Tres Leche Cake With Whipped Cream and Fresh Fruit Topping

After going through a long-list of cake ideas, I decided that Tres Leche Cake is what we will all be sinking our tooth into on hubby's birthday. Since I was baking for a 12+ crowd, I wanted a fail-safe recipe. So I went surfing in Martha's website. I have tried many recipes from her site(Remember Italian Plum Cake? Eggless Pear-Upside Down Cake?) and they have all turned out splendid! So I was 100% sure that this cake would be a sucess too. Base recipe is from here.

A tip about making the Whipped Cream Topping: I read in some site that to make the best whipped cream, "all elements" have to be cold - This means the bowl, whisk besides the heavycream too. I stuck the bowl and whisk in the freezer for 5 minutes before I begun. Overwhipping will cause the heavy cream to seperate into butter and buttermilk. So keep a wary eye while the mixer is whipping away.

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 Cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 Cup/ 1 Stick Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 5 Eggs, at room temperature
• 1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 1-1/2 Cup Whole Milk
• 1/2 Can Evaporated Milk
• 1 Small Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

For the Whipped Cream and Fruits Topping:

• 2 Cups Cold Heavy Cream
• 6 Tbsp Confectioner's Sugar
• 1 Red Plum, thinly sliced
• 2 Ripe Kiwi, thinly sliced
• 1 Cup Blackberries
• 8-10 Strawberries, roughly sliced

Tool:

• 12" X 8" Oven-proof Pan

Procedure:

• Sift the flour, baking powder in a wide bowl. Mix in the salt. Using an electric mixer, whip the butter and sugar. Add the room temperature eggs one by one and mix at medium speed until the mixture is pale yellow.Add the sifted flour mixture in batches. Mix to incorporate. Do not overmix. 

•  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the rectangular pan with aluminum foil. Pour the batter and spread evenly. Bake for 30-32 minutes,rotating the dish half way through. 

• Once out of the oven, prick in several places with the tines of the fork.

•  Quickly mix the milk, evaporate milk and condensed milk. 

•  Pour over the still warm cake. Let it sit and soak for 2 hours.

• Meanwhile cut all the fruits.

• Make the Whipped Cream: Stick the electric whisk, stainless steel bowl in the freezer for 5 minutes.

• Add the cold heavy cream and confectioner's sugar. Start to whip at slow and then high. Keep a wary eye and do not over-whip. Once the heavy cream turns foamy and stiff peaks are formed, stop whipping. Over-whipping will cause it to turn to butter + Buttermilk. You get ~4 to 4-1/2 Cups whipped cream.

•  Scoop the whipped cream using a soft silicone spatula and spread it on the cake. 

• Remove the cake from the baking pan at this stage. The cake doesn't absorb all the milk-mixture.

• Decorate the top with fresh fruits. Cute and serve immediately and refrigerate the left-overs rightaway! Truly Scrumptious Scrumptious Scrumptious!

Enjoy! 
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Eggless Chocolate Cupcake With Creamcheese-Freeze Dried Blueberry Frosting

To all my readers from the USA, Happy 4th of July. I meant to post this a little early but I came home real late after taking my son out to the beach near my hometown for the fireworks display. It wasn't  large scale as the Macy's FOJ fireworks but nevertheless they were spectacular. Never seen so much crowd in one place. It took us almost 2 hours to come home when on any other day it would take us 7 minutes tops!! That is the magic of fireworks displays! :-)
Now onto the post-
The real reason I bought the freeze-dried blueberries last month was to make this unusual frosting that I came across in Week of Menus. Was waiting for a real occasion to make it. Then came hubby's birthday and I had in mind 2 treats -- this and a cake(post coming tomorrow).

Ingredients:
For the Chocolate Cupcake:

• 1 Recipe, from my previous post

For the Cream-cheese- Freeze dried Blueberries Frosting(Frosts ~9 to 12 Cupcakes):

• 6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, softened and at room temperature
• 1/2 pack/4 0z "1/3 Less Fat" Philadelphia Cream Cheese
• 2 to 2-1/2 Cups Confectioner's Sugar
• 6-7 Tbsp Pulverized Freeze-dried Blueberries, available at Trader Joe's
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Procedure:

• Make the chocolate cupcake and cool it completely.

• In an electric mixer, whip both the cream-cheese and butter. Add sugar in batches and slowly incorporate.

• Add the Vanilla extract and pulverized blueberries. Mix until the frosting reaches a piping consistency.If it get slightly gooey due to warm temperature, put it in the refrigerator for 3-5 minutes.

• Fill the piping bag, attached with Wilton's 32 Tip.

• Pipe over chocolate cupcakes.

Sending this and Blueberry-Banana Milkshake as an entry to the event AFAM-Blueberries hosted at Tamalapaku, started by Priya. Many thanks to Harini of Tamalapaku for extending the due date.

Enjoy! 
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Eggless Red Velvet Cupcake With CreamCheese Frosting

Red Velvet Cupcakes are a big fat challenge. No matter what I did they always used to turn up in unappealing color of rust brown. Perhaps it was my hesitancy to add so much color to a food even though it was edible coloring and all. This time though I put a plug to my squeamishness and added more coloring to the cupcake batter.They ended up looking almost like how a RVC should look like - Classy, Special and Red! Base recipe is from here. I made a few changes and made  it egg-less.

Ingredients(Makes 6 Cupcakes):

• 3/4 Cup All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (Do not use Dutch Cocoa)
• 1/3 Cup Sugar (Lightly powdered in a blender)
• 1/3 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 1/4 Cup Buttermilk
• 1/2 Tbsp Wilton's Liquid Red Food Coloring 
• 1 Tbsp Milk
• 1/3 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/8 Cup Applesauce
• 1/4 Tsp White Vinegar
• 1/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract

For the Cream-cheese Frosting (For ~8-10 Cupcakes):

• 4 Tbsp/1/2 Stick Unsalted  Butter, softened
• 1/2 Bar(4 oz) Cream-cheese (I used 1/3 Less Fat Philadelphia CC)
• 2 to 2-1/2 Cups Confectioner's Sugar
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Procedure:

• In a wide shallow bowl, add the buttermilk.

• Mix the red food coloring along with a tbsp of milk and add it to the bowl. Then add the remaining wet ingredients -- applesauce and vanilla extract to the bowl.

• Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda in another bowl. Add salt and incorporate. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix using a spatula only till combined.  Line a 6-Cup Muffin pan with wrappers.Divide the batter evenly amongst the 6 cups.

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake in the top rack anywhere from 18 to 22 minutes. Mine took only 18 minutes to bake until a tooth pick inserted in the middle came out clean. Cool completely prior to frosting.

• Make the Frosting: Whip the softened butter and cream-cheese for 3-4 minutes.

• Once well combined, add sugar in batches and the Vanilla extract too. The frosting should neither be too thick or too soft. 

• Once it reaches the piping consistency, spoon the frosting into the piping bag that is attached to Wilton's 2D tip.

• Pipe over the cupcakes. Garnish with a few crumbs, entirely optional. Keep it in the refrigerator and remove it 5 minutes prior to serving.

Enjoy! 
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Eggless Dry Fruit And Nut Cake, for Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all "Mommy" Readers!  How are you?  I am fine, thank you! Enjoy your day!
A lovely Poem honoring all moms --

More Than A Mother 
When God set the world in place,
when He hung the stars up in space,
when He made the land and the sea,
then He made you and me.

He sat back and saw all that was good,
He saw things to be as they should.
Just one more blessing He had in store;
He created a mother, but whatever for?

He knew a mother would have a special place
to shine His reflection on her child's face.
A mother will walk the extra mile
just to see her children smile.
She'll work her fingers to the bone
to make a house into a home.

A mother never pokes or pries
but stands quietly by your side,
giving you the strength you need,
encouraging you to succeed.

A mother is one who listens well,
will keep her word; will never tell.
~ Kari Keshmiry

My Mother's Day kick started on Friday morning with me having food with my kid in his classroom. I got my first gift, a potted chrysanthemum from my darling son who is asking me when it is going to bloom. With my black thumb, the opposite of a green thumb, I couldn't promise him anything. I keep reminding myself that I need to water the plant and that is a start. Anything to see my kid happy.

Today morning, as I was giving him breakfast, I almost told him that I would take a bullet for him. But since he is too young to understand I said, " Baby, I would walk upside down for you". He was like, Mommy you can't..cause your head doesn't have feet. Totally cracked me up! Man, I love listening to his childish wise-cracks. Being Aran's mom totally rocks!

This cake is for my mom, a wonderful lady who gave me the gift of life and more. Being a vegetarian, she loves all my egg-less bakes. Recipe adapted from Divine Taste. I don't have the 8" deep pan that the original recipe calls for but I do have a 7" pan. So taking cue from Gayathri's CookSpot,  I used a 7" deep cake pan and two 7oz fluted ramekins for the remaining batter.This fruit and nut rich cake doesn't have to be restricted to holiday season alone. It is a phenomenal cake and can be made round the year. The last time I made this cake, I had friends over and I didn't get a chance to take clicks of the big cake. 95% of it was gone the same day it was made. So the cross-sectional view is from those teeny heart-shape cakes. Look how moist and densely packed it is.. Umm, delicious! I will update the post with more pictures the next time I make the cake. 

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp Melted butter, for greasing the pan
• 2 Cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 Tsp Baking powder
• 1/4  + 1/4 Tsp Baking soda
• 3-1/2 Cups Mixed Dry Fruit ( 1 Cup Tunisian Dates + 1 Cup Raisin-Craisin + 1 Cup dried California "Mission" figs + 1/2 Cup dried Turkish Apricots)
• 1/2 Cup Mixed Nuts - Almonds, Walnuts, Pistachios, Pecans (your choice. I used walnuts and pistachios)
• 1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar, packed
• 1 Stick Butter (1/2 Cup)
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil 
• 1 Tbsp Maple Syrup or Date Syrup ( I used Vermont Pure Maple Syrup)
• Finely Grated Zest from a Florida Navel Orange
• 1 Cup Water
• 2 Tbsp Yogurt
• 1-1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 3/4 Tsp Allspice Powder
• 1 Cup Smoothly Mashed Potato ( I used 1 Medium Sweet Potato + 1 Medium Yukon Gold Potato)
• 40 Blanched Almonds, for garnish

Tools:

• 8" Round Deep Cake Pan Or 7" Deep Round Cake Pan + 2 7-0z fluted heart shaped  ramekins

Procedure:

• Gather all the dried fruits. Sift the flour, baking powder and 1/4 Tsp baking soda twice to combine uniformly. 

• Finely chop the dates, figs and apricots. Add them and the raisin-craisin mixture to the sauce pan.

• To the sauce pan, add the brown sugar, butter, olive oil, maple syrup,water and heat slowly on low heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat to medium and allow the mixture to come to a boil, reduce the heat and then simmer for 20 minutes on low heat. Remove the sauce pan from the heat, mix in the  1 tsp baking soda and allow to cool.

• Boil the potato and sweet potato until it is fork tender. Toast the nuts and finely chop it.

• Mash the potato and sweet potato using a ricer.

• Combine mashed potato, yogurt, grated orange zest, vanilla extract and allspice.

• Incorporate the mashed potato mixture to the cooled fruit mixture.

• Stir in the flour mixture in batches. Fold the toasted chopped nuts. The batter will be sticky and dense.

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees C. Spoon the batter into an 8" round cake pan and arrange the blanched almonds decoratively over the top. Cover the top with an aluminum foil and bake the cake anywhere from 1-1/2 hours to 2 hours.Important: Check periodically after 90 minutes.  If using 7" cake pan, the baking time will be slightly less. I used 7" cake pan and 2 7 oz heart shaped ramekins. The ramekin cakes baked much quicker.

• The cake flavor intensifies over time.

Enjoy!

A similar cake with dried fruit: Eggless Tunisian Date Cake

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Fabulous Meatball Sliders With Avocado Berry Salad

Day7: This is sort of a spin-off from my previous posts. Combined 2 recipes to make one brand spanking new dish. We at home truly enjoyed these bite-site sliders to the fullest with the avocado-berry salad on the side.

Here is a round-up of all the fermented foods I made this week-

• Day1: Steamed Rice Cakes "Idli" With Red Chutney(Spicy Onion Chutney) & Green Chutney (Refreshing Mint Cilantro Chutney)
• Day2: Eggless "Yeast-Raised" Pancakes With Plum-Strawberry Compote
• Day3: Buttery "Parker House Rolls"
• Day4: Healthy Oven-baked "Fried Idli" With Julienned Veggies
• Day5: Whole-Wheat Sesame Buns With Spinach-SweetPotato-Cabbage-Peas Stuffing
• Day6: Pita Bread(With Pockets) & Falafel, Guacamole Stuffing

#7 in my LustList: Antique Style Fine Jewellery: When it comes to Jewellery Less is NOT more.
1.Long Pearl and Ruby Necklace worn by the gorgeous Actress Deepika Padukone.

2. Kundan Style Choker Necklace worn by actress Sonam Kapoor.

Now onto the recipe-
Ingredients:

• 8 Homemade Slider Buns
• 8 Meatballs of choice from here, here or here
• 1/4 Cup Shredded Cheddar cheese

For the Avocado-Berry Salad:

• 2 Cups Mixed Greens
• 1/4 Cup Chopped Strawberry
• 1/4 Cup Chopped Avocado
• 1-1/2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 1-1/2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• A few grinds of Black Pepper
• Salt as needed

Procedure:

• Make the Slider buns

• Make the meatballs.

• Sprinkle about 1/2 Tbsp of shredded cheddar cheese on top of each meatballs. 

• Make the salad: Whisk Oil, lemon juice, ground pepper and salt in a wide bowl

• Wash the greens and remove the excess water by using a salad spinner. Throw the greens, chopped berries and avocado and toss gently.

• Set the salad aside.

• Microwave the meatballs for a minute or until the cheese melts slightly.

• Place the meatballs in between the cut slider buns. Insert toothpicks. Move to plate and eat it with the salad and orange juice.

• Now take a bite out of these fabulous meatball slider. Oh, Yum!

Vegetarian Option: Beet Sliders

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Enjoy!

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