WHOLE WHEAT SPICED ORANGE CUPCAKES

We all know that all purpose flour (maida) is not the healthiest of ingredients. But baking is almost impossible without it. Guess what, here is a completely guilt-free substitute, whole wheat flour! The end product is the same, you can’t even tell the difference. Moist, spongy & melt-in-the-mouth texture can be achieved with whole wheat flour too.

The key lies in the mixing. You should mix the dough very gently and quickly. Over mixing can increase gluten and make the whole dough like elastic, and you wouldn’t want to bake with it anymore.Keep this in mind while making any sort of cupcakes/cake using whole wheat flour.

In this recipe I have flavored the cupcakes with freshly squeezed orange juice & cinnamon! With every bite you take, you’ll feel refreshed & energized. So, what you waiting for? Here goes the recipe:

makes 12 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

1) eggs: 2
2) orange juice: ¼ cup
3) orange zest: 2 tbsp
4) cinnamon powder: ½ tbsp
5) powdered sugar: 1cup
6) whole wheat flour: 2 cups
7) baking powder: ½ tbsp
8) cooking soda: ¼ tsp
9) salt: 1 pinch
10) milk: ¼ cup
11) cooking oil: ¾ cup

METHOD:

1) Prepare a cupcake pan by lining the slots with cupcake liners of your choice.
2) In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, cooking soda & salt and set aside.
3)  In another mixing bowl, beat the eggs till fluffy. Add the orange juice, zest, cinnamon powder & sugar & mix well till well combined.
4) Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and gently fold in with a spatula. Add the milk & mix till there’s no dry flour left.
5) Spoon in the batter into the cupcake slots till 3/4^th filled.
6) Bake the cupcakes in a preheated oven at 180deg C for 12-15min (or till when a skewer pierced in the center comes out clean)
7) Serve the cupcakes on their own or with a sugar glaze (mix milk, a little at a time into powdered sugar till a thick pourable consistency is achieved).

Decorate with some orange zest and dig in!

BUTTERSCOTCH CAKE

The taste of caramelized sugar, buttery goodness & crunchy nuts is sure to take your taste buds to sugar heaven! Butterscotch used to be my favourite ice-cream flavour when I was younger. Recreating those nostalgic notes was a fun little experiment for me. Be careful when you are working with caramel. There’s not a single time when I haven’t burnt my fingers while making caramel (now, that didn’t help, did it?)

Gooey, luscious cake with the drizzled caramel sauce on top looks beautiful. The only ingredient you’ll have to go out and buy would be the brown sugar. But apart from that the rest are easy to find in your kitchen. So what you waiting for? Here goes the recipe :

INGREDIENTS:

for the cake:
1) flour: 3cups
2) baking powder: 1tbsp
3) cooking oil: 1cup
4) sugar: 1cup
5) brown sugar: 1cup
6) eggs: 3
7) vanilla essence: few drops
8) milk: ½ cup

for the caramel sauce:
1) butter: ½ cup
2) brown sugar: 1cup
3) milk: 2cups

for the caramelized nuts:
1) sugar: ½ cup
2) water: 2 tbsp
3) chopped nuts(walnuts/almonds):  1 cup
4) a sheet of butter paper.

METHOD:

1) Sift together  the flour and baking powder and set aside.
2) In a dry bowl, beat the sugar (brown & castor) with the oil and vanilla, till well combined. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat. Add milk and flour & fold-in gently till well incorporated.
3) Pour the batter into a cake pan lined with butter-paper. Bake it in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 35min (or till a skewer pierced in the centre comes out clean). Allow the cake to cool before removing it from the pan.
4) In a deep milk pot, heat the butter till it starts bubbling. At this point, add the brown sugar and keep stirring vigorously on low flame for 2 mins. Add milk (slowly, cause it tends to splatter), in three batches. Pour the first and wait till it reduces into a thick sauce. Then repeat with the second & third batch, still on low flame. In the end you want the sauce to be pourable but not runny. Allow it to cool.
5) For the caramelized nuts, heat a non-stick  pan with just a spoon of oil. When it’s hot, add the sugar and the water(so that the sugar doesn’t burn) &  keep stirring on medium flame. Once the mixture starts turning into golden caramel, add the chopped nuts and turn off the flame immediately. Gently mix till well coated. Pour this sticky mix onto a butter-paper and allow to cool. Once it’s cold enough to touch, chop the golden mass into crumbly bits.
6) Time to assemble the cake! Cut the fully cooled cake into half horizontally. Pour half of the caramel sauce on one half of the cake and stack the other half of the cake over it. Now carefully drizzle the rest of the caramel sauce on top of the cake. You will see that, it will drip to the sides and slowly begin to set in absolute suspension. Take the golden crunch and sprinkle it all around the cake or as you wish to decorate it.

And that’s it! Absolutely moist, sticky cake with a crunch in every bite, is ready to be demolished! 

 

MOIST BANANA BUNDT CAKE

     

      Before you throw away those over-ripe, gooey, mushy bananas, think twice, ‘cause with this recipe, you can transform all that into this lovely cake! The idea of baking it in a bundt cake pan instead of the regular, is ‘cause this is a lovely tea time cake and you can easily yourself a slice and it looks really pretty. It is super moist and melt-in-the-mouth. As soon as it comes out of the oven, it is first soaked in a sugary glaze and then dusted with oodles of icing sugar on the top; so that when you bite into it, you can just go into a sugar coma ! With the taste of banana and a hint of vanilla in every bite, it’s a party in your mouth for sure.

    The best part is, this is a non-fussy cake, all the ingredients that go into it can be easily found in your kitchen .  So what you waiting for! Here goes the recipe :

INGREDIENTS:

for the cake:
eggs: 2
1) sugar: ½ cup
2) oil: ½ cup
3) vanilla extract: few drops
4) banana: ( mashed) 1 cup
5) flour: 1 cup
6) baking powder: 1tbsp
7) milk: 3 tbsp

for the sugar glaze:
1) milk(as required; to get pourable consistency)
2) powdered sugar: 1 cup

for sprinkling:
1) icing sugar

METHOD:

1) Sift together the flour & baking powder & keep aside.
2) In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs till light & fluffy. Add the sugar, oil, milk & vanilla & mix.
3) Add the mashed banana & flour and fold-in till well incorporated.
4) Grease the bundt cake pan with some butter/oil & dust some flour on it. Pour the cake batter into it & bake in a pre-heated oven for 30min at 180 deg C
5) For the sugar glaze, take the powdered sugar in a bowl and add milk one spoon at a time till you achieve a pourable consistency. While the cake is still warm, pour the glaze over, and let it sit in it till it completely cools down. Sprinkle the icing sugar over the cake before serving it.

And that’s it, yummy moist banana bundt cake is ready to be demolished!

DREAM BUTTERCREAM

         

         This is the yummiest and easiest buttercream recipe ever! After trying out a million buttercream recipes, all of which taste buttery and heavy on the palette, I have finally found my dream buttercream recipe! You don’t even have to worry about ingredients like shortening or margarine that you read in buttercream recipes, anymore. It’s gorgeously light and tasty! You won’t find it tasting buttery at all, I promise. It holds its form like a dream even after keeping it for after hours at room temperature.

        I’m letting you in on two little secrets for making the most delish buttercream(don’t tell anyone ) one, the butter should be completely soft and at room temperature & two, what makes the frosting light is the heavy cream in it. So the next time you are planning to bake a cake or make cupcakes, you know which frosting you can vouch for. It’s very easy to work with; pipe it, smoothen it with  a spatula over a cake or simply use it as a topping on your favourite dessert. So what you waiting for, here goes the recipe:

DREAM BUTTERCREAM

     

INGREDIENTS:

1) unsalted butter (at room temperature): 100gm
2) icing sugar: 500gm
3) heavy cream (40-60% fat): 4 tbsp
4) vanilla extract: a few drops

METHOD:

1) In a dry mixing bowl beat the butter, icing sugar & vanilla extract with a hand-mixer , till well combined.
2) Add the heavy cream and beat it’s light and fluffy.
3) You can store the buttercream in the fridge for about 1 week. Once out of the fridge, if it is too hard, beat it with a few spoons of milk to bring it back to the consistency you like.

(For the tie and dye pattern, apply streaks of edible food color of your choice with the help of a wooden skewer, on the inside of a piping bag fitted with a nozzle. Fill the bag with the buttercream and pipe out the lovely frosting!)

Now that you know what it takes to make the dream buttercream, go whip up something yummy in the kitchen

RED VELVET CAKE

“Red Velvet” is such an elegant name for a cake, don’t you think? It’s called so ‘cause of its deep red color and velvety melt-in-the mouth texture. The red color is achieved by using red food color. If you’re not a fan of edible food color you can replace it with beetroot juice. The velvety texture is ‘cause of the use of buttermilk in the recipe. The traditional frosting of a red velvet cake is white cream cheese frosting; gives it a nice creaminess in every bite.

Nowadays, red velvet cakes & cupcakes are popular at weddings, baby showers and formal parties. Super easy to make. You’ll fall in love with it for sure! So what you waiting for? Here goes the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:

for the cake:
1) butter: 100gm
2) eggs: 3
3) sugar: 2 ½ cups
4) vanilla extract: few drops
5) flour: 3 cups
6) baking powder: 1 tbsp
7) cocoa powder: 3 tbsp
8) butter milk: 1 cup ( ¾ cup curds, ¼ cup water )
9) red food coloring
10) baking soda: 1tsp
11) apple cider vinegar: 1tbsp

for the cream cheese frosting:
1) cream cheese: (2 tubs of Britannia cream cheese ): 200gm
2) butter: 4 tbsp
3) icing sugar:  400gm
4) vanilla extract: a few drops

METHOD:

1) Sift together the flour & baking powder and set aside.
2) In a glass, mix together the buttermilk, red food color, cocoa powder, till it’s even in color and there are no lumps.
3) In a dry bowl, beat the butter (softened at room temperature) and eggs. Add the sugar, vanilla and mix. Alternately, add the flour and buttermilk mixture (flour first followed by buttermilk and repeat in three batches) and fold-in gently until the whole batter is incorporated well.
4) Now for the fun part. You should be quick! Take a bowl, add apple cider vinegar and quickly mix-in the baking soda. It’ll start to foam. Pour foamy mixture on the cake batter and gently fold-in. This’ll make your cake airy and light!
5) Pour the cake batter into a cake pan lined with baking paper. Bake it in a pre-heated oven at 200deg C for 35min or till a skewer pierced in its center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool down completely before frosting it.
6) In a mixing bowl, with an electric beater, beat the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar & vanilla extract till light and fluffy. If you find the frosting to be very thick, you can add two spoons of milk to loosen it up.
7) Cut the cake in half, horizontally, apply 1/3rd of the frosting on it. Close the other half over it and apply the remaining frosting all around the cake.

I have decorated the cake with the red cake crumbs just to give it a nice rustic look. Enjoy!  :)

FRESH CREAM SODA FRUIT CAKE

This has to be one of the lightest, refreshing & non-guilty cakes I’ve ever baked .  Light, ’cause of two ingredients, soda (yes you heard it right! I’m a Sprite fan ) and of course the light fresh cream frosting (Amul fresh cream is what i use). It melts in your mouth as it has a lovely citrusy soaking syrup!

My sister is on a mission to eat healthy, so i thought this should be the perfect lil cake for her birthday . You can use any fresh fruit, but kiwis, strawberries and alphonso mangoes got to be the most refreshing fruits ever;  burst of flavor in every bite . This is a very non-fussy cake that you can make in very little time. So what you waiting for? Here goes the recipe :

INGREDIENTS:

for the cake
1) butter: 100gm
2) eggs: 3
3) sugar: 2 cups
4) flour: 3cups
5) baking powder: 1tbsp
6) vanilla essence: few drops
7) milk: 1/4 cup
8) sweet soda (7up/sprite): 1/2 cup

for the soaking syrup:
1) sugar: 1 cup
2) water: 1/4 cup
3) fresh orange juice: 1/4 cup

fruits:
1) kiwi: thinly sliced
2) strawberry: thinly sliced
3) mangoes: thinly sliced

fresh cream frosting:
1)fresh cream: 100ml
2) icing sugar: 200gm

METHOD:

1) Sift together the flour & the baking powder & set aside. In a dry bowl, beat the eggs  and butter till nice & fluffy. Add the sugar, vanilla essence and mix. Add the sifted flour and milk and mix, till well combined.
2) Just before pouring the batter into a prepared cake pan lined with butter paper, add soda to the batter & quickly mix.
3) Pour the cake batter into the cake pan & bake it in a preheated oven at 200deg C for 35min or till the center is cooked (a skewer inserted comes out clean)
4) In a pan, add the sugar and water & cook till it starts to boil. Take it off the flame & add the orange juice & set aside to cool.
5) In a dry bowl, add chilled fresh cream and icing sugar. Beat with a hand-mixer till forms soft peaks are formed. Refrigerate the frosting for about 30min before use.
6) Cut the cake into half horizontally, On one half, spray the soaking syrup, apply 1/3rd of the frosting & arrange a layer of fruits. Close the other half of the cake over it, and repeat with the soaking syrup, frosting & fruits.

Refrigerate the cake for an hour before serving it. Enjoy !!!

MOCHA CHOCOLATE CAKE

This cake is a sure hit with all the coffee lovers(me! me!). It’s definitely a grown ups’ dessert. The rich coffee flavor lingers in your mouth with every bite. The creamy chocolate whipped cream frosting, makes it light and you wouldn’t feel guilty to have another slice. Super-duper easy to make. It is a perfect lil dessert to serve at a  dinner party or just a relaxed evening with your girlfriends Sweet chocolaty-coffee sin! So here goes :

INGREDIENTS:

for the cake:
1) flour: 3 cup
2) baking powder: 1 tbsp
3) eggs: 3
4) sugar: 3 cups
5) cooking oil: ¾ cup
6) cocoa powder: 50gm (½ cup)
7) instant coffee powder: 3 tbsp
8) milk: ½ cup

for the soaking syrup:
instant coffee powder dissolved in hot water

for the frosting:
1) heavy cream: 2cups (400ml)
2) icing sugar: 4tbsp
3) dark chocolate: 100gm (1 bar)
4) milk: 4tbsp
5) instant coffee powder: 1tbsp

METHOD:
1) Sift together the flour & the baking powder & set aside. Dissolve the coffee  & cocoa powder in half a cup of hot water and allow to cool.
2) In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs till nice & frothy. Add sugar, oil & beat well. Mix-in the cooled coffee & cocoa mixture, and milk. Add  flour and gently fold-in till well incorporated.
3) Pour the cake mixture into a cake pan lined with butter paper and let it bake in a pre-heated oven at 200deg C for 35min or till a skewer pricked in the center comes out clean.
4) In a milk pot, heat the cream till warm; add the chocolate and coffee powder dissolved in hot milk. Keep it on a low flame till the chocolate melts. Allow this mixture to cool down in the fridge. Whip this cold mix along with the icing sugar with an electric beater till soft peaks are formed.
5) After the cake completely cools down, cut it into half horizontally. With a pastry brush, apply the soaking syrup generously on one half & cover it with one third of the frosting. Close the other cake half over it. Apply some more soaking syrup on top of the cake. Cover the rest of the cake with the remaining frosting.

Decorate as desired. I have studded the cake with silver sugar sprinkles to make it look beautiful enjoy!