Cakes and Puddings Archives - Page 43 of 46

Lemon Delicious Pudding

22|01|2014

When life gives you lemons what do you do? Do you make lemonade or lemon curd? Or Nimbu Paani?
Well, life didn’t give me lemons. Or melons. I had to get them myself. All the way from the markets. The markets are not that far away but it’s a rainy day. Have I told you how unpredictable our weather is! Thankfully, the pudding is not. It is very much the way it is and totally lives up to its name.

Australia Day (26th January) is one holiday I really look forward to. The date especially has always been special because that also happens to be Republic Day in India and I have great memories of fun wintry things I used to do on this holiday. I take this day as a great opportunity to whip up some of the Aussie classic sweet treats at home. I find it hard to decide which one as I love every one of them. The Pav is a must every year. Last year I also made the sticky date pudding. This year I debated between the golden syrup dumplings and the lemon delicious pudding. Finally, I realised I could do without the dumplings as I am lately looking like one myself. Seriously, I am almost embarrassed not to be joining the army of fit and health conscious people marching along the water side in my area while I am sitting and looking up recipes on my mobile.

I am not sure how the pudding got its name but I know that all the people I have made this for till date have told me they loved it. This is a self saucing pudding. Meaning, the pudding separates during the cooking process into a light cakey top and a thick lemon sauce below. All you need to ensure is that you don’t overcook it otherwise you won’t be left with enough lemon sauce. The flavours and textures are a treat. The recipe is also fairly simple. If you are a person who is intimidated by egg whites like I used to be years ago, put your worries aside. We are looking for soft peaks..where the peaks are just starting to form and fall back when the beaters are lifted. Other than that, it is all about adding and stirring. The baking takes place in a water bath..like a crème Brule. I have divided the batter into 4 individual baking cups and an oval baking dish (to give you a clear view how it looks on the inside). You can make them in individual ramekins. That way it’s easier to serve.

I also wanted to share with you that this is one pudding which tastes amazing, warm or cold. So many reasons to make this. I hope you give it a try.

Lemon Delicious Pudding (adapted with a slight variation from Taste.com)
Serves 6

150g unsalted butter, melted
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 1/4 cups castor sugar
3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted (or 3/4 cup plain flour + 3/4 tsp baking powder)
1 1/2 cups milk (I used semi skim)
4 eggs, separated
Icing sugar , to dust

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees C for fan-forced) Grease six 1 cup-capacity oven-proof dishes.

Place butter, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, flour, milk and egg yolks in a bowl. Whisk to combine.

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites on high-speed until soft peaks form. Using a metal spoon, fold one-quarter of the egg white into lemon mixture. Gently fold in remaining egg white.

Spoon mixture into prepared dishes. Place dishes in a large baking dish. Pour boiling water into baking dish until halfway up sides of smaller dishes. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden and just set. If you want a brown crust on top, put the oven on the grill mode for an additional 5 minutes. Dust with icing sugar. Serve.

Apple and Maple Syrup Friands (Financiers)

17|01|2014

I did not make resolutions for the new year because somewhere along the course of the year, I feel they change for me. Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learnt over time is that with some minor adjustments, a bit of flexibility and a wee bit of make-do, life becomes a lot easier to embrace. Flexibility means along with the expected you also make room for the unexpected things in your life, both good and bad. And in doing so, you save yourself from a few let-downs and disappointments. The world becomes a happier a place to live in.

I have decided to adopt a ‘take it as it comes’ approach to both life, in general and blogging. There will be days when meringues will crack..I will not fret. I will make an Eton Mess instead. Lava cakes may turn out over-baked…I will enjoy them as puddings. If l can’t pipe pretty swirls around life, then so be it. I will learn to have fun with dollops. Dollops aren’t perfect…you can’t weigh or measure them. That’s why they are dollops and we love them.

Uh..well, think I could do with a sugar fix at the moment.

These friands are the simplest things to bake. Easy, uncomplicated and quite forgiving. Flexible, in other words.

All you need is a bowl to mix. If you do not have friand moulds (I have used oval ones), bake them in muffin pans or mini loaf pans. You can use honey or golden syrup instead of maple syrup and your own choice of fruits or berries if you like.
Try them, they taste great!

Apple and Maple Friands (Financiers)
Yields 12

1 cup almond meal (ground almonds) or any nut meal of your choice
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
11/4 cup icing sugar
6 egg whites
125 g unsalted butter, melted
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 cup peeled, cored and chopped apples
2 apples, cored and thinly sliced to place on top of the friand

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Place the almond meal, flour, baking powder, icing sugar, egg whites, butter, maple syrup and chopped apples in a bowl and whisk until combined. Divide the mixture into friand pans/friand moulds or muffin pans (till half full) Place a few sliced apples on top of each mould. Push slightly into the batter so that the apples are enclosed within the friand batter. Bake for 20–25 minutes or until the friands are golden and cooked through. Using a palette knife, loosen the edges and remove the friands from the tins immediately. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving.

Date and Carrot Cake

14|01|2014

So I finally made a cake. Though I couldn’t convince myself to loudly exclaim ‘my first dessert for 2014’! No ganache, no glaze..not even a sauce. Well, I am all about Sugar. The more the better. You know that already, don’t you! Dessert or no dessert…I leave that to you to decide. But this cake is good. So very good! Once it came out of the oven, I changed my mind about including a dessert sauce.

There are several reasons why I like this cake. First, it has a subtle caramel taste to it that comes from the dates. If you have never made a date cake before, I highly recommend it. Unlike nuts and raisins, you don’t bite into dates while eating a slice of the cake. They disintegrate and get lost in the batter adding a beautiful flavour and moisture to the cake. The cake is filled with great ingredients like carrots, seeds and nuts that not only make it filling but nutritious too. And the best one. You don’t need a mixer! You just add and stir.

The original recipe was that of a loaf. It always tasted amazing so I’ve been looking for an opportunity to turn it into a cake that can be served for any occasion. I made a few changes in the proportions and ingredients marrying a date cake to a carrot cake. And I loved it so much that I am making it again this week for friends. The first one was over before I had imagined it would.

The cake tastes best when warm. If you want to be fancy with it, you can serve butterscotch or caramel sauce alongside. Whipped cream would be great too. And if you are somewhere in this part of the world, chances are that you may want some ice-cream to go with it!

Date and Carrot Cake
Makes a 9 inch bundt cake

150g butter, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
11/4 cup chopped pitted dates
1 teaspoon mixed spice
11/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 cup nuts and seeds of your choice (sunflower kernels, walnuts, cashews, pepitas, raisins)
1 cup grated carrot

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (160°C fan-forced). Lightly grease a 9 inch bundt cake pan.

Place butter, sugar, dates, spice and 11/2 cup cold water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 4 minutes or until butter has melted and sugar dissolved. Bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Stir in bicarbonate of soda. Cool for 30 minutes.

Stir in eggs. Add flour, nuts and grated carrot. Stir to combine. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Spiced Orange Almond Cake

18|12|2013

I’ve been wanting to make an Orange cake this month. Though Orange is not our seasonal best at the moment, it is still abundantly available. All throughout my growing up years in India I have associated Oranges with colder months and though the seasons have been reversed now that I am in the southern hemisphere, I continue to have a soft spot for Oranges around this time. As far as my experience goes with Citrus cakes, they always taste delicious and appeal to most people. And they smell amazing too. Remember my Gluten Free Whole Orange Almond Mini Cakes…I’ve made it a number of times and I wanted to experiment with spice this time.

So I played around with a few recipes and came up with this one. I can rarely find myself baking a cake and not adding a nut meal to it. I find the texture so beautiful and nutty. But never rich. I also did not want a completely fudgy cake that would not work with my bundt pans. I made adjustments accordingly and the cake turned out just the way I wanted it to be. You can taste the orange, spices and the almonds that go so well together. Overall, it is a simple recipe with great results.

As you can see, I have used a thin glaze. I didn’t want to overload it with sweetness as it was great on its own. If you do not have the individual spices, you can replace with 1 teaspoon of all spice. This recipe makes a 8 inch bundt cake which is not too big (my cake did not reach the full height of the pan.). I wanted to test out the recipe on a smaller cake. You can double up the recipe for a 9 inch round cake.

In other random news, we will be beginning the new year in our new house. Some of you will remember that I had moved houses a while back. Well, a few things worked well..others did not. And then with children, priorities keep changing. So moving again! With bigger and more boxes. I don’t believe in 8 months I have acquired so much stuff (blame it on the blog). But I do look forward to moving right next to the harbour side. If you have visited Sydney, you would know that we have some very beautiful beaches and harbours. You know I’ve been meaning to share photographs with you but every time I intend to, I think twice. The blog has grown so much over the months and apart from my regular readers, there are a lot of people visiting the site in search of recipes who may not enjoy the additional content. I will probably figure out some other way.
I had a great time this weekend visiting a lavender farm nearby and spending the day with a wonderful elderly couple learning about different varieties of lavender and how they are grown. I hope to write about that once I develop a recipe around edible lavender.

And I had another feature on the Kitchn! So, you know why I am so critical of myself and my blog lately.

Spiced Orange Almond Cake
Makes a 8 inch bundt cake

For the Cake
125 ml (1/2 cup) freshly squeezed Orange juice
1 tbsp. finely grated orange zest
2/3 cup castor sugar
11/3 cup self-raising flour (11/3 cup plain flour + 1 tsp baking powder), sifted
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp powdered nutmeg
1/4 tsp powdered cinnamon
11/2 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
2 medium eggs
60 g unsalted butter, melted

For the Glaze
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease a 8 inch bundt cake pan. Place the sifted flour, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon together in a bowl and stir to mix. Keep aside.

In an electric mixer or with a hand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar till light and creamy. Fold in the flour mixture, ground almonds, orange juice, orange zest and melted butter until just combined and the mixture is smooth. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean and edges turn golden brown. Leave in the pan for 15 minutes and then turn the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely. Once cooled, pour over the glaze all over the cake.

To make the glaze, in a small mixing bowl whisk the sugar and orange juice together till smooth.