Tie & Dye Holi cake with natural colours

Festivals to me are a great excuse for a family get together and having to spend some fun time over delicious food. I am also particularly interested in creating Festival special food. And since my first love is Baking, I cannot help but imagine trying out something new in baking. This Holi I tried my hands on Thandai cookies and this Tie & Dye cake where I have used all natural colours in the cake batter. The idea came from the popular usage of organic colours nowadays which is certainly safer and healthier than the poisonous chemicals used in regular colours. 

People all around are getting more conscious and are ready to take steps to prevent as much damage as we can to our body. It is a great beginning in itself and is a small but important step to ensure our children get to live in a better environment.

Since Holi is the festival of colours, I decided to add some colours to my cake and experimented doing so with Nature's vibrant colours. 

I personally feel I could have added a tbsp more of each colour because the batter before baking seems to have the perfect colour but after baking the colour gets reduced in its intensity. But it is still far better than adding all the artificial food colours. 

Here's to a Happy and Safe Holi! 

Recipe source  : I used the cake recipe from Suma's blog Cakes and More and modified it 
Ingredients : I made a 5" round cake which is good for 4 servings

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar, powdered
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup yogurt (I used homemade curd)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1-2 tbsp each of beetroot puree, spinach puree and carrot puree

Icing :

• 3 tbsp white butter, room temperature
• 2 tbsp icing sugar/powdered sugar
• colourful sprinkles

Procedure : 
Prepare the natural colours by boiling each vegetable and then making its puree. 

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. 

Prepare a 5 inch round cake pan by greasing and lining with butter paper.
Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.
Whisk together yogurt, oil, egg, and vanilla in another bowl.
Fold in the wet mixture into the flour mixture.  Mix well.

Divide the batter in 4 bowls.

Add turmeric powder to one and mix well. Add more if required.

Add spinach puree, carrot puree and beetroot puree each to the the remaining three bowls and mix well. Add more to get the desired colour.
Pour random spoonfuls of each of the coloured batter in the  prepared pan.
Bake  for 30 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.

Slice the dome on top of the cake.

Mix icing sugar with white butter and spread on top. Top with the colourful sprinkles. 

Note : Add more of the individual puree to get more distinct colours. The colour gets reduced after baking.

Happy, safe and a colourful Holi

Amrita

Surprise Chocolate Heart Cake for First Kolkata Blogger's meet!

The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Surprise!!
All of us love surprises. At least the good ones.

When I was in school, it was a norm to surprise each other with little handmade personalized stuff, you know, the kind of things girl's do. Birthdays, in fact, is the most perfect occasion to surprise. Vishal has many a times surprised me with the most gorgeous bunch of flowers, sweet handwritten cards and delicious fingerlicking food. Therefore, it is no secret that I love getting and giving Surprises!

Sayantani, surprised me a month back by adding me to Kolkata Food Bloggers page on FB. I have always wanted to know like minded people in my city and was wondering if there are any. I was completely surprised and bowled over, knowing such famous bloggers admist them. A meet was decided and we all jointly agreed on the 28 of April. Not knowing what else to gift them, the Mad Baker in me, decided to bake this Surprise Chocolate heart cake which has been lying in my 'Must try' list for some time. A surprise cake to surprise fellow bloggers sounded so right.
Vishal helped me by looking after our daughter Vaanya, while I was rustling up this cake on the 'D' day. The cake takes that extra time as it is baked twice making you to do the entire process two times. I chose on a tried and tested 'no butter' cake recipe that I have adapted from Suma Rowjee's blog Cakes and Bakes. The cake always turns out soft and has just that right amount of sweetness.
I was pretty surprised myself with the end result as this was a first time bake. The sweet little pretty chocolate heart was right there in the middle of my cake surprising me to ends. The extra time I spent baking and then wrapping up these beauties made me late for the much awaited meet. But I guess the surprised faces paid off for all the hard work. Felt truly elated to bake this for my fellow buddies. 

It was an afternoon well spent knowing and meeting such amazing bloggers. We had a whale of time and plan another meet very soon, catching up with all those who could not this time. I have linked their names to their famous blogs for you to check out their amazing food. 
Meet the Foodies!!

From left to right : Sanoli Ghosh, Archita Chanda Ray, Kamalika Chakrabarty, Sarani Tarafder, Arundhuti Rama, Poorna Banerjee

Ingredients:

Chocolate hearts

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp sugar, powdered(Do not skip the 2 tbsp, they make the cake just sweet)
• 1 egg 
• 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup yogurt
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil 

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Prepare the loaf tin by greasing and lining with butter paper.
Since my loaf tin was bigger in size than my requirement, I made a false wall with foil paper and stuffed lightly crushed foil paper in the leftover space to make the cake size smaller. 

Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder,baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.
Whisk together yogurt, oil and egg in another bowl.
Fold in this wet mixture into the flour mixture.  Mix well.
Pour into prepared pan.
Bake  for 30 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.
Once your cake is cool enough to handle, remove the dome of the cake (level it)and cut into 8 slices.

Now, with the help of a cookie cutter, cut shapes out of the slices.(I used a heart cookie cutter, you may try with other shapes like a star) 
 

Grease and line the same loaf tin again.
Stack the hearts in the middle of the tin, a little tilted to rest.

 

Now prepare the white cake batter
White cake batter

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cup sugar(powdered) 
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 cup yogurt
• 1/2 cup+2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence  

Procedure :

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.

Whisk together yogurt, oil, vanilla essence and egg in another bowl. 

Fold in this wet mixture into the flour mixture. Mix well.

Pour into prepared tin over the chocolate hearts. 

Bake  for 30-35 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. 

Cool on a wire rack and remove from tin

White cake batter poured over the chocolate hearts

The cake after baking

Level the cake with the help of a knife.

Cut equal sized slices from the cake, serve and surprise.

Note:

• You may use any other cake recipe to make this Surprise cake.
• Try the same effect with a different shaped cookie cutter.
• Try different colours for a more dramatic look, like making the hearts red for a perfect Valentine treat.

I wrapped them in plastic covers and tied the ends with a red ribbon to gift all my wonderful fellow food bloggers. Vishal wrote down little thoughtful tags for them in his beautiful handwriting.

The Gang (Pic courtsey: a passerby clicking through Sarani's camera and Editing courtsey :Arundhuti) Your's truly in Green:)

Happy Surprising 
Amrita

Mutton Biryani-Amma's recipe(The best ever)

Me and my daughter,Vaanya, have been enjoying every second of our homecoming to Allahabad since the last two weeks. She has been exploring every possible corner of our palatial house and learning a whole new array of words everyday. With the most beautiful garden at our disposal, maintained by Amma(Mother-in-law), me and Vaanya have been spending our mornings running around and enjoying nature close and personal.

Our visit to Allahabad is incomplete without having Amma's lipsmacking and (literally) finger licking food. She has the most amazing and extensive list of recipes. Her Kababs can be described as the best 'Melting moments' and her endless variations to the humble chicken and mutton will leave you wanting each and every recipe of hers. With each visit I try and learn her recipes and this time I couldn't miss one of my favorite-Mutton Biryani.    

Ingredients:

• 250 gms mutton, in pieces
• 500 gms Basmati rice
• 4-5 drops of liquid orange food colour (or dissolve powdered colour with few drops of water)
• 2 pinches saffron
• 1/2 cup warm milk
• 1 onion, sliced
• 3 onions, ground to make a paste
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger garlic paste
• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 tsp choti elaichi-javitri powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper powder
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
• salt to taste

Procedure: 

Boil rice with salt till just undercooked. Drain and sprinkle orange food colour. Leave to cool.

Dissolve saffron in warm milk and keep aside.

Take 3 large spoonfuls of oil in a pressure cooker and put 1 sliced onion. As it browns add onion paste and cook for some time. Now add ginger garlic paste and add mutton. Cook for 10 mins.

Add elaichi-javitri powder, pepper powder, red chilli powder and salt to taste. 

Add 2 cups of water and close the lid. Cook for 7 mins. Now open the lid and add yogurt. Stir well and close the lid to cook for another 5 mins. 

Open the lid and dry any remaining water.

Take a heavy bottomed vessel with a lid and make a layer with 3/4 of the prepared rice. Now add a layer of the prepared mutton and top it with the remaining 1/4 rice. 

Sprinkle the saffron dissolved in milk.

Temper ghee with 8 laung and 6 choti elaichi and add this on top of the rice layer.

Put the lid and seal it with atta dough.

Heat a tawa and place the vessel on it and cook on low flame for 15 mins.

Serve hot.

For Favorite Rice Recipes Event

Happy Biryani eating

Amrita

Everyday Yoghurt Cake

Recently I discovered a whole new world of food blog events. These events are basically a perfect platform to know fellow bloggers and share recipes and thus food passion. These events gives us an opportunity to visit each other and have fun while creating and sharing. 

One of these amazing events is Bake-Along which is a bi-monthly event hosted by three incredible bloggers - Joyce from Kitchen flavours, Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake for Happy kids.

It is and amazing Blog-hop event which has no rules, no commitments nor any member list. (No-You have to like my page on Facebook kind of things ;)lol)

You are free to join whenever you want. Each of the host has a list of upcoming recipe or theme which helps you to prepare beforehand and lets you decide whether you want to join or not. (Though with their amazing list of recipes and themes, I am sure you will want to everytime)

This is my first entry and a beginning to one seriously no-fuss event. Let me confess that when I read the recipe I wasn't sure how it will turn out. I have tried a yogurt cake before(Orange Yoghurt cake) and was extremely happy with the soft texture of the cake and its light orange flavour. What I particularly love is the low calorie in this cake and thus it being guilt-free. With this recipe I was a bit worried with the flavour and was almost tempted to add some lemon rind and juice. However, I followed the recipe to the T and was extremely overjoyed with the result. My cake was well risen, very soft and above all enjoyed by everyone.

I decided on doing a lacy decoration with icing sugar on the cake with the help of a paper doily as suggested by the baker. The problem was I didn't have  a paper doily, so I made a very lame paper doily by hand (cutting odd shapes on a folded piece of paper) and dusted the top of cake with icing/confectioner's sugar. Have to confess that however kiddish my paper doily was, I was happy to see the pristine white icing sugar on the browned cake top. Next time I must try one of my hand-made crochet doily for better results!!

Recipe adapted from here

Ingredients: I have halved the recipe

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar(powdered)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup  plain whole-milk yogurt or low-fat yogurt
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Grease and line bottom and sides of a 9" round pan.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. 

Whisk together yogurt, oil, egg and vanilla in another bowl.

Pour the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and stir well.

Pour the batter in prepared pan and bake for 30 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Let the cake cool in the pan for 5 mins, invert onto a wire rack and turn right side up to cool completely.

Place a paper doily (I made my own by simply cutting random shapes on a folded piece of paper) on top of the cake and dust with icing sugar(or powdered sugar) to create a lacy decoration.

Slice the cake and serve with sliced seasonal fruits and yogurt.

Can be stored in room temperature for upto 2 days in a cakekeeper or in a plastic wrap.

Happy Healthy Yogurt-cake Eating
Amrita