liquor that comes from the black forest region.

So I guess our black forest cakes aren’t very black forest after all, but we make do. Sab chalta hai in India, after all!

Makes a 10″ cake

Ingredients:

1 sponge cake
50gm (1 packet) whipped cream powder
1 can cherry pie filling
100gm bar dark chocolate, grated
50ml cherry liquor, if available
½ cup sugar, maybe more
Water

Method:

Make whipped cream as per instructions. Typically, that would involve blending the powder with 100ml chilled water. Refrigerate atleast for half an hour, overnight if you can.

Check the cherry filling. If it is too sour, you might want to add some powdered sugar to sweeten it a bit.

Dissolve ½ cup sugar in a cup of water. If you don’t have cherry liquor, take ½ cup filling without the cherries, and add it to the syrup. Check the taste and add more sugar if required.

Once the sponge cake is cool, cut it in half horizontally. (If you want more layers in your cake and your sponge is thick enough, you could even cut it into 3 parts. Increase the quantities of whipped cream and chocolate accordingly) Using a thread to cut the cake is very effective and even.

Place the first layer of the cake on the plate you want to serve the cake on.

Drizzle half the sugar syrup and the liquor over the sponge.

Smear a centimeter thick layer of whipped cream, and spread a thin layer of cherry filling.

Place the other sponge on top, and top with whipped cream and cherry filling. Cover the edges of the cake with whipped cream and pat grated chocolate on the sides. Voila, you’re done!

Refrigerate and serve chilled.