Eggless Black Forest Cake - Step by step Pictorial

Dear All,

Today I am going share a tutorial with you for baking an eggless black forest cake with step by step instructions. Hope this is helpful to all who are scared of baking cakes and will find courage and encouragement from this post to bake one successfully! I bakes this cake for my dad's 60th birthday for which we gave him a surprise birthday party :) The cake came out beautiful and was loved by everyone! It was moist and delicious!  

I have just adapted the recipe which I used here in my earlier Eggless Chocolate Cake.

Now lets get started with the procedure without any further delays!

Ingredients For Cake:-

225 gms all purpose flour ie maida

1/2 cup unsalted butter ie 110 gms

4 tbsp of cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tin sweetened condensed milk ie 400 gms

2 tsp of vanilla essence or seeds from 1 vanilla bean scrapped

200 ml coke or pepsi

Ingredients For Icing:-

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup or more chocolate curls or shavings

1/2 cup cherries, remove the seeds and slice it in half

For sugar syrup - Mix 4 to 5 tbsp of sugar in half cup of water.

Procedure:-

• Grease and flour a 9 inch square baking pan, preheat the oven at 190 degrees C.

• Measure all the dry ingredients ie flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder.

• Sieve the dry ingredients.

• Melt the butter in microwave and cool it completely.

• Beat together condensed milk and butter until its light and cream.

• Add in your vanilla essence or scrapped vanilla beans which I have used.

• Beat it together until its well mixed.

• Now start adding the dry ingredients along with little coke at a time and beat slowly, follow this until all the dry ingredients is well blended and you get a uniform batter.

• This is how your final batter will look like.

• Pour the batter in the prepared baking tin and bake for 35 to 40 mins until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Your final baked cake will look something like this :)

• Once its baked..remove from oven and cool it completely before inverting.

• Now lets prepare the icing for the cake, take 1 cup of heavy whipping cream and beat it on high for 8 to 10 mins until its stiff enough and hold its shape. To make sure if the cream is ready it should give peaks.

• Cut the cake from middle and divide into two and moisturize it using the sugar syrup we made earlier.This will help to keep the sponge moist and soft.

• Spread an even layer of fresh cream icing, top it with dark chocolate curls and cherries.

• Again top it with fresh cream, this will make sure your filling is in place.

• After topping with cream it will look something like below.

• Place the other half layer of cake carefully on the top and start covering the sides and top of the cake with the remaining icing. Before covering the sides of the cake do not forget to moisturize the top using the sugar syrup. Drizzle some syrup on top using spoon.

• Try to cover the sides and top as evenly as possible, don't worry too much if its uneven as anyways we will be covering it up with chocolates and cherries.

• For the sides you can simple sprinkle some chocolate curls or chocolate sprinkles but I have made a border out of melted chocolate and stuck the same on all four sides.

• Finally decorate the top of the cake with lots of chocolate curls and cherries, this decoration can be as you like, let you imagination play wild. I have kept it simple here.

Hope you all enjoyed the tutorial and do let me know if you have any other requests for tutorial and I will try post the same.

Love,

Methi Malai Mutter Revisited

Dear All,

I am back with another one of my favorite recipes ie Methi Malai Mutter! I have learnt this recipe from my mom who obviously is the best cook in the world (as per me all the moms are the best cook!!!) The recipe is absolutely simple and can be made within 20 mins..yes you heard it right...provided you have all the stuff handy :D

When I was in Switzerland I used to make this often as with frozen methi leaves and peas available making this is a breeze. Here in India it will take little time and effort to clean the methi leaves but its totally worth it! Also usually I make this recipe using cashew nuts but this time I tried with skinned almonds and was totally delighted with the outcome! Please check out my recipe of Panner Methi Malai Mutter here which I made using cashew nuts. Using almonds makes this dish very rich , creamy and nuttier! So without any further delays lets go ahead with the recipe.

Methi Malai Mutter
Serves - 4

Ingredients:

1 cup washed and finely cut Methi (Fenugreek leaves)
1 cup green peas (I used frozen)
3-4 tbsp fresh cream or Malai
1 tsp salt or according to your taste
1-2 tsp sugar (reqd to balance the bitterness of methi)

1 pinch baking soda (Optional)

Ingredients for gravy:

100 gms almonds skinned

2 large onions cut into 4 pieces each

2-3 green chillies

1 tsp ginger paste

Ingredients for tempering:

2 tbsp oil

1 pinch asafoetida
2 Bay Leaf

Procedure:

• Blend onions, almonds, green chillies and ginger paste along with little water in mixer grinder into a fine paste.
• Heat oil in seperate pan, add asafoetida and bay leaf and let it sizzle for few seconds then add the cashewnuts and onion gravy and cook it for few minutes until the raw onion taste disappears. It iwll take about 3 to 4 mins.
• Add methi (fenugreek leaves), mutter (green peas), salt, sugar(sugar is basically added to remove the bitterness of Methi) and little baking soda and cook for about 15 to 20 mins on slow heat, until peas and methi are completely cooked. If the gravy becomes too thick add 1 to 2 spoons of water in the middle. You can add salt and sugar more according to your taste.
• Add fresh cream and mix well, turn the gas off and let it stand for few mins.
• Garnish with fresh cream and enjoy this rich dish with Nan or Parathas.

Hope you all enjoyed this recipe and please do let me know your views as well!
Till next time..cia!