CHOCOLATE GENOISE CAKE WITH WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING - MY BEST TILL DATE

It was my FIL's birthday on July 9. But for some reason he was not in town and we decided to celebrate the same once he comes back. Since i had a good time in my hand to plan for the cake. Decided to try some other recipe other than normal sponge recipe. In such scenario,best place to hunt for good and different recipe is Joy of Baking . While browsing thorugh cake section , i stumbled upon the Chocolate Genoise and just thought to give it a try. I decided to frost it with cream. In Pune, we dont find heavy whipping cream. My only saviour is Amul's cream (25%) but the atmosphere was hot during the rainy season(as there was no rain) and i could not get the cream whipped properly so it was bit running. But it's okay. All along my FIL was observing me putting all the efforts to create a good cake for his Belated Birthday. Finally the layers were put together and frosted with bit runny cream and decorated with chocolate shavings on top. I tried creating some design on the sides by pressing fork on sides. I can achieve a little suceess. And the cake went into fridge to mature the flavours.

Needless to say , the cake was awesome !!!! Every one liked the cake very much and in no time it was out of sight. My father in law was very happy.

YELLOW BUTTER CAKE

One such Sunday evening , wanted to prepare something for snacks and what is better than a coffee cake. I have already had Yellow butter cake in mind which I had seen on one of my favorite baking site "Joy of Baking" . This is kinda a easy fix cake . I skipped the chocolate frosting. Earlier I had prepared this cake with frosting and my husband was of opinion that cakes for snacks shall be without frosting so this time i had avoided the frosting. And to my utter surprise this cake was really a winner as Tea time cake. I took half of all the portions from initial recipe and prepared the cake in loaf tin . Both of us finished the cake in no time . Deifinitely need a try.

Coffee Butter Cake - Sinful Indulgence in butter, Chocolate and Coffee

Since the time I have started baking , my husband is one helluva enthusiast to try different types of cake. According to him , by doing so , he is actually perfecting my skills at baking. Such a supportive husband !!! . But mostly he prefers cake without any kind of icing on them . Mostly I bake cake on Sunday evening for tea/coffee time. On sunday , i was wondering which cake to prepare. I browsed through most of the baking sites including my fvaourite , Joy of Baking , Passionate About Baking and Madhuram's Eggless Cooking . Since my MIL and BIL are vegetarian , there is a major task to strike a balance between veg and non-veg food. But after going through many recipes and inspecting the pantry for the ingredients I settled on Deeba's Coffee Butter Cake . I prepared the same in a loaf tin with half the ingredients in the main recipe by Deeba. It was just a perfect cake, perfectly baked, moist and tasty. I poured the left over chocolate ganache which was waiting to be used . This is actually a sinful indulgence only when it comes to amount of chocolate and butter in cake... But once in a while its okay. Just Chill and enjoy the cake.

A TIGER CAKE - A BIG ROAR TO ENJOY

Many eyebrows might have raised after reading the name of the cake . But it is the same cake as zebra Cake which was a great hit in my house . My nephew , Pratham is a great fan of Spiderman. There are spiderman all over the house .( even he has a small spiderman with a Indian sword. )Other favourite of him is a TIGER. Sometimes he dons the avatar of a Tiger and wander roaring around the house. My father is a victim of this TIGER . He keeps pouncing on him , scratch him like a tiger and try to scare him with a tagline "Ata me tula khanar."(Now i ll eat you) . So i decided to prepare this cake keeping him in mind.This recipe is the same as of zebra cake. As in case of Zebra Cake, i divided the batter in 2 equal portions. To one part I added the Cocoa powder and to other one I added yellow food colour.Pour the batter in tin in the same manner and this tigerish looking cake was born. Pratham was delighted to see it and eat it. Nowadays he is bit puzzled about my baking fever. Whenever I take a cake for him , he has a straight question "What happened to you ? Why do you always bake a cake? "

ZEBRA CAKE - IT'S BLACK & WHITE

When I first had a look at this beautiful cake at Passionate About Baking by Deeba , I was smitten by the same and decided to try the same. I followed the recipe as mentioned on her blog. And everyone was surprised to see the results. I melted some chocolate with cream and poured it over the hot cake.
The taste was amazing. It was moist and beautiful looking. Looking at it , everyone was amazed at the zebra stripes.I am actually taking baby steps in the field of baking cakes.But, indeed , in this cake , I was a clear winner. All thanks to Deeba!!!! She has explained the procedure in such details with photographs , no one can ever go wrong. I could not click the photographs at that time.My nephew , Pratham was very excited about the zebra stripes. Again I prepared this cake in loaf tin to gift it somebody. I used half the quanities for this cake. May be since it was a loaf tin , i did not get the zebra stripes , but it was more like a Marble design. Anyways the taste was good and to whom we were sending the same were amazed at the designs. This cake is actually a good treat for kids . Definitely deserve a try.

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Chocolate Coffee Cake - Ultimate Combination

I wanted to gift something special to my hubby darling on his birthday. And what is better than a cake prepared by myself. I was toying with lot of ideas . Was planning month before his bday on May 31st . Finally decided on the chocolate cake. After a lot of googling , i stayed on at Deeba's Passionate About Baking .I just admire her for her creation. She has such beautiful hand and vision when it comes to decorating the cakes and taking the photographs and arranging them in such a way that u just want to try that. This cake is actually a combination of 2 cakes from her collections...Chocolate Mocha Gateau and Espresso Cake. The sponge was inspired by her Coffee sponge of Coffee Mocha Gateau .It was spongy and had the good coffee flavour. I baked it a on saturday and refrigerated the sponge overnight. The Coffee Cream was inspired by her Espresso Cake filling. And the result was amazing. I used Chocolate ganache for frosting.Recipe for Ganache is Here .Further decorated with grated chocolate and chocolate curls and shavings. It was completely chocolicious. Tasted amazing.Perfect blend of coffe and Chocolate. Birthday boy liked it very much.

But those with not so affectionate towards the chocolate and coffee , this cake may be too srong to gulp down. We enjoyed since we both like the chocolate and coffee. I used the nescafe .I dont remember the name but it's mixture of coffee and chicory and has that very strong aroma.

Eggless Black Forest Cake - Getting bolder with baking

It was my nephew , Aaditya's birthday who was visiting us from Malvan in his summer vacation . When he got to know that I had prepared Amogh's birthday cake , he was quite excited about his birthday cake which was obviously I had to prepare. I remember when we were kid , my mother used to prepare cake in pressure cooker. We used to be amazed about the same. And without caring much about the sponginess, cream on it , we used to finish it. My brother was and still is great fan of cakes. Papa used to get small cup cakes from local bakery . We used to call them "Waati cakes", may be they resemble like small stainless steel bowl which is called "waati" in marathi.

So I was thinking which cake to prepare and finally decided on Black Forest. It was quite a challenge since I had to prepare an eggless cake again. I do prepapre eggless cake but my personal favourite is cake with egg in it. Anyways , The chocolate sponge recipe is Here . I prepared the 2 sponge , one round in 9" spring form tin and one small hexagonal.(In this case i just reduced the ingredients to half).

FILLING :

500 ml Heavy whipping cream

1 tsp Vanilla extract

5 tsp Confectioners sugar (You can check for sweetness)

Mix all the ingredients till soft peaks are form.

SUGAR SYRUP :

Actually I had read somewhere that the cherry syrup is used in Black Forest Cake. The same was not available at my place . In such case whats better than googling your way out.I did the same and found alternative in sugar syrup @ Shilpa's aayi's recipe.

DECORATION :

I used bottled cherries and dark grated chocolate for decorations.

ASSEMBLING :-

• Refrigerate the sponge at least for 2-3 hrs . It will help cutting the sponge. I have cut both the sponges in 2 layers each.
• Put upper part of cake on plate and spread the sugar syrup on it followed by cream.Spred few chopped cherries. Place the other layer on it and repeat the procedure for all layers.
• Press the cake slightly and spread the cream on top and frost the sides as well.
• Decorate with cherries and chocolate shavings.
• Refrigerate the same to mature the flaours.Keep the cake outside of the fridge an hour before cutting.

Your Eggless black forest cake is ready to be devoured . The cake was bit dense this time but tasted good. May be because we cut it right out of fridge.

One funny incident had happened , Pratham ,my other 5 yrs old nephew who is also a fan of chocolate and cream cake was fascinated by the cream and cherries on top. He was getting impatient to cut the same and since we were getting little late to cut the cake , he was bit irritated too. He was closely guarding the cake. At one point of time , he got so tempted that he actually licked the cream on top. Me and my SIL were literally aghast for a moment . Since all the cream was finished , we had none to put at the patch. The poor little champ was looking at us with fear in his eyes. But we just the scrapped a little little cream from sides and pasted it at the patch and no one was aware untill we told everyone after cake cutting. That's the innocence !!! We have to appreciate it ..

Chocolate Strawberry Cake - Amu's Birthday present & Its Eggless

After going through so many food blogs and especially, blogs dedicated to baking , I was truly inspired to dive in to the sea of baked items. To start with I had to purchase an OTG or a microwave. And my struggle to find the right option started thereon. The journey was a complete mixture of online research , literally interviewing the people who already had both musts in bakers world. The final verdict was not surprising but expected..... 50- 50..... In such cases , you just have to trust your conscience... I did the same and purchased an OTG. I am really happy that I made this choice. Results are amazing.. even though my first eggless chocholate cake was a total disaster in taste...but it rose very well and had that good crumb, moist and spongy. It had everything but the TASTE..... But it is said and proved "Failure is the first step towards success " . I literally believed in the same and dared to prepare my sons' First Birthday Cake... Risk factor was very high.. But that's my gift to my son.. He is too small to understand the same.. But one day he ll realise that... The cake was really good in taste . Eventhough it was eggless, it was spongy. I frosted it with chocolate ganache. Design and the flaovur were inspired by Deeba's Strawberry and Chocolate Cake at Passionate About Baking . We all enjoyed the cake and the dinner which was followed after cake cutting.

I wanted to try Madhuram’s Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipes recipe which had silken tofu. But i could not found the silken tofu here in pune. After a bit on googling, I zeroed in on one with condensed milk.

Here is the recipe :

INGREDIENTS:-

STRAWBERRY SPONGE :-

Condensed Milk :- 200gm (I used half tin of Milkmaid)

2 Cups :- All purpose flour ( + 3 tsp)

1 tablespoon :- Baking Powder

1/2 tablespoon :- Soda Bi Carb

2 tablespoon :- Castor Sugar

Melted butter :- 60 gm

1/2 tablespoon Strawberry essence

Milk :- 100 ml

Soda :- 100 ml

METHOD :-

1. Pre - heat the oven at 200 C.
2. Sift all dry ingredients.
3. Pour condensed milk in mixing bowl and add melted butter and essence to it. Beat well till smooth. Add half milk and mix well.
4. Add flour 1 spoon at a time and beat well. Add milk as required.Check for consistency. ( Beat the batter in once direction only to incorporate the more air.) Beat the batter for 5 mins.
5. Add soda and mix gently. Plz ensure that the air shall not escape. This will make the cake lighter and spongy.
6. Pour into a prepared 8" spring form tin. Bake for 30 mins or the skewer inserted in the center Bake at 200 C for first 10 mins and reduce the temp to 170C till done.
7. Cool a little and invert on a wire rack.

CHOCOLATE SPONGE :-

The recipe is same as for strawberry sponge. Only u have to replace the 3 tsp Flour with Cocoa powder and use Coke/ Pepsi/ Thums up instead of Soda.

I made the sponge one day prior , wrapped in plastic zip lock bag and refrigerated for one day.This helps in cutting the sponge in 2 layers. Divided both the sponge in 2 layers each.

GANACHE :-
Dark Chocolate :- 150 gm

Cream :- 100 - 150 ml. (It has to be of spreading consistency)

Melt the chocolate and cream in double boiler to avoid burning of chocolate. Take it off heat and mix it vigorously . Mixing will add shine to the ganache.

STRAWBERRY CREAM FILLING :-

Cream :- 250 ml

Fresh Strawberries :- 250 gm (Chopped finely. Keep aside 5-6 strawberries for decoration)

Whipp the cream till it become stiff. Reserve the little cream for web decoration on top.Mix the finley chopped strawberries in cream

ASSEMBLING :-

I followed the directions of Deeba while frosting it. Detailed picrures on her blog helped me to design the web on cake which was actually a centre of attention for everyone present.

I had read at Joy of Baking that once the cake are cut in 2 layers , while creaming it had to be put upside down. But this tip I read only after decorating my son's birthday cake. Hence u can see the dome shape in picture. That actually gave me tough time in spreading the ganache on top. My ganache was little watery that was also a one of the reason , it was running down the edges. But it was my first attempt and I was satisfied with the result. Now I feel a bit confident about baking cakes.