Cocoa Brownie

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup (40g) unsweetened cocoa powder sifted
• 1/2 cup (64g) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder

WET INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup (113g) butter melted then cooled
• 2 eggs room temperature
• 1 tsp. Vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Sift together all dry ingredients. Place into a jar or airtight container.
2. Melt butter and set aside to cool slightly. In a medium bowl, beat two eggs with the vanilla. Add in and gently stir dry ingredients. Pour the melted butter into brownie mixture and mix until just incorporated. Spread batter in a prepared 8-inch square pan and bake for 20-22 minutes at 350 degrees.

Chai spice cake

Ingredients

3 cups (375g) all-purpose flour
2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 and 1/2 cups (3 sticks; 345g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (200g) packed brown sugar
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
5 large eggs
1/2 cup (120g) yogurt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup (180ml) milk


Cinnamon Swirl
3/4 cup (150g) packed light or brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cardamom


Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and grease a 10-inch bundt pan.

For the cake: Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.

Beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until creamed, about 2 minutes.

Add the eggs, yogurt, and vanilla and beat on medium speed until combined.

 The mixture will look curdled; that’s ok– it will come together when you add the dry ingredients.

Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, add the milk, and beat on medium speed it all until the batter is completely combined.


Mix the swirl ingredients together in a medium bowl.
Pour half of the cake batter evenly into the prepared bundt pan. Sprinkle the swirl ingredients evenly on top– it will be a thick layer of swirl! Cover evenly with remaining cake batter.
Bake for 55-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean with just a couple lightly moist crumbs.

Once done, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 2 hours inside the pan. Then, invert the slightly cooled bundt cake onto a wire rack or serving dish. Allow to cool completely.

Eggless choclate cake with chocolate ganache.

It's ninth birthday.

A turned 9 this 5th. Her excitement for birthday celebrations hasn't waned much. But certainly we have been trying different ways to celebrate. I feel she is old enough to understand the need to think of joy emanating from heart then external stimuli. Still a long way to go. So we had a birthday party at play arcade of nearby mall followed by lunch at a restaurant. All in all low key compared to previous affairs where I hosted children and their parents at home  for lunch and enetrtainment.

Two things that needed to be done were cake and return gifts.  So this time I convinced A to do a no gift birthday party. We requested her friends not to bring gifts. I also had hoped I will not do return gifts as well. This did not go too well with anyone at home so I went minimalistic by giving flexible scales that seemed to be very popular in my daughters class.

I enjoy baking cakes but decorating is not my forte. Mostly I would cover the cake with ganache and ask the kids to decorate with sprinkles. till last birthday Ananya wishes for fancy decorations so I conveniently outsourced the cake. But this time around we jointly planned the cake. We had an experience of doing number cake for my son's  6th birthday in January. Building on that idea we decided to do number 9 cake with handmade banner and sprinkles. Other thing she requested was vanilla buttercream frosting. But I have had not very good experience with buttercream. So I suggested chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream filling and whipped chocolate ganache frosting.

Cinnamon swirl banana cake

Ingredients

• 3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up. If you are in Bangalore and using yellaki banana like me please use 6.
• 1/3 cup melted butter at room temperature.
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• dash of salt,omit if using salted butter like Amul
• 1 1/2 cups flour
For topping
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs cinnamon, fine powdered.

Direction's

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare a loaf pan . I used 8 by 4 but you can very well use 9 by 5. My preferred method is to grease the pan , line with baking paper and grease again. But you can butter the pan and dust it with flour also.
2. Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together . I use a small hand held cake mixer.
3. Sieve the flour along with baking soda and salt.
4. Then gently stir in flour in the banana mixture with light hand until well incorporated. 
5. Mix together the 1/3 cup sugar and 1 Tbs cinnamon kept for swirling.
6. Add half of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle little more than half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the leftover cinnamon-sugar on top.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Kadhi

Kadhi is a staple in Rajasthani households. Simple ingredients but every family has their own favorite take on it. Thick, thin, with fritters, with green leaves etc.

My mother in law makes a version of it which tasty and pouplar among friends and relatives.

She is visiting and prepared today for lunch. I watched her and decided to journal the recipe.

Ingredients

1/2 cup besan (gram flour)
2 cups dahi (little thicker then buttermilk)
Turmeric
Coriander powder
Red chilli powder
Salt
Cumin
Cloves
Ajwain

Mustard seed
Asofoetida

Method

Add besan to curd along with turmeric, chilli , coriander, salt . Mix it well and make a lump free mix.

Take a heavy bottom vessel and add a teaspoon of oil. Add cumin , clove and ajwain. When the have crackled add curd besan mix and keep stirring for about 5- 8 minutes.

If you want to add fritters or chopped greens like spinach methi etc add at this stage.

Let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Now prepare a tempering. Take some ghee, add mustard seeds and asofoetida. Can add red chilli powder for nice color. Pour it on top of KADHI. serve it rice/pulao/ chapati etc.

First for everything

So this summer night me and A & R played our first Scrabble game to the end. R used help from me and P but it was indeed peaceful and interesting game. Kids are growing!