Bakes

Blog anniversary and Red velvet cupcakes

| Rekha Vengalil
Quite amazed on how time flies, Yes I can’t believe my Foodolicious Pictured turns one today.  A journey that has been so exciting in every way; from cooking, collecting props, photography or cracking my brains on the intro I had to pen for each post. In a nutshell I have been recording some joyous moments of my life…  
 
 
And this journey would not be complete without your support. Thank you for all those wonderful comments and feedback.
 
On that note I made some Red velvet cupcakes to celebrate (finally! It has been on my to-do list for sometime now).  A recipe from browneyedbaker.com and we are so loving the cake; they have turned out to so light and fluffy. 
 

You need :

For the Cupcakes:

  • unsalted butter – 60 grams, at room temperature
  • Caster sugar – 3/4 cups
  • Egg – 1, room temperature
  • unsweetened cocoa powder – 2½ tablespoons 
  • Red  gel food coloring – 2 tablespoons 
  • Vanilla extract – ½ teaspoon 
  • Buttermilk – ½ cup 
  • All-purpose flour – 1 cup
  • salt – ½ teaspoon 
  • baking soda – ½ teaspoon 
  • distilled white vinegar – 1½ teaspoons

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

  • Butter – 115 grams, at room temperature
  • Cream cheese 115 grams, at room temperature
  • Icing  sugar – 2½ cups 
  • Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
 How to –

Preheat oven to 180 C. Line muffin tins with paper cupcake/muffin liners.

Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, gradually add the sugar and beat till light and fluffy. Turn the mixer to high and add the egg. Beat till well combined.

On medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to high and add the egg. Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.

In a small bowl, mix together the coco powder, vanilla essence and food color. Add this mixture gradually to the batter. Scrape down the sides of the bowl  and mix over medium speed till well combined and the batter is colored equally.

Reduce the speed of the mixer to low and add half the butter milk followed by half the flour. Mix well till well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining butter milk and followed by the flour and mix over high speed till smooth. 

Add the vinegar and continue to beat for another 3 minutes until well combined and smooth.

Divide the batter equally into the lined paper cupcake/muffin liners and bake for 20-25 minutes or when toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Cool the cakes for 10 minutes and then place the cupcakes on a cooling rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting –

In a beater beat the cheese ,butter and vanilla essence till light and fluffy. Add the sugar gradually and beat well till the frosting is light and fluffy.

 

Chocolate Fudge Cake

| Rekha Vengalil
I always thought a fudge cake was a difficult one and since its chocolate I never really bothered; until hubby the other day asked me to make one. Not often does such request come hence pulled out my baking bible and made this spongy and moist cake.
A slice of the cake was much a welcome for me in spite of not being a chocolate fan. I had some mango flavored butter cream sitting in the fridge which I used for the filling and dusted generously with icing sugar.

You need – 

  • Self-raising flour – 175 grams
  • Sunflower oil – 150 mls
  • Coco powder – 25 grams
  • Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Soft light brown sugar – 150 grams
  • Golden syrup – 3 tablespoons
  • Eggs – 2
  • Milk – 150 mls
  • Cake pans – 2 (I used a 8 inch but if you need a tall cake then use a 6 inch)
 How to –

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Grease the cake tins and line the base with parchment paper.

In a small pan, heat the golden syrup until its runny. Turn off the heat and allow to cool.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, coco powder, and baking powder and mix in the sugar. Set aside. In a separate bowl whisk the egg, oil and milk using an electric whisk.

Now whisk the egg mixture into the flour mixture until well combined. Gently fold the golden syrup into the batter. Divide the batter equally between to tins and bake the cake for 30-35 mins or title the skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool slightly and then onto to wire rack to cool completely.

You use chocolate icing or icing of your choice to decorate the cake.


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Rosemary Focaccia

| Rekha Vengalil
Focaccia is my favorite bread. With that generous dip into the olive oil is sure an indulgence for me.  Every time we are at an Italian restaurant this is something  I look forward to start off with and lucky some of the restaurant that we are regular at kind of know  this is my weakness and they never fail to give a few slices more 🙂
 
This is one of the easiest bread I have made, yes of course make sure your yeast is active else it can be a complete disaster and be prepared to knead the dough for almost 10 minutes. Ah! I have toned hands!
You need –
  • White bread flour – 500 grams
  • Salt – 1 1/2 teaspoons
  • Instant yeast – 2 1/2 teaspoons
  • Olive oil – 2 tablespoons plus extra for drizzling
  • Lukewarm water – 300 mls
  • Rosemary – 2 tablespoons
  • Fine sea salt
How to –
 
In a large bowl, put the flour, yeast and salt. Mix well. Now stir in the oil, water and knead to form a soft dough.
Turn the dough to a slightly oiled surface and knead for 8-10 minutes. Put the dough back into the same bowl (lightly oiled), cover with a tea towel and let it sit to rise double in size in a warm place. Approximately about an hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C. Line two large baking sheets with grease proof paper. Turn the dough to a flour surface and cut into half. Flatten each portion on the baking sheet. cover and leave to rise again for an hour.

 

Gently press your finger into the dough to make deep holes all over and leave for a further 5-10 minutes. Sprinkle each loaves with rosemary and sea salt. Drizzle some olive oil and  bake for 25 minutes or till pale golden. Remove from the oven and drizzle some more olive oil.


Serve hot or warm.

Note –
  • If you are not sure if your yeast is still active, them prefer you do a proof test. Take half of the lukewarm water ( please make sure the water is not hot. Otherwise your yeast will die). Stir in the yeast along with a pinch of sugar and set aside for 10 minutes. If the form and bubbles foam on top in 10 minutes then your yeast is still active. Add this to the dough with remaining water as per the recipe.
  • The above recipe makes 2 loaves. If you do not want to use both loaves then freeze the other for later. Warm in the microwave before serving.
 

Eggless chocolate-cherry Cake

| Rekha Vengalil


It’s been and is a busy week for me. To many things both at work and home.  But a quick drop to share the recipe of the chocolate cherry cake I baked last weekend and 3/4 of the cake got gobbled the same day by the hubby and daughter. With the Man being a complete chocolate lover and the little one, call her a cherry-berry girl.

Its tough to make anything of the berries with my little one around as loves them fresh and never leaves me in peace till I give a big share (then with hardly  anything left for the recipe I decide to do it another day. In many cases that never happens!!). So the last weekend she had a play-date with her friends and daddy decided to go along. And that I had a whole day all to myself. Spent couple of hours at the library and then got back and baked the cake by the time the little one got back home. She was happy she had some fresh cherries and more happy to find them in her favorite cake too.

Over to the recipe , this is egg less moist cake with the cherries to bite into. It also doesn’t use butter, instead its Vegetable oil. 

You need –
Chocolate Cherry Cake
All-purpose flour – 1 1/2 cups
Caster sugar – 3/4 cup
cocoa powder – 1/3 cup
baking soda – 1 teaspoon
salt – 1/2 teaspoon
vanilla extract – 1 teaspoon
lemon juice – 2 teaspoons
vegetable oil – 1/3 cup
water  – 1 cup
Cherries- pitted and halved, 2 cups

How to –

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 8-inch round cake pan.

In a mixing bowl, sift  together the flour,cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add sugar and mix.
Add the vanilla extract, Lemon juice, oil, and water. Using a spatula, mix the batter until smooth. Stir in the cherries.



Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 -45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Allow to cool to room temperature.


 

Coconut muffins

| Rekha Vengalil

I haven’t enjoyed and got worked up equally for any of my 179 posts as much as I did for this one… If you are following me on Facebook then you know why?! Yes! 75% of this recipe was done my 5 year old. We had a wonderful time together, actually most of the time when I am in the kitchen especially when baking a cake or any of Saana’s favorite, she sticks around watching me cook and sometimes helping me too. I should say she is my perfect help. Though at time I do hit the roof and chase her off the kitchen but I guess it’s all part of the mom-daughter affair. The little one has come up with a new request that she would like to start her own blog. What’s more she has also chosen a name and its “Saana’s Foodolicious pictured “.

As always, the Mom came up with this new idea of getting the little one to narrate on how she did the muffins.. Unsure on how this was going to turn out and was just a try but I should tell you it was such fun. She had already forgotten some off the ingredients/steps and needed a little reminders on n off but otherwise it was pure joy.. I was not just recording her words but creating some wonderful memories for us.


Here’s how my little princess made the muffins(in her words) –

“In the white bowl put the.. (“I don’t remember what did I put? Can you help me! “. And I did..) ok flour, sugar, cated coconut (read as desiccated coconut), butter, eggs, milk and vanilla.. But Gugu (that’s what she calls me) Vanilla is for ice-creams. Why are you using it in the muffin?” .

Me – “that’s to give a nice flavor to the muffins..” and we had a little long conversation as the inquisitive child is never convinced with a one liner! 🙂 

Back to the recipe, “well you take a egg beater and mix.. mix… mix…( She really wanted to stress on the mixing she did as her little hand started to ache and I had to take over). Take a spoon and put little muffin mix into the blue paper cups. Gugu put the muffins into the oven for some time and the muffins are ready”

And here’s how she signed off – “This is Saana from Saana’s Foodolicious pictured”

Well hope you enjoyed and below is the recipe on a serious note. Smile 

You need –

  • All purpose flour – 175 grams
  • Caster sugar – 140 grams
  • Desiccated coconut – 40 grams
  • Unsalted butter – 140 grams, softened
  • Eggs – 2 large
  • Milk – 4 tablespoons
  • Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
  • Vanilla extract – ½ teaspoon

How to –

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Line a muffin tin with paper cases.

In mixing bowl, mix in all the ingredients and beat well till combined, light and fluffy.
Fill the paper cases equally with the mixture and bake for 25-30 minutes till golden on top or when a skewer is inserted come out clean.

Turn into a wire rack to cool.

Flourless Orange cake with Coconut cream cheese frosting

| Rekha Vengalil
It was my Mom-ln-Law’s birthday on the 26th Jun. We were planning to go down to be with her but due to work commitments we could not make it. Hence I decided to bake the cake on her b’day and got Saana to cut the cake. She thinks for everyone’s birthday in the family she is responsible of cutting the cake 😉

Over to the recipe, while browsing through Nigella Lawson’s book the other day I had bookmarked 2 recipes, one being Flan and the other was this cake. 2 reasons why I wanted to make this cake ASAP (Glad I had a reason to bake!!) was because  I had some polenta sitting in the pantry for a while and wanted to use it up and the other, never made a flourless cake before. 

The original is flourless Lemon cake while I made an orange cake, with little changes. The cake was moist and tasted great . 


For the cake –

You need-

  • Unsalted butter – 200 grams soft + extra for greasing
  • Caster sugar – 200 grams
  • Ground almonds – 200 grams
  • Polenta – 100 grams fine
  • Baking powder – 1 ½ teaspoons
  • eggs – 3 nos
  • Orange juice – 20 mls
  • Orange zest – ½ teaspoon

How to-

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a non-stick spring form cake tin lined with a parchment paper. Set aside.

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one by one, mixing continuously.



Once the eggs are fully mixed in, add the polenta, ground almonds and baking powder and mix again.

Once combined, add the zest, juice and continue to blend until fully combined. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes, or when wooden skewer inserted in the middle of the cake, comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.



You can decorate the cake with fresh fruits or the frosting of your choice. I have used Coconut cream cheese frosting.

Cream cheese frosting –

You need

  • Unsalted butter (softened) – 1/4 cup
  • Cream cheese (softened) – 4 ounces
  • Icing sugar – 2 cups 
  • Desiccated coconut – 1/2 cup
  • Vanilla extract – 1/2 teaspoon


How to –

Blend butter and cream cheese till smooth and light.

Add icing sugar slowly. Add vanilla. Fold in desiccated coconut.

Spread on cooled cake.

Scones

| Rekha Vengalil

The first time I made scones it turned out to be sore. Not sure what went wrong but it was so terrible that If I hit someone and they could bleed.  Hmm some days are not just yours .  Nevertheless, I gave it another try over the weekend.  I first made some mini scones and then went on to make a whole batch after the mini scones tasted perfect.

Mini scones
The recipe is adapted from BBC good food. 


You need-
  • Self-raising flour , 350 grams + plus extra for dusting
  • Salt – 1/4 teaspoon
  • Baking powder – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Butter – 85 grams, cubes
  • caster sugar – 3 tablespoons
  • Warm milk – 175 mls
  • Vanilla extract – 1 teaspoon
  • Beaten egg , to glaze

How to –

Pre-heat the oven to 200 C.

In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, Sugar, salt and baking powder. Add the butter and rub with your figures until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Add the vanilla essence to the milk and stir. Make a well in the middle and add the milk. Slowly mix the flour to form a soft dough.


Sprinkle the work surface with some flour; place the dough and gently shape into a ball and smooth. Brush the excess flour and roll the dough till its 2 cms thick. Cut the dough using a 5 cms cookie cutter. To ensure the dough does not stick to the cutter, dip the cutter into the flour before plunging into the dough. 

Place the scones on the baking tray. Brush the top with beaten egg and bake for 12 minutes or till golden on top.

Remove from the oven and let it stand for 10 minutes. Serve warm with butter, Jam or sour cream.



Princess cake

| Rekha Vengalil


Times flying and my little angle turned 5 today. Seems like 5 years just went by like a breeze. Yet loaded with wonderful memories.  



This year birthday has not been like the past. She has her ideas, her plans and her birthday shopping list. Signs of growing up! This birthday she wanted her favorite princess cake. She didn’t know I was going to make one for her. I decided to surprise her. I locked myself in the room saying I was in a call and asked her to stay with her daddy. At stroke of 12, we wished her and I showed her the cake. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her expressions were priceless.



This is simple butter cake with butter cream-marshmallow filling and fondant icing. Well I am not a fan of fondant icing especially for kids but then to decorate such cakes they are best. Once the cake is cut I scrape some off before feeding my daughter or kids.



This is where I got help with making the princess –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfiOcsCe4Mo and click her for the butter cream-marshmallow filling. I also used miniature marshmallows in the filling.

Cake recipe –
  • Butter – 125 grams, softened
  • Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
  • Caster sugar – ¾ cup
  • Eggs – 2, at room temperature
  • Self-rising flour – 1 ½ cups
  • Milk – ½ cup

How to –

Pre-heat the over to 160c. Grease the cake pan and set aside.

Beat butter, vanilla essence and sugar in bowl with electric beater until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs in one at a time till well combined.


Stir in the flour and milk in two batches and mix well till everything is well combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared pans and bake till done or when a tooth pick is inserted in the middle, comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack completely before decorating the cake.

Note – make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature to start


Banana Bread

| Rekha Vengalil


Realized that I haven’t baked anything for little more than a month. The last I baked was on 12 mar for hubby’s birthday. So set out on baking. But in no mood for a cake and zeroed on a bread. I haven’t baked bread before and this is very much my first. 



Its a love-hate affair I seem to have when it comes to baking.  Every time I think of baking; the thought tires me up. But then when I get started off, I seem to enjoy this the most. I guess  it’s  a tactile thing. The bread turned out to be a hit.  my daughter simply feasted on it.  Now that has set me in a mood for more bread making. What better than a home made bread!


You need –
  • Plain flour – 2 cups
  • Caster sugar – ¾ cups
  • Baking soda – 1 teaspoons
  • Salt – ½ teaspoons
  • Over ripe bananas – 2  1/2, mashed
  • Butter – 90 grams
  • Eggs – 2 nos, at room temperature
  • Vanilla yogurt – ¼ cup
  • Vanilla essence – 1/2 teaspoon
  • Loaf pan – greased with butter

How to –

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

In a large bowl whisk the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda and salt) together. Set aside. In another bowl combine the mashed bananas, butter, eggs, yogurt and vanilla.

Stir the wet ingredients to the dry and fold gently till everything is just combined.  Do not over mix the batter should be chunky.

Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes or till the toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the loaf.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely before slicing.