Walnut Cake with Milk Chocolate Icing for 5th Blog Anniversary

It’s spring, the trees started showcasing their new sprouts, the daffodils in my backyard is in full bloom and we are so looking forward to some sunshine, some warmth and comfort when it started snowing heavy again throughout this week!! And it is bitter cold with wintry winds. Is winter not yet over?? It was quite warm with lots of sunshine couple of weeks back and I thought the winter gloom is over. But with the snow this week, it feels like winter is forever!

It’s again another year again, and Shab’s cuisine is an year older than last year. The blog turned 5 on March 11. March is the busiest of months for me as both the husbands and kid’s birthday falls on the same month, just a week apart. Lot of thoughts goes into planning each day to make it special and memorable, and lot of arrangements to be made. The blog was started between the two birthdays, so posting something or even planning something on that day is just of question, atleast for me. I am planning to do a giveaway soon, something edible, some thing that you will definitely be looking forward to, but I will have to plan it for another date, later in April or May after the hectic schedule. Can you guess what that is going to be? Stay tuned for that.

Have I mentioned about my new year resolution on cutting down on my baking? I have been doing good so far with minimal baking unlike usual.  But I will have to break all my rules when it comes to March. It is a celebratory month where my oven sees lot of baked goodies. Everything was working down a treat until I borrowed this amazing chocolate recipe book from the local library. I have been flipping that book ever since I borrowed it. Pages over pages of chocolaty goodness made me full, but this simple recipe had caught my attention enough to try. I had to bake it, it is just the occasion that I had to wait for.

That was when the neighbour called us girls over for a coffee morning. I then bought all the stuffs and baked it just before it hit the midnight, so that I could try and taste it before I took it over to her house the very next morning. Icing was done in a hurry in the middle of the morning rush, and getting the son ready to school and then shooting had to be done soon after dropping son off to school. I was so pressed for time, as I had to get ready before the ladies met together over the coffee table that morning.

The cake was well received by the ladies and went down well. It is a basic butter based recipe, it is a breeze to make and has lovely texture with a lot of crunch from the nuts. The walnuts impart lots of flavour to the cake and the simple chocolate icing works well with the cake. I think apart from chocolate icing, cream cheese frosting or coffee icing would work well with the cake as well. I am sure making this cake again, but I would try tweaking it by adding coffee to the batter and doing a different icing, but  I have to await another chance to bake again.

Walnut Cake with Milk Chocolate Icing

Preparation time: 30 mins

Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

180g soft unsalted butter

½ cup, 100g caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup, 150g plain flour

2 ½ tbsp, 25 g corn flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

60g walnut finely chopped

¼ cup, 60 ml milk

Icing:

125g milk chocolate

20g butter

40g walnut to garnish

Preparation:

1. Grease and flour an 7 ½ - 8 inch deep pan or line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180 ˚C/ 170 ˚C fan oven. In a bowl, sift together the plain flour, corn flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In another bowl cream butter and sugar using an electric whisk until creamy and pale.

3. Add eggs, one by one until well incorporated.

4. Add in the flour mix in 2-3 parts, and fold it gently mixing milk in between.

5. Gradually add in the chopped walnuts and fold again.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until golden for about 35 minutes or a tooth pick poked in the centre comes out clean. Let it cool completely before turning out.

Make the icing when the cake is completely cooled.

1.Melt the butter with coarsely chopped chocolate over simmering water or in the microwave and continue stirring, off the heat, until lukewarm.

2. Place the cake on the rack and pour the warm chocolate mixture over it and spread it using a palette knife. I just iced the top, but you can ice the sides too and decorate with chopped walnuts.

Date and Carrot Cake

It’s already 2013 and how quickly did 2012 fly by! Have you made any New Year resolutions? Do you keep yourself up to those resolutions when you make them? I make New Year resolutions every year and in blink of an eye, the year just passes by without fulfilling the resolutions taken. So this year for a change, I thought I would stay away from this resolution agenda, but keeping some good motives for the year. Wishing you all a wonderful New Year. Let this year be better than yesteryear for all of you wonderful people out there.

The past few weeks have been a like a rollercoaster ride for me with whirlwind of things happening one after the other that tied me up entirely and saving me no time for blogging. The kid’s school was closing for Christmas; so I spent lot of time making edible gifts for his teachers. Also, we had our friends  over for Christmas, the husband’s annual leave, the New Year party, all kept me well occupied.

Here is a recipe that I wanted to share long back and has been sitting in my drafts for few years now. And this recipe was supposed to be posted few weeks back, much before Christmas, so that someone who doesn’t really like traditional fruit cakes can bake it. It dint work according to plan and this recipe had to come late. It is the cake that you see on my header, that I baked couple of years back when I visited my family back in UAE. It was passed down to me by my sister who took it off her sister in law. A perfect cake by all means - taste and texture. It is soft, moist and perfectly balanced.

It is a little time consuming, but there is no way you could go wrong. The first time I made this cake, I had no hope of success as it used different method of preparation and initial stage of mixing sugar and oil seemed a bit suspicious. And until halfway through the preparation, batter is a bit thick for  a cake batter and only after the addition of carrots and dates it starts to thin out a bit. But at the end it all comes together and bakes to a perfect cake. I have given the step by step pictures here. As they were taken at night, they are not great, but you could have an idea of how it is done. It is a huge cake, packed with goodness of carrots, dates and nuts and use minimal fat, the factor that I love most about this cake. Preparation wise, it is much different from our butter based cakes where usual creaming of butter, sugar and eggs are involved. You could eat them just after it comes out of the oven, but the flavour intensifies as it sits for couple of days or more.

Date and Carrot Cake

Preparation time:20-30 minutes

Bake time 1 hour- 1 hour 20 minutes

Cuts into 12 large pieces

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour

½ tsp soda Bi-carbonate (Baking soda)

½ cup semolina/farina/sooji

Spices:

1 1” piece cinnamon stick

6 cloves

6 green cardamoms

¼ piece of nutmeg

Others:

2 cups , 350g finely chopped dates

½ tsp baking soda

¼ cup hot water

2 cups, 2 large,220g finely grated carrot

100g mix of chopped nuts like almonds and cashew nuts

2 tsp vanilla essence

Juice and zest of an orange

1 tbsp lime juice

1 ½ cup caster sugar *

¼ cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs,separated

Preparation:

1. In a small bowl place chopped dates, ½ tsp baking soda and water and mix well. Leave it aside for an hour.

2. Grind the spices into fine powder by adding 1 tbsp of sugar from the 1 ½ cup sugar. Mix it with flour, ½ tsp of baking soda and the semolina. Sieve it once to distribute the ingredients.

3. In a clean bowl, using an electric beater whisk the egg whites until soft peaks are formed.

4. Take another large bowl. Add in oil and caster sugar and using a wire whisk or an electric beater beat for 2 minutes. The sugar will just get wet at this point.

5. Into this sugar-oil mix, add egg yolks one by one, mixing well after each addition.

6. Into this, add soaked dates, chopped nuts and carrots. Mix well.

7. Add vanilla essence, orange juice, orange zest, lime juice and mix well again using a wooden spoon.

8. Add the flour mix into the wet mixture in 2-3 batches and gently fold until well incorporated.

9. Whisk the whites again just to break up and gently fold it into the batter without knocking out the air bubbles.

10. Bake it at 170ºC/150ºC fan oven for about 1 hour and 20 minutes  or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes clean without any crumbs clinging on to it or it springs back gently when touched in the centre. The baking time may depend from oven to oven and it can get cooked faster. Check for doneness around 50 minutes to ensure it is fully baked by inserting a skewer in the middle of the cake. At times, the dates could cling onto the skewer, so you may try poking onto different places on the cake or press gently on top to see if it springs back to see if it is done.

* If the sugar crystals are big, please grind them before using.

250th recipe post : Moist Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and some Scottish Pictures.

 

Hope you all had a great Diwali time. I really liked the hype of Diwali celebrations on the social network and the blogs. For me, Diwali is associated with nothing but the Indian sweets and my feeds and updates have been overflowing with bloggers posting Diwali sweets! The amount of sweets that were being cooked by fellow bloggers did tickle my sweet tooth. But I had to succumb myself to a little cake to satiate my sweet craving. During Diwali my dad used to bring home some desi mithais and that is what I missed the most.

This is my 250^th recipe post and I would like to thank all my dedicated readers and friends for the constant support and to reach this milestone. Without you this would have been just impossible. Even though my posts come erratically, you supported me and checked on me on regular basis. Thanks to one and all for the continuous support and love. Thank you for making me feel that I have a world of friends who love me unconditionally. Thank you for everything.

Before I get on to my recipe, let me share you few photographs of few wonderful places that we’ve been to – The Oban, Isle of Mull and Isle of Iona. These are places in the North Western part of the UK, The Mighty Scotland. It is naturally very beautiful place, with stunning landscape and sceneries and lot of history to speak. 

The place is adorned with lakes, castles, mountains, fields etc. It’s just few hours from where we live, the north East. So we tend to drive to Scotland around our anniversary in April. We have covered almost all of Scotland now, visiting all important spots and I am still looking forward to going there again and again. It is just couple of hours drive from our place and a piece of heaven on earth. This time I am going to share some pictures from our last trip, Oban and couple of surrounding islands. I shall cover rest of Scotland in some post later.

We try to take off from our regular routine and travel across the country ones or twice a year. Last year we drove to Oban which is situated in the west coast of Scotland. It’s is about four and a half hours drive from Newcastle and the drive is splendid  with scenic beauty, spectacular landscapes, lakes and mountains. There is much more to discover than just the dramatic landscape for which the Scotland is known for.

Castles, towns, distilleries, islands, villages, sea safari are some of the things you would want to keep in mind when you visit Oban. There is lot to see in and around Oban and two days is too short to go through all of them. But you may choose what you want to do once you reach there. Every hotels and b&b will have many booklets and leaflets of interesting things that could be done around the area, but a detailed search on the net would save you much time. You may also go through the guides and booklets or the official Scottish tourist site for more information.

Oban is known as the ‘gateway of isles’ as the car ferries head for eight islands near Oban. Oban’s largest Ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne or Calmac do an extensive service in and around Oban. We stayed in a hotel in Corran esplanade in Oban bay overlooking the Kerrera Island which is visible directly from the Oban bay. Although kerrera being a large island, it is less populated and it is quite compared to the busy Oban. As the unofficial capital of the western Highlands Oban has plenty to occupy the visitor.

The 200 year old Oban distillery is right in the town centre. There are two cathedrals though neither is particularly old. St. Johns Cathedral in the town’s main street hosts regular music recitals. As Oban is located with shoreline and hills nearby, it lends itself to plenty of outdoor activities. Charter companies offer boat trips around nearby islands and one could also signup for a kayak outing from the bay. There are also interesting walks in and around the town.  Oban has always been a fishing village and nowadays it is dubbed seafood capital of Scotland and there are plenty of places to enjoy excellent fresh seafood. We spent our first day roaming in oban and the next day we set off to Isle of Mull and Isle of Iona, two very beautiful islands near Oban.

Isle of Mull is 40 minutes ferry crossing from Oban and is worth exploring two impressive castles nearby. Torosay is a Victorian mansion with extensive gardens and Duart castle, guarding the Sound of Mull. Mull’s western side is dotted with white beaches. You also get to see white tailed sea eagles and otters and it is a good place for a whale-watching trip. Once we got off the ferry, we drove around the Island covering not all, but most of the area. We could not cover the Northern part of the Island, Tobermory which is famous for its brightly coloured buildings. The kids television series Balamory was shot in Tobermory. We took another ferry to Isle of Iona, which is one of the smallest islands, but beautiful in all its sense.

Isle of Iona is an idyllic and enchanting island situated just a short ferry ride from Isle of Mull. It takes a bit of planning reaching Iona, as it involved a ferry ride from Oban to Isle of Mull and then a road trip to the Fionnphort where we take another ferry to Iona which takes just about 10 minutes.

Looking from the Mull’s southern corner, the tower of St. Margarates Cathedral. part of Iona Abbey dominates the skyline.  The Abbey is the main tourist attraction in Iona. Cars are not allowed in the Island and the abbey is just fifteen minutes walk from the port. 

The island is less populated with just about one hundred and twenty people. So, I guess everyone in the island would know each other! It is one of the most serene, tranquil places I have ever been to and we all left with a feeling of tranquillity. There is also a heritage centre on the island that reveals more about the historic past and culture. You can take ferries or boats to other islands nearby from there.

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Coming to the recipe, this gorgeous recipe was baked to take over to our friends place when lot of friends were meeting up. I always wanted to bake this cake, but the amount of fat and sugar that went into the cake put me to a halt. I thought I will wait for the right occasion to bake, usually when the friends get together for dinner.

The dinner that day was planned late, so the cake also was baked at the last minute. And I blast cooled the cake by leaving it at the window sill, leaving the window open! I dint have time for the cake to cool down completely, so I frosted whilst the cake was still warm. As I started taking pictures, I noticed the frosting dribbling down slowly as the frosting started melting! I had to hurry taking pictures, but I think that oozing frosting added an extra chic to the cake that was simply great.

I had been rushing through out that day as we were running late for the dinner unlike usual and it was just halfway through our journey, that I remembered I had forgotten the cake at home! Aargh! After all the rushing, chaos and stress I left the mighty cake at home. It was a total disappointment as I knew I would be nibbling on the cake all day which I did and the whole point of splitting the calories between friends failed miserably. However, the husband and son enjoyed it much. Although, they had only reasonable amount of them, the rest being all eaten up by the sweet tooth monster, me.

The cake is really soft, flavourful and the cream cheese frosting makes the cake absolutely scrumptious. This is a massive cake, so you would too want to bake it for a time when you have a big gang coming over to your place. Or else if you have a sweet tooth family, make it for them. Enjoy.

 

Moist Carrot Cake with Cream cheese Frosting

Recipe : Allrecipes

Prep: 30 mins

Cook: 1 hour

Serves: 18 

Ingredients:

4 medium eggs

300ml vegetable oil

400g, 2 cups caster sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

250g, 1 ½ cups plain flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

350g, 2 large carrots, grated very fine

125g, 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

1 tbsp grated zest of an orange

Cream Cheese Frosting:

125g butter, softened

250g  cream cheese, softened

250g  icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 ºC, 160 ºC for Fan assisted oven. Grease and flour a 23cm/9 inch baking tin.

2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, caster sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla for couple of minutes using a wire whisk or a wooden spoon

3. In another bowl, sift in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Add this to the wet mixture and fold well.

4. Stir in carrots, orange zest and fold in pecans. Pour into the prepared tin.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 45- 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

To Make the Cream cheese frosting: :

In a medium bowl, beat together butter and  icing sugar until creamy. Gradually add in cream cheese and vanilla essence and beat until the mixture is creamy. Set aside until ready to frost. Once frosted, refrigerate the cake.

Spread evenly on the cake once the cake is completely cool. This is quite a stiff, spreadable frosting.

*Mine started melting as I frosted it on slightly warm cake.

Notes:

1. While making frosting, butter should be silky soft and smooth. If not, the frosting will be grainy. Here, the butter is not soft even at room temperature, so I microwave for few seconds or until it is really soft. If at all your frosting goes lumpy from cold butter, heat it for a brief amount of time in microwave making sure  it does not melt. Mix well.

2. I also place the cream cheese in few layers of kitchen towel to drain extra moisture in the cheese to make stiff frosting