Death by Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache

To me Barista's Death by chocolate cake is absolute bliss :). Inspite of not having a sweet tooth at all, I crave for this all the time. During my initial pre/post wedding days, me and S frequented this place often and it was during one of those visits S ordered this cake and I have been hooked to it since then.  After relocating to the US I never could find its replacement. I have spent so much time on yelp trying to find bakeries and pastry shops which would make something similar, but no luck there :/.

After a lot of contemplation I decided to make the cake myself for S's birthday and Laura Vitales "Devils chocolate cake" did the trick. It seemed to be the exact same replica of the Death by Chocolate cake. When you make this cake I would highly suggest you to blind yourself to the sin laden calories that you will be putting on :). Dont tell me I dint warn you, you wont be able to stop with just one piece of this chocolate rich pastry. The best part is this cake stays well for 4-5 days at room temperature when stored in an air-tight container. One week of happy dessert time I promise ;).

Ingredients

Serves 10 to 12
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 35 mins

For the Ganache:
1 cup of Heavy Cream
9 oz bag of Semisweet Chocolate Chips

For the Cake Batter:
2-1/4 cups of All Purpose Flour
3/4 cups of Cocoa Powder
1 tsp of Salt
1 tsp of Baking Powder
2 tsp of Baking Soda
2 cups of Granulated Sugar
1 cup of water
1 cup of Unsalted Butter, softened at room temperature
1 Tbsp of Instant Coffee Granuals
3 Eggs
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
1/3 cup of Milk

How do you do it

1. Add the cream to a pan and heat it and bring it to a simmer. [Do not boil, just bring it to a simmmer]

2) Pour the cream over the semi-sweet chocolate chips and allow it to sit for a few minutes untouched. Whisk together well until you get a creamy mixture, cover and set aside for a couple hours. The frosting will set during this time.

3) To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, spray 2 9” round cake pans with non stick spray and lay the bottom with parchment paper and set aside.

4) In a saucepan, add the water, instant coffee and milk, bring to a simmer and turn off the heat. Set aside to cool slightly.

5) In the bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the eggs and vanilla and continue to mix until well combined.

6) Add half of the dry ingredients along with half of the milk and water mixture and mix that in, add the remaining half of the dry ingredients and milk mixture and mix just until incorporated.

7) Divide your batter evenly in the prepared pans, tap the pans on the counter just to get rid of any air bubbles.

8) Bake the cakes for 30 to 35 minutes or until cooked through. Allow to cool slightly in the pans, remove the cake from the pans and cool completely on wire racks, a couple of hours.

9) When ready to frost the cake, place one of the cakes upside down on the cake stand/plate and spread 1/4 of the chocolate mixture all over the surface of the cake.

10) Place the other cake on top (this time top side up) and spread remaining chocolate mixture all over the top and sides of the cake.

You can decorate the cake with some almond crunches and a strawberry/cherry on top.

Serving tip: Cut a piece and warm for 10-15 sec in the microwave before you eat, absolute heaven :).

Notes

1. It is important to not over-heat the cream, because if you do the consistency of the ganache will go wrong and the frosting wouldn't set.

2. Completely cool the cakes and frosting before setting the cake.
 

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Blueberry muffins with Lemon zest

Right from the time I started baking muffins, i have been looking for fresh blueberries everywhere.Blueberries are such a rarity here in India. In-fact I have never seen them before, even in those specialty stores. But I guess it makes sense not to import them , nobody would buy them, they cost a bomb here. I have made these blueberry muffins once, a couple of years back for a family get together using dry blueberries, this time was a repeat of the same recipe but with FRESH blueberries. All the way from Netherlands :-) .

Every time I shop at Godrej Natures basket, I am like a kid in a candy store, wanting to just take it all in, trying to look at so many racks all at the same time! :D. So many ingredients I have heard/seen in cooking shows but haven't had the chance to explore yet!  This time when I went in , they had a huge board saying the exotic fruits like blueberries/passion/peaches were available and the joy that bought me, ah!!. Immediately without a second thought I picked up the only box of blueberries left and continued shopping debating all the time if I should leave the box back. Four hundred forty Rs for 150 gm of blueberries was oh so too much!. S convinced me that I should buy it and the blueberries came home with me. :) After I baked the muffins and tasted them I would definitely have to say Paisa Vasool ;). They were brilliant, soft/moist muffins with the sweet-sour blueberries bursting in your mouth every bite. Heaven!

Blueberry muffins

Ingredients

Serves - makes 9 muffins
Prep Time - 15 min
Cook time - 30 min

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 + 1/4 tsp
Baking powder - 1 + 1/4 tsp
Unsalted Butter - 90gm [ room temperature]
Castor Sugar - 3/4 cup
Sour milk/Buttermilk - 1/2 cup [at room temp]
Vanilla - 1 Tsp
Lemon zest - of one lemon
Fresh blueberries - 3/4 cup
Eggs - 2 [ at room temp]
Normal sugar -  2 Tbsp

How do you do it.

Mix the flour,salt and baking powder well sift/sieve it once and keep aside. Take 2 Tbsp of the sifted flour and add it to the blueberries and toss it so that they get wrapped in flour. This is to prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffin while baking.

Pre-heat oven to 180 deg C. Line the muffin tray with muffin liners.

Cream the butter and castor sugar together until smooth and creamy. Break in the eggs and mix until its incorporated well with butter-sugar.Add the vanilla essence, lemon zest ,sour milk  and mix until you get a smooth/creamy mix. Now add in the flour fully and mix gently until the flour is fully mixed. DO NOT OVER-MIX. Over-mixing will ruin the muffins. It should take you 10-12 strokes to fully mix the flour. Then fold in the blueberries with this batter , take care not to mash it.

Scoop this batter and fill each muffin cup with the batter such that its 3/4 full. Use the normal sugar and sprinkle on top of each muffin. This gives  a nice crunch to the muffins. Bake at 180 deg C for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean. Grill for 3-4 min at 180 deg C to get the golden browning on top.

Once done, remove the tray out of the oven. Cool it on a wire rack for about 15-20 minutes. Enjoy with a hot cup of cappuccino. :)

Notes

1. Do not over-mix the batter. Over-mixing will cause the muffins to be hard.

2. Always use muffin liners , you don't have to grease the muffin tray in this case. And they come out of the pan without any drama. Much easier.

3. Fill up-to 3/4 [recommended] , if you fill them up-to the brim, they might peak and you might get flying saucer like muffin tops which we don't want. Some like the head to be really jumbo, if thats the case, you can fill them up-to the full level.


4. Always start with ingredients at room temperature.

 

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Orange Zest Buttermilk cake with Chocolate frosting

We had a lovely weekend celebrating S's birthday in Lonavala.Both of us were a little sick , with cough/cold etc, nevertheless it was an enjoyable two days. And whats a birthday without some lovely cake. ;).

S loves orange and I chose to make an orange cake for this birthday. It came out super yum and looked absolutely delicious. :) . This orange cake is quite soft and moist since it has buttermilk in it,the orange taste comes along with every bite as Raaga rightly said so in her post.And the chocolate frosting complements the citrus taste quite well.

Orange Zest Cake with Chocolate frosting

Ingredients

Adapted from Singing Chef

Serves - 8 large pieces
Prep Time - 20 minutes
Cook time - 1 Hour

All purpose flour - 1.5 cups
Unsalted Butter - 1/2 cup [room temperature]
Castor Sugar - 1 cup
Eggs - 2 [room temperature]
Baking powder - 1/2 Tsp
Baking soda - 1/4 Tsp
Salt - 1/2 Tsp
Buttermilk - 100 ml
Vanilla extract - 1 Tsp
Orange juice - extracted from 1 orange
Orange zest - from 1 orange
Orange food color - 1 Tspn

For chocolate frosting

Dark Chocolate - 1/4 cup
Butter - 2 Tbsp
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Milk - 1/4 cup.
Coarsely powdered almonds - 2 Tbsp For decoration

Method

How to make Buttermilk

Take a cup and add a 1 Tbsp white vinegar and fill the cup till the top with room temperature milk . Keep aside for 5-10 minutes. The milk will curdle,give it a stir now.Your buttermilk is ready.You can use as much as needed as per the recipe.

Cake

Preheat oven to 180 deg C and line/grease a 10 inch round tin. I use butter paper to cover the bottom of the cake pan and spray on top of it with non-stick cooking spray

Sift all the dry ingredients - flour,salt,baking powder, baking soda. Set aside.

In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar well.Add one egg at a time and beat well after each addition.Add the buttermilk and vanilla extract and combine well again.Add orange juice and zest and give it a stir. Add the sifted dry ingredients gradually little by little along with orange food color and combine well.

Pour the prepared cake mix into the prepared cake tin and bake at 180 deg C for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean.You can then grill the cake for 3-5 minutes at 180 deg C to get the browning on top of the cake if you prefer to.

Cool the cake for 20 minutes before removing it out of the pan. Cool completely before pouring frosting on top of the cake.

Chocolate frosting

You need to use a double boiler method for this.In this method, you don't melt the chocolate directly. Pour a few inches of water into a large saucepan and place a smaller saucepan so that it’s base sits in the water. Put the dark chocolate in the smaller saucepan and bring the water to a low boil.Once the chocolate starts to melt, add in butter, milk and sugar and keep stirring until everything combines well.The mixture will start to froth up and thicken at one point, that's when you switch off the flame.Let it cool for 15-20 minutes.

Once the cake and frosting have cooled down, pour the frosting on top of the cake. Chop up some almonds coarsely and decorate the cake by putting some on the top of the cake.



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Eggless Dates cake

The moment I saw Lavi's post on Egg-less dates cake and how it tastes like adhirisam , I wanted to try it as S likes adhirisam a lot. I made this as a surprise cake when S returned home after a business trip overseas. I never mentioned to him about it being a "dates" cake. I was sure he would decide it wouldn't taste good even before eating a tiny piece of it. :).

He liked the cake and confirmed it indeed did taste a little like adhirisam and only later i revealed it was a dates cake. So something healthy in a cake. ;)

Eggless Dates Cake

Ingredients

Recipe Source - Home cook recipes

Serves - One eight inch square cake , 8-10 medium sized pieces
Prep time - 20 minutes
Cooking/Baking time - 30-40 minutes

Seedless Dates - 18
Milk - 3/4 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
All Purpose flour - 1 cup
Oil - 1/2 cup [Rice bran or any odorless neutral oil]
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Cashews, Badam [chopped] and raisins - 1/3 cup

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 deg C. Spray an 8 inch square cake pan with non-stick cooking spray and line with butter paper.

Boil the milk first and keep aside. When the milk is warm, add in the dates and let them soak in it for 2 hours. Now pour this in your mixer/blender jar along with sugar and blend it to a smooth paste.Add oil and blend again. Pour this filling into a large bowl now.

Mix the flour and baking soda together. Take a tbsp of the this flour and mix with 1/3 cup of badam,cashews and raisins and keep aside. This will prevent the dry fruits from sinking to the bottom of the cake.

Now add the flour into the blended milk-dates-sugar-oil gradually a tablespoon by tablespoon. Do not add large quantities of flour and try to mix them, it would create a lot of lumps. Once the flour has been fully mixed , add the badam,cashews and raisins and mix well.

Now pour this mix into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 170 deg C or until a toothpick inserted through the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool down for 10-15 minutes and then remove it out of the pan.Cut into different slices and hog. :). Once cooled down completely store the remaining in an air-tight box and refrigerate . We enjoyed it as our breakfast for 3 days. :)

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or with a cup of tea/coffee.



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Walnut Jam Lemon-zest Muffins

It has been a long time since I baked, and this walnut jam muffin has been on my mind for quite some time. Since we don't get fresh blueberries in India, the bakeries here use a blueberry preserve , or a blueberry shot. I love how these blueberry muffins when you take a bite into it, the jam just bursts into your mouth. :). Heaven!

I dint have blueberry jam, hence used the regular mixed fruit jam, along with some walnuts to make this. It worked out fine, S loved it and finished almost all the muffins I baked in a couple of days.Yes , in my home if you don't eat cookies/chocolates/pastries or must I say "anything sweet" fast, you just don't eat them at all  ;) .  Lucky for S, that I don't have much of a sweet tooth. :)

This recipe was also inspired after looking into William Sonomas Hazelnut-Strawberry jam muffins.
My friend N who blogs here [BTW you get some super baking recipes from her] introduced me to his recipes and they are awesome. :).

 Walnut Jam Muffins

 
Ingredients


Serves - makes about 10 muffins


 All Purpose flour - 1.5 cups
 Castor sugar, white - 1/2 cup
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup butter milk
1 egg at room temp
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 Tsp of Kissan mixed fruit jam / muffin
1 Tbsp Lemon zest

Method

Preheat you oven to 180 deg C for 10 minutes. Line a muffin tray with muffin liners and keep aside.

Mix all the dry ingredients except sugar - flour, baking powder, baking soda,salt in bowl and give it a stir with a spatula. Take 2 tbspn of this flour and mix well the chopped walnuts. The walnuts are floured this way to make sure they spread evenly across the muffins and prevent from sinking to the bottom of the muffin.

Cream [mix with a spatula] the butter and sugar in a bowl until you get a creamy texture . Add egg, and mix well.Now add in the vanilla extract and stir. Add in the buttermilk and flour alternately and mix with the liquids, mix until the flour is moistened with the liquids. Don't over-mix. Add in chopped walnuts and lemon zest and give a quick stir.

Now spoon the muffin mixture and drop until 3/4 of the muffin liner is full. Drop a tsp of jam into the center of the mixture and poke it with the back of a spoon until the jam color just peeks from inside. Fill all the muffins this way. Bake at 180 deg C for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into the center of the muffin.Once the muffins are done, get  the top rod alone of the oven heated [grill mode] and let it be for 3-5 minutes until the top of the muffin slightly browns.

Once done, cool the muffins in a wire rack for 30 minutes and then start gobbling. ;)



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Banana Bread

I had 4 really ripe bananas which i needed to finish off and that was enough motivation to try the banana bread . This is the first loaf that i did try to bake. Turned out fine :).

Banana Bread

Ingredients

Ripe Bananas - 4, mashed well.
Flour - 1 + 3/4 cup
Granulated Sugar - 1 cup
Butter at room temperature- 120gm
Cinnamon - 1/2 Tspn
Baking soda - 1 tspn
Baking powder - 1 Tspn
Salt - 1 Tspn
Eggs -2
vanilla Extract - 1 tspn
Milk - 2 Tbspn

Method

Preheat the oven to 175 deg C for 10 minutes.Prepare a 9*5 loaf pan for baking.I usually use a non-stick cooking spray to spray the pan, line it with parchment paper and spray again with non-stick cooking spray.

Meanwhile prepare the cake mix as below.

Cream the butter and sugar and whisk till you get a smooth mix. Break in the eggs one by one, add mashed bananas and vanilla extract. Mix till all of them combine well.Now add in the flour,baking soda,baking powder, cinnamon,salt and milk. Mix well till all of the ingredients come together.

Pour the cake mix into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes to one hour at 175 deg C. At the 50th minute, insert a tooth-pick into the center of the loaf and if it comes out clean , its done, else bake for 10 more minutes.

Once the cake is done, cool it for 20 - 30 minutes, before you slice them. Don't be impatient, if you try
to slice them when its hot, it will crumble. I cooled it for 30 minutes, and put it in the fridge over-night.It sliced like a charm the next day.

Note: I used 165 deg C for 1 hour as my oven heats up quite quickly, so adjust your oven temperature accordingly.


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Carrot cake with Cream-Cheese Frosting

I have known this recipe for long now, but never got around to do it. The time seemed apt today as I wanted to clear up the carrots in my fridge and some remaining cream cheese. :). So its almost like the carrots and cream cheese wanted to be made into a cake. :)

Carrot Cake with Cream-Cheese frosting

Ingredients

Cake recipe adapted from - Laura in the Kitchen

For the cake 

Shredded Carrot - 1.5 cups
All Purpose Flour - 1  and 3/4 cups
Chopped almonds - 3 Tbspn
Raisins - 2 Tbspn
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
Baking soda - 1 tspn
Cinnamon - 2tspn
Salt - 1/2tspn
Vegetable oil - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Vanilla extract - 1Tbspn
Grated orange zest - 1Tspn

For the Frosting

Cream cheese - 100 gms
Unsalted Butter - 1/4 cup
Powdered Sugar - 1/2 cup
Water -1 Tbspn
Vanilla essence - 1 tspn

Method

Preheat your oven at 170 deg C and get that out of the way.Spray an 8 inch square baking pan with non-stick cooking spray and line it with parchment/butter paper.Or prepare the baking tray as you usually do while you bake.

In a bowl, toss the shredded carrots, almonds, raisins and 2Tbspn of all purpose flour and mix well with a spoon. Keep aside. This step will prevent the carrots and raisins from sinking to the bottom of the cake while baking.

Now in another large bowl, add sugar,brown sugar and oil. Mix well. Now break in the eggs into them, add vanilla extract and mix well. Now add all the dry ingredients one by one into the bowl,and also add in the shredded carrots/almonds/raisins as well.Mix with a spatula till everything comes together.Pour the mix into the prepared baking tray and even-out the top layer well with a spatula. Bake at 170 deg C for 20 mins. The original recipe called for 176 deg C for 30 min. But my oven heats up pretty quickly and this temperature and baking time worked for me. So if you know your oven , adjust the temperature and timing accordingly.

How to prepare frosting

Make sure the butter and cream cheese are in room temperature.Mix all the ingredients for the frosting till you get a nice smooth creamy texture, add a tbspn of water if needed. You must be able to easily spread the frosting on top of the cake.

After the cake is done [test it by inserting a tooth-pick into the centre of the cake and until it comes out clean], cool it for 30-40 minutes.Once the cake is completely cooled, apply the frosting on top of it. Leave it on for 15-20 minutes till the frosting sets.

Cut a piece of cake and enjoy it along with a cup of hot tea. :)

 
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