Indian inspired Revlation!

Ah............ Finally completed!

That took about 3 days to come up with a final design and after the initial prototype with the Mango Lassi cream cheese style frosting (seen here)


I decided to go in a new direction because the frosting was just so loose.... i considered thickening it with custard powder but then i had to watch his allergies (see previous post) so i couldn't do anything too risky... Also Look at that thing... It looks terrible lol... The watery looking stuff over the passion fruit is my attempt at caramelized decorations... turns out i should stick to chocolate work and leave the sugar spinning o the pros for the mean time lol.

All in all i think this original one looks terrible and i wasn't a big fan of the taste although mum and sisters disagreed and thought it was nice, but they are always nice when i make stuff and tend to eat anything that's put in front of them lol.....

So..... Back to the drawing board!!


In the end i went back to basics.... I had to think what would actually convey exotic fruits, but at the same time not kill him.

The inspiration for this cake kinda came from the Indian restaurant that me and my work colleagues visited the other day. For the First time i had Mango Lassi.... was so nice, tasted like milkshake but wasn't overpoweringly dairying.

The major problem however this time was..... THE CHOCOLATE!!! I know right... as if chocolate is ever a major problem lol... But this time it was. The person who was getting the cake doesn't like chocolate... so i racked my brain trying to think of substitutes.... Which led me to the Above DISASTER!

Then i thought about it a different way..... "Why doesn't he like chocolate?"



It turns out that he doesn't like the smell of it... And that sorted everything out, as well as confirming that i should be going with the potent smelling exotic fruits....

I decided to go in a different direction with it now finally! Mango White Chocolate frosting with a cheaper white chocolate so that the smell of it would not detract from the mango and alert him to the fact it was chocolate based. in the end it just tasted like mango ice cream (but not ice cream obviously).. was very lush. Passion fruits to trigger the nostrils initially and then the more subtle but just as delicious smell of the mangoes really drew you into this cake. The day I transported it to the party i had to go to work first in the day time, so the whole office smelt like a fruit cocktail lol.

On the inside was a cardamom infused sponge cake without the egg obviously. and running through it were strands of saffron for the color and for the subtle spice of it....

And then.... TADA!!!



The Left Over White Chocolate i just mixed with some cream cheese and butter to make a ganache kinda thing and added green food dye to tie in with the theme of the cake



And now, ill let you know how i made it!

Cardamom and Saffron Sponge With Mango Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:

Egg-less Cardamom Cake:

175g Plain flour
50g Fine Cornmeal
400g Sweetened condensed milk
100g Butter
175ml Water
2tsp Baking powder
1tsp Baking soda
1tsp Vanilla extract
10 Strands of Saffron
2tsp Ground Cardamom
1/2tsp Salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees centigrade and Grease the bottoms of 2 9" cake tins and then set aside
2. In a Large bowl sieve the dry ingredients together and make sure they are all fully incorporated together (Salt, Flour, Cornmeal, Bicarbonate, Baking powder, Chopped Saffron and Cardamom)
3. Melt the butter and then add melted butter to the wet ingredients remaining minus the vanilla extract, so that's the Condensed milk and the water.
4. Mix the wet ingredients (now with the vanilla extract) into the dry ingredients and Incorporated fully with a wooden spoon of electric mixer if u are lucky enough to have one lol.
5. When fully mixed separate the batter evenly into the cake tins and even out the mixture before putting them into the oven for roughly an hour, check to see when the cake it done by using a skewer to see if the middle of the cake is ready or not.
6. When done, take both cakes out and set aside on cooling racks.

Mango White Chocolate Frosting:

Unfortunately i didn't do the measurements for this properly and it was all kinda doing it by eye and feeling my way through... but if you follow these directions you will know what to do when it comes to it.

ROUGHLY...

600g White Chocolate
350ml Mango Puree
25g Butter

1. Melt the Chocolate either in the microwave for a few seconds (stiring after 10 seconds), or in a ban marie over a stove.
2. Add butter to the melted chocolate
3. Pour Chocolate and butter mixture into a bowl and slowly add the mango puree, mixing all the time. When the mixture becomes stiff but manageable cover it and put it aside in the fridge until needed.

Green Chocolate Ganache:

100g Cream cheese
180g White Chocolate
80g Icing sugar
2tsp Green Food coloring

1. Melt the Chocolate
2. Remove chocolate from stove or microwave once fully melted and then stir in the cream cheese, icing sugar and green food coloring. It should go a kind of putty texture.

And VOILA!


Hope you guys like it as much as i enjoyed making it... pity i don't really like cake that much lol.

Until next time...

Enjoy \(^_^)/

Challenge!

Ok ive been set the task of coming up with an egg less, nut less, chocolate less cake by Friday....

One of my best friends is annoyingly allergic to all these things (and he just doesn't like chocolate.... such an awkward guy!)

Immediately i thought "Fruits"

So im gonna go with an Egg less Mango infused sponge (dunno if thats the right wording lol)



With Mango Lassi style cream cheese frosting....

Lassi is that Indian sweet yogurt drink, very light and refreshing. I was thinking of spicing the cake with Cardamom and a bit of saffron for the golden color of mango to really come through.



Anyone have any ideas on whether or not that is a good or bad idea... even if you have tried something similar and have any advice that could be valuable to me. I know that using mango in sponge will be risky because of the very watery nature of the fruit so ill have to find a way of compensating for that without it being too rigid because of the lack of egg.

Also is the Saffron gonna be wasted on this because.... you know.... saffron isn't the CHEAPEST of spices lol... If the mango will make the sponge golden yellow on its own then i could just omit the saffron... We shall see!!



Anyways, Here goes nothing!!! Gonna start practicing now.

Ill keep you all updated \(^_^)/

Veggie Cake!

Hello people, its been a long time.

GOT A PROMOTION!!! WOO!!!

Money money money lol...

OK on a different note, I'm sorry i haven't been around for ages, i have just had so much stuff to do.... I'm currently apartment hunting and that is just the longest process ever... on top of that I've started hitting the gym twice as hard. Been going every morning for the past 6 weeks i think (with weekends off as a break).... I totally recommend it, once you get into it you will love it.

Ok enough about my boring life.... on with the food!


You may be wondering "What is this ridiculously cute looking anime about?". Well quite frankly this has been filling the spaces of time when i'm not active and still awake.... Its called Yumeiro Patissiere and its an interesting anime show which is quite popular in japan at the moment..... Admittedly its probably mostly little girls watching it for the cute characters.... but i watch it for the inventive recipes they come up with (also its pretty funny at times).


The show revolves around Ichigo Amano who wants to be a pastry chef and joins a school where the young elite go to train... she is terrible at making sweets and as the show progresses she is helped by the "sweets princes" who are all experts in their own rights (Hanabusa is an expert in decoration, Kashino is an expert in chocolate stuff, and Andou is an expert at Japanese style desserts), as well as the strange but almost necessary additions of little fairy creatures who encourage Amano to not give up... Its pretty watchable and some of the recipes they come up with are pretty Ingenious (spelling...)

For example.... my next post will hopefully be a remake of one of their cakes either a Rose water infused Peach Pound cake, or a Spinach and cream cheese frosting carrot and apricot chiffon. Also looking at their presentation is inspiring (I know i know its a cartoon lol)

Definitely worth checking out though if you are ever bored! But now on to what i have made recently...

Spiced Carrot Cake with White chocolate cream cheese frosting:



I was set the challenge recently of trying to make something nice for the office out of semi healthy ingredients.... I instantly thought of fruits and vegetables... I was considering doing some kind of apple or pear something but those are boring... Then i realized i have never actually made a carrot cake... one of the most inspired combination of flavors.... (this is why i want to try that spinach cake at some point cause i like the idea of veg in sweet stuff, its interesting.

This cake was for a colleagues birthday and without blowing my own trumpet it was delicious.... so much so that the mother of the colleague who has been baking for years, actually called her daughter to ask me for the recipe. I was very proud of myself considering i just felt my way through the cake and added what i thought would be necessary to get that moist texture that any good carrot cake should have.

So without further adieu and so i can stop bigging myself up (lol) here is the recipe and method!

Ingredients:

300g Soft Brown Sugar
3 Eggs
250ml Sunflower Oil
30g Margarine
300g Plain Flour
1tsp Bi carbonate of soda
1tsp Baking powder
1tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/2tsp ground ginger
1/2tsp salt
1/2tsp vanilla extract
350g Grated Carrot
200g Raisins
(A few Walnuts to decorate if you want)

Gonna need 2 or 3 cake tins for this also... I used 2, you can do it three tier if you like!



Method:

Preheat the over to 170 degrees Centigrade (350 Fahrenheit or Gas mark 3)

Put the sugar, eggs, oil and margarine in a bowl and mix them all together with a wooden spoon. (if you have an electric mixer then use the paddle attachment).

Then slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt and vanilla extract and continue mixing.

Grate the carrots and press as much water out of them as possible. Add the carrots and the raisins to the mix and keep mixing until all are incorporated fully.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tins (coated in margarine or butter) and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and the sponge bounces back when touched.

Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins before turning out onto a wire rack to let them cool completely.

Voila... the cake is done.

Now, whilst the cake is cooling you can make the frosting.

Frosting ingredients:

800g White Chocolate (i used Milky bar)
500g Soft cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
200g Butter
250g icing sugar

Method:

Melt the chocolate in a small pan and be sure not to burn it.

Once the chocolate is melted pour into a large bowl and slowly add the butter and cheese whilst mixing all the time until fully incorporated. The heat from the chocolate should melt the other two easily.

Add the vanilla extract and icing sugar and keep mixing until full incorporated.

When fully mixed leave aside in a cool area to reduce in temperature before using a pallet knife to place frosting between the cake layers and then completely cover the cake...

That's it you should now be done! I hope it comes out just as nicely as mine did, decorate it how you see fit :D!!



Until next time...

Enjoy!! \(^_^)/