Strawberry Cake

We went Strawberry picking in a nearby Farm and got a lot of fresh Strawberries. So I had to think of a way to use them and decided to make a Strawberry cake as it is my sister's birthday too. The original recipe was for cupcakes but I made a round cake and decorated it with fresh Strawberries. We celebrated her birthday with this cake while she is celebrating with her family in Blore. Happy Birthday Divya!!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup All Purpose flour
• 1 1/2  tsp Baking powder
• 1 tsp Baking soda
• 3/4 cup Milk powder
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Butter
• 1 cup Strawberries, sliced
• 1 cup (slightly) hot Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• A few drops of lemon juice plus 2 tsp sugar for the strawberries

Method

  1) Wash and slice the strawberries. Mix in the lemon juice and the sugar and keep aside for about 15 minutes. This helps to bring out the flavour of the strawberries.

  2) In the meanwhile, preheat the oven at 350F and line a cake tin with Parchment paper and grease the sides with butter.

  3) In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and the vanilla with a hand blender or with a wire whisk, about 2 to 3 minutes. Mix in the sugar and the milk powder and beat until soft. Add the baking powder and baking soda and stir in half the flour, add half the milk and beat until soft, for about 2 minutes. Put in the remaining flour and milk and beat again until soft for 2 minutes. Mix in the strawberries with their juices.

  4) Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake at 350F for 25 to 30 minutes or till done (until a skewer comes clean).

  5) Allow the cake to completely cool down while you prepare the strawberry cream frosting. (If the cake is hot the frosting will melt and not stay.)

  6) Apply the frosting on the sides and top using the back of the spoon / basting brush and decorate it with some fresh sliced strawberries.

Suggestions / Notes

1. I would suggest you keep the leftovers of the cake (if any) in the refrigerator as it may not keep well outside for more than a day since we have used fresh fruits here.

Strawberry Buttercream frosting

This is a delicious frosting made with fresh Strawberries.

Ingredients

• 1/2  cup  Butter, softened at room temperature
• 2 cups Powdered sugar  / Icing Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• A pinch of Salt
• 1/2 cup fresh whole strawberries

Method

1. Puree the Strawberries in a blender.
2. Beat butter in a bowl for a minute or until smooth. Mix in the sugar and the Strawberries puree and beat until smooth and creamy. You can adjust the consistency by adding more sugar if frosting is too thin or strawberries if it is too thick.

Vanilla Sponge Cake

I made this cake for my friend's birthday and everyone loved it. The recipe for this cake is from Sharmis Passions. I followed the recipe to the word, except increased the sugar and it came out awesome. So I made this again and again and my husband could just not have enough of it!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1 cup thick plain Yogurt
• 1 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Baking soda
• 1 1/4 tsp Baking powder
• 1/2 cup Cooking oil
• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
• 1 tbsp Milk (just for brushing the top)

Method

1) Preheat oven to 350F.

2) Cream sugar and curd until sugar completely dissolves. Add baking powder and baking soda to the creamed mixture and mix well. 

3) Now add vanilla essence,cooking oil and mix well. Add the All purpose Flour and blend it with the wet ingredients. Beat well with a whisk until creamy and thick.

4) Grease the cake tin or loaf pan and pour the batter to it and bake in the preheated oven at 350F and bake it for 25-30 min or till a fork inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Just brush the top of the cake with 1 tbsp milk, 10 min before the ending time to get a nice polishing glaze.

5) Allow the cake to cool down for 10 min before taking it out of the pan and allow it to cool completely for around 30 min before frosting the cake.
6) In the meantime, I made the Vanilla frosting doubling the quantity given in the recipe to frost the entire cake.
7) Using a basting brush or the back of a spatula, apply the vanilla frosting to cover the entire cake. Make it a smooth finish.
8) Refrigerate the cake for 10 min so that the initial layer of the icing is a little solidified. Out of my experience I found that it is easier to decorate the cake this way.
9) Take it out from the refrigerator and decorate the cake in the way you would like it. I had some chocolate frosting left with me, so I used that to draw the borders and write on the cake. Then I added the sprinkles to make it colourful.

Suggestions/ Notes

1. Don't doubt on using Yogurt as the taste of yogurt will not at all be noticed in the cake. (Actually my family still doesn't know this secret ingredient but they all love the cake.) 

Chocolate Layer Cake

For this Valentine's day I made a chocolate layer cake and my daughter helped me decorate the cake. My husband was really surprised at the cake as this was my first cake and I also tried some decorating stunts on it.

My search for a moist eggless chocolate cake ended at Chowtimes.The cake came out awesome and was super soft and moist and delicious . Since I wanted to make a layer cake I used two 9" cake pans and made it into layers as this cake is very soft and may break if you try to slice it and make a layer out of that. Then I used chocolate frosting to frost the entire cake.

Ingredients

• 3 cups All Purpose Flour
• 2 teaspoons Baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 6 tablespoons Cocoa powder
• 2 cups Water
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1/2 cup Oil

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Sift the dry ingredients i.e. flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder in a large bowl. 
3. Whisk the sugar and wet ingredients, i.e water, vanilla, lemon juice and oil in a medium bowl until the sugar is dissolved.
4. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.
5. Pour the batter into two greased and floured (or parchment lined) pans.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes or till the toothpick inserted comes out clean from both the pans.
7. Cool the cakes completely on a wire rack and carefully cut the dome part from both the cakes.
8. In the meantime prepare the chocolate frosting / vanilla frosting / Any frosting of your choice.
9. Frost the top part of one of the cakes and place the other cake on top of it. Now frost the entire cake by doing the sides first and then the top.
10. Then decorate the cake to your liking!

Suggestions/ Notes

• The original recipe uses Vinegar but I substituted it with Lemon Juice and it still came out fantastic.
• The cake is super soft, so you have to be very careful while cutting the dome part from each of the cakes or it may break.

Vanilla Frosting

I like to use the Vanilla Frosting for decorating the cakes. You may double the quantity if you would like to frost the entire cake.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups icing sugar/ powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt

Method

1. Beat all the ingredients in a bowl until light and fluffy.

Suggestions/ Notes

• We can add food colours to this recipe to get the desired colour for decorating the cakes.

Chocolate Frosting

Chocolate Frosting in cakes is everyone's favourite in my house. This recipe will be sufficient to frost a 9" cake with layers.

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups icing sugar/ powdered sugar
• 1 cup cocoa powder (Adjust to taste)
• 1 1/2 cups butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method

1. Add the icing sugar and cocoa powder to a bowl and mix well.
2. Add butter, milk, and vanilla and beat everything until smooth and free of lumps.

Suggestions/ Notes

• This frosting can be made in advance and refrigerated. Before using, thaw it on counter top and mix it well until smooth.