Chocolate Cake- A guest post from Beulah :)

Hello Friends,

I am so excited to post this chocolate cake guest post from one of my blogger friend Beulah. She shares wonderful recipes at her space FullScoops. I am always inspired by her baking recipes. She used to bake so yummy cakes and decorate it in a way you get tempted for sure. You can find all sorts of recipes from starters to Desserts and juices. 

I am so glad that she agreed to write guest post for me, I know how difficult it is to blog having young children at home... She is super busy with her toddlers and doing amazing job at her blog too. Kudos Beulah and thanks again for writing the post for me :)

I always love chocolate cakes, and these pics are really tempting me... Hope you will also like it.. :) Now Lets check the recipe. 

-Tanya

A big hello to all the readers of Easy and Simple Foods, my name is Beulah Arun and I blog at FullScoops. A short introduction about me, I am dentist by profession but now I am a busy homemaker with two beautiful kids. I started writing my blog for fun and now it's become a part of me and I'm quite passionate about it!

Today I am writing a guest post for one of my blogger friend's Tanya of easy and simple foods. Tanya is one of the sweetest people I have come across in the blogging world and very helpful and sincere. Her blog is filled with some awesome, delicious home cooked food and it's always a pleasure going through her blog. It is really a blog true to it's name, all recipes so easy and simple to cook for our daily life.

She wrote a guest post for me sometime ago, she wrote chocolate chip cookies which are absolutely delicious, it's time for me to write a guest post for her and I have chosen a chocolate cake for her. This is an easy to make delicious chocolate cake recipe, what I love about this recipe is that it makes a small cake and it's just enough for our family!

CHOCOLATE CAKE

Preparation time 10 mins | Baking time 25 mins | Makes one 6"cake

Ingredients

• All purpose flour - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1 cup (powdered)
• Egg - 1
• Cocoa powder - 6 tbsp
• Baking powder - 1 tsp
• Baking soda - 3/4 tsp
• Oil - 4 tbsp
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Boiling water - 1/2 cup
• Instant coffee - 1/2 tsp
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Method

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a 6 inch cake pan.

2. Add all the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine together.

3. Add the wet ingredients in another bowl except the hot water and whisk well.

4. Now add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually and mix well by adding the hot water. 

5. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

6. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove from pan and cool completely.

Frost the cake as you wish. You can use ganache or whipped cream to frost the cake. I used whipped cream.

Notes

1. Make sure you don't over mix while adding the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Add in batches and fold gently.

Thanks for having me over, enjoy the cake!

Brownies

This is the basic brownie recipe. Since Its been quiet long time I baked, thought of making it yesterday.... It is so simple to make, just in 30 mins it was ready. I did not do any frosting for it, if you like you can add that also... After baking my daughter and myself could not even wait until it cools down.. such an aroma it was.. :)

Recipe inspired from here

Ingredients:

all purpose flour - 1/2 cup
sugar -1 cup
unsweetened coco powder - 1/3 cup
Butter - 1/2 cup (1 stick)
eggs - 2
Baking powder - 1/4 tsp
vanilla essence - 1 tsp
salt - 1/4 tsp

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat oven at 350F. Grease and sprinkle flour in a 8inch square pan and keep ready.
2. Melt butter and keep it ready in a mixing bowl.
3. Mix sugar with the melted butter and mix well.

4. Add eggs and beat well.
5. Now add vanilla extract, baking powder, coco powder and flour then mix to a smooth paste.

6. Pour the mix into the pan and bake for 25-30 mins. (mine took 27 mins)

Let it cool down completely, and enjoy having it..

Sending this recipe to the event "Bake Fest" hosted by Fullscoops and started by Vardhini of Cooks Joy

Eggless Banana Walnut Cake

Banana walnut cake is enriched with goodness of Banana and Walnut. If the kids are troubling to eat banana, definitely you can try this recipe for them... And This is my first try in egg-less baking.

Ingredients:

All purpose  -1.5 cups
Banana - 4 big (ripen)
Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup (tightly packed)
Oil - 1/4 cup
vanilla essence - 1 tsp
baking soda - 1 tsp
Elachi powder - 1/8 tsp
Walnuts- 1/2 cup chopped.

Preparation:
1.Preheat the oven to 375F.
2.In a bowl, smash the banana with fork.
3.Add sugar,oil and mix well to it.
4.Add vanilla essence, elachi powder and give a gentle stir.
5.in another large bowl, Mix/sieve flour, baking soda.
6. Pour the wet mix of banana, sugar, oil and vanilla essence, and elachi powder to the flour bowl and mix gently.
7. Transfer the batter to the baking pan and bake for 25-30 mins. (mine took 28 mins).
Insert a toothpick and check whether it is coming out clean.

Notes:

1. If you are using white sugar, use 3/4 cup of it.
2. You can substitute the whole wheat flour or bread flour instead of maida.

Strawberry cup cake

Strawberry season starts here, and we get lots of fresh strawberry in stores and we can directly go to the farms and pick it. Last year we had a strawberry picking and enjoyed a lot. Eagerly waiting to visit the farm again this year. My daughter loves strawberry and I often used to get this fruit for her.

Last time when I got strawberry i thought of making some cakes with it, and ended up making these delicious cup cakes.

Ingredients:

Strawberries - 4-5 large (the puree should be 1/3 cups)
Strawberries - 1-2 large cut them into small pieces
APF - 1 and 2/3 cups &1 tbsp
Butter - 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
sugar- 1 cup
milk- 3/4 cup
egg - 1
yogurt/curd- 1/4 cup
vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 345F and line the cupcake mold with the liners.
2. In a blender add the cut strawberries and give a quick pulse and make it as puree (preferably chunky puree)
3. Cut the remaining strawberries and keep aside
4. Sieve flour, baking powder, baking soda,  and keep aside.
5. In a pan melt the butter, transfer to the mixing bowl, add sugar and mix well
6. then add, milk, yogurt,vanilla extract and mix well
7.Now add the sieved flour mix and mix.
8. Add the Strawberry puree and give a quick mix.
9. At last add the cut strawberry pieces to it. and mix gently
10. Pour them into the cupcake liners and bake for 20-25 minutes
11. Check with toothpick whether it is done or not. if the toothpick comes out clean, then remove from oven and cool then in cooling rack.

Notes:
Instead of making puree, you can just cut them into small pieces and add.
The given quantity makes about 15-18 cup cakes.

sending this recipe to Rafee's baking fest event  Bake fest May 2014

Chocolate Cup Cake

Happy Valentine's day in Advance... :) Everywhere the Valentine fever is spreading like anything... So it attacked me too... :) I visited a near by shop to get the valentine cards for my daughter's school and got surprised with the variety of decoration items and other items for valentines day....So grabbed few for her and the cup cake pan for myself....
Valentines day card for school??? Yes... They are having party this Friday.. :) I knew about valentine's day only in my middle school days, that too as lover's day. Only when I grew and moved to upper grades ,I came to know about the word "Valentine"... But today in pre-school my daughter is talking about valentine's day and the party. Is this called a generation gap?

 Ok.. lets get into the recipe... After searching a lot in internet finally I decided to make these chocolate cup cakes ...I am dedicating these cakes to all my lovable and dear ones.... Please accept and enjoy the cakes...

Recipe source: Joy of Baking

I didn't make the frosting per this recipe, as i was having some ready to use frosting tube.
I tried to follow the exact measurements and the preparation methods... It turned out so well... My daughter is yet to taste the cake, she slept before it cools down. My husband told it tastes wonderful. I will taste it with my daughter tomorrow...And update my comments on it. :)))

Ingredients:

All purpose / maida flour - 1 and 1/3 cups
sugar - 1 cup
unsalted butter - 1/2 cup / 8 tbsp (at room temperature)
Eggs- 2
cocoa powder- 1/2 cup (I used Hersheys's Natural)
hot/ boiling water - 1 cup
baking powder - 2 tea spoons
vanilla extract- 2 tea spoons
salt - 1/4 tea spoon

Yields: I made 12 cup cakes with the size of the mold I have. the no of cakes will differ based on the size of the cup cake pan you use.

Oven preparation:

Preheat the oven for 375F.
Grease the cup cake mold or place the paper liners in it.

 Preparation:

1.Boil a cup of water and add the cocoa to it, mix well, switch off the flame and let it cool down to room temperature.
2.in a bowl, add flour, salt and baking powder and mix well
3.In another mixing bowl, beat butter till it is frothy.
4.Now mix sugar and mix well.
5. Add eggs and beat them well along with the sugar and butter.
6.Then add the vanilla extract , flour and mix well.
7. Now it will be little tight dough. Then add the chocolate mix to this dough and mix well.
8. Then transfer them to the cup cake liners and fill it only till 3/4 of the cup.
9. Bake it for 15 - 20 minutes (it took 16 minutes for me) in 375F.
10 Insert a tooth pick and check whether it is done or not. If the tooth pick doesn't come out clean, bake for another 5 minutes.

let it cool down completely, then do the frosting as per your choice.

Thank you for bearing with my cake decoration ":P"

Sending this recipe to

Valentine's Treat event by Indrani

cook and share what you like event

Kid's delight baked treats hosted by PJ and organized by Srivalli

Lets cook sweet treats for valentine's

Only food for growing kids event hosted by Shrutis Rasoi and organized by Pari

Taste of Tropics - Chocolate / cocoa  organized by Chef Mireille and hosted by Beulah Arun of Full Scoops

sending this recipe to Rafee's baking fest event  Bake fest May 2014

Fruit and Nut Cake

This is the virtual treat to all my readers, supporters and friends.Its a quite late post, but a late note of thank would be better than never...
I Started blogging on December 30th, and successfully completed a month on last week. got some amazing friends and sisters here, who really encourage by their comments and through chat. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement... Hope to have a long lasting relationship with you all. Please accept my virtual treat to you all.. :)

Baking is quite new to me. I used to make pressure cooker cakes when I was at Chennai. By seeing that my hubby got a microwave for me, but I have never tried cake in microwave.

I was quite scared to use the oven after a small accident I made to the oven in my last US visit.. (Only the broiler got damaged a little... we were safe :P)
whenever I see any puffs recipe or cake recipe i think of using the oven again and was keep hesitating.

Finally, Last month I got all the accessories and ingredients required to bake... With the help of my neighbor, we both first baked some vanilla sponge cake with cake mix. Gained some confidence... And here i am with the cake recipe of my own.

I love plum cakes than any other cake in the world. Though from childhood I like plum cake, i got addicted(!) to it after tasting it from "Pondicherry Geetha Bakery". Everyone says Grand sweets plum cake will be nice in pondy.. But my choice was geetha bakery... During my stay in pondy, every Sunday I visit the church and while returning the yummy plum cake will accompany me... If any of you are from pondy, while you taste geetha bakery plum cake, do remember me :)

But i cannot call it as plum cake as it doesn't have any plums in it :)
I just made the cake with the whatever nuts and fruits were available at home. I just made a research over many recipes and understood, there are many more ways to do the cake... Only need to concentrate on the base ingredients and its measurements.

I am sorry I could not take the pics while preparing...

Ingredients:

All purpose / Maida - 1 cup
Butter - 100 grams (at room temperature)
Egg- 1
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Baking powder - 3/4 teaspoon
coco powder/ chocolate powder - 1 tea spoon (I used unsweetened)
grated orange peel - 2 tea spoons
water - 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup
veg oil - 2 tea spoon
salt - a pinch (not required if salted butter is used)

Nuts / fruits:

Cashew, pista, tutti frutti, dates, raisins all together - 1 cup


I just avoided the ingredients like almond essence or vanilla essence as i was not having those...  You can add those a drop if you have.

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven at 350F for 10 minutes.
2. Beat Egg and Butter in a mixing pan well
3. Then add flour and coco powder to it and mix well
4. It will be a thick paste by then..Now add the sugar to it and keep mixing
5. Add half cup of water , mix and check the consistency. it should not be too thick or too watery. (In a idli batter consistency I would say). if required add the remaining water and veg oil.
6.Chop all the nuts and fruits of your choice and  add to the cake mix along with the orange peel.
7. Cover the cake pan with the aluminium foil and grease it. Pour the cake mix to it and set the timer for 50 minutes.
8. keep the pan in the lower wire rack.
9. After 50 minutes, check the cake with the tooth pick, whether it is done or not... if it comes out sticky, bake for another 10 minutes.
10. Let the cake cool down completely for at least 4 to 5 hours. remove it from pan and then wrap in another aluminum foil completely for few more hours.

Notes:
1. Fruits and nuts can be boiled and added too. Just to make the process simple, I added as it is.
2. brown sugar can be replaced with white also.
3. Adjust the sugar level based on your dates taste. Mine was little sweetened so the cake too. Next time I may reduce the sugar a spoon or two.
4. You can directly pour the mix into the pan and bake. But I felt it easy to remove when it is cool down

sending this recipe to,

Taste of Tropics - Chocolate / cocoa  organized by Chef Mireille and hosted by Beulah Arun of Full Scoops

Valentine's Treat event by Indrani

cook and share what you like event

New "U"

Kid's delight baked treats hosted by PJ and organized by Srivalli

Lets cook sweet treats for valentine's


Only food for growing kids event hosted by Shrutis Rasoi and organized by Pari