Chocolate cake with Nutella Icing

Today is Potluck Lunch day at work. A group of people in the team cook and bring a dish to share with the whole team. Everyone takes turns, so those that cooked this round need not cook in the next rounds until its their turn again. I'm in today's round and I've bought Pork ularthiyathu and Moru Kachiyathu. Someone bought in the rice (I hope!).

Yes, I thought I'd go traditional here rather than making pasta or a curry that everyone would normally have. The people in my team are foodies and love to taste new cuisines. Everyday at lunch they pretty much drool over my tiffin and so I thought I'd give them a taste of some real  South Indian food. But I'll let you in on a secret, the pork ularthiyathu was cooked by Renju, not me! He likes to cook especially meat. Pork is one of Renju's specialties (even though I initially taught him! ;)). So looking forward to lunch today to see what they think of our cuisine.

I am so enjoying my new job much more than I thought I would. The work environment is great and the people are too! Don't get me wrong the people at my previous company were awesome too, lovely people and I've made some friends for life, but not everyone was as friendly and welcoming  like the people at the new place. So I'm glad I decided to make the move. Phew! :)

Ok, that's enough of rambling for now, let's get on with it. I was browsing through my recipes and wondering what to blog about and realized I hadn't shared the recipe for the  layered chocolate cake I made for Chackochi's birthday. Oh, that cake was my pride and joy, how could I have forgotten about it!

Again, this recipe is from Marias Menu and haven't changed anything except left out the hazelnut praline in mine as kids were eating it.  It a delicious, decadent and rich cake for sure. Definitely a cake for special occasions. Unfortunately like the Ultra moist cake, I don't have a picture of a slice so you can see the inside of the cake. It just all disappeared too fast! Maybe next time (and you can be sure there'll definitely be a next time!)
Isn’t the little banner cute?  It’s just a couple of bamboo skewers with baker’s twine and some card stock diamonds.  More fun than candles, I think!

Chocolate cake with Nutella Icing
Recipe Source : Marias Menu

Cake:
Ingredients
Plain Flour  – 2 cups
Cocoa Powder – ½ cups
Baking Soda – 1 ½ teaspoon
Salt – ½ teaspoons
Butter – 115 grams
Sugar – 1 cup
Brown Sugar – 1 cup packed
Eggs – 2, at room temp
Vanilla Essence – 2 teaspoons
Lukewarm Water – 1 cup
Buttermilk – ½ cups (refer notes for substitute)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease your 2, 8 inch  cake tins well and dust with flour or cocoa powder. 
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
3.  In another bowl, beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with water and buttermilk, beating on low speed until just combined. Mix on medium-high speed until no traces of flour remain,  for about 30 seconds; do not over beat.
4. Divide the batter evenly into 2 round pans. Bake for about 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Nutella Butter cream Icing
Ingredients
Unsalted butter – 250 gms, softened
Nutella – 440 gms
Icing sugar –  2 cups
Milk – 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Beat butter until smooth. Add Nutella and beat together until thoroughly combined. Slowly add icing sugar, mixing until combined. Add 1 tablespoon of milk. Add additional milk or icing sugar as needed to reach desired consistency.

Assembling the Cake:

1. Place bottom layer of cake on a cake board or a plate.
2. Spoon approximately 3/4 cup of frosting on to cake. Using an offset spatula, spread to 1/2 inch thickness.
3. Add top layer of cake. Spoon approximately 2 cups of frosting on top layer, and slowly work frosting over top and down the sides of the cake to form a crumb coat.
4. Smooth frosting to desired thickness, completely covering the cake. Don't worry if you can see chocolate crumbs in this layer of frosting, we'll cover them in the next step.
5. Allow frosting to harden in refrigerator for 15 minutes.
6. Using remaining frosting, evenly spread frosting over the entire crumb cake.
7. Garnish as desired, and enjoy!

Notes:

1 cup buttermilk = 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar + enough milk to make 1 cup. Let stand for 5 minutes

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Simple Banana Cake

Since making Lucas’ birthday cake I've been more and more interested in baking cakes. I've got one of my kitchen drawers filled with cake recipes I've wanted to try like forever and I've slowly started choosing one recipe for each week and make it my top priority on a Sunday morning. Another reason for doing this is to try and decide on a cake flavor for Kochu’s upcoming birthday. So I’ll try the different cakes and see which one he likes best. So far the banana cake seems to be the top contestant.

And so we come to today’s recipe.  When you go to the effort of baking a cake, especially if you're not a regular baker, like me, it’s only natural to want to start with the best recipe out there. I searched for the best banana cake recipe and this one stood out from the crowd. It’s an Annabel Langbein recipe. She is pretty much Nigella Lawson of New Zealand, so I trusted her when she said this was the Best ever Banana Cake recipe. And after trying out the cake, I will say this much, it was damn good. I haven't tried many other banana cake recipes to compare it with but I'd say this one would be a hard one to beat!

This cake is just simply delicious and moist. According to Annabel, the secret to a great banana cake is sweet, ripe bananas – the sugar content increases as they ripen, making them sweeter, and of course they are softer and easier to mash so they break down more easily in the cake batter. This is a great way of using up those brown bananas instead of throwing them out. Don’t just take my word for it, go ahead and give this recipe a try and tell me it isn't the best banana cake ever!

Simple Banana Cake
Recipe Source: Anabel Langbein 

Ingredients
250g butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 very ripe bananas, peeled and mashed (about 2 cups)
2 tsp baking soda
½ cup hot milk
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease and flour dust your  9inch cake tin. I used my silicon bundt pan for this.
2. Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla and bananas.
3. Dissolve baking soda in hot milk, add to mixture and stir to combine.
4. Sift in flour and baking powder and fold gently into mixture using a big spoon and a large scooping action to keep the mixture light. Do not over mix.
5. Spoon mixture into prepared tin and smooth top. Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is springy to the touch. Mine was ready in about 50 minutes, but i got distracted and left it in for about 60 minutes! Oops! :) It was a tad bit overdone as you can see in the pics but still tasted awesome.

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Lucas (Chackochi) Turns One!

A few months before the party, I started browsing Pinterest for ideas for first birthday themes for boys. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do as Chackochi still hadn't really shown much affinity for any thing but Me!!! :)
And while browsing I came across pictures of rainbow themed parties and immediately I was sold. I loved the impact the vibrant colors have and how cheerful and happy everything looked!

The ideas were limitless and the more I looked, the more I wanted to bring to our party. But time was of the essence and I had to limit myself to a few good ideas as I didn't want to get overwhelmed and stressed. One thing I realized browsing through countless rainbow party pics was that it was very easy to go over the top with this theme. I wanted to style the party such that we still had all the bright colors but without  it all seeming chaotic. Now there's a challenge! :)

The cake was the highlight of the party! I absolutely adored how the cake turned out and special thanks to Sugar Baby Cakery for the awesome cake. The bottom tier was banana cake with milk chocolate buttercream icing and the top tier was chocolate cake with white chocolate buttercream icing. Yum!

The backdrop was balloons in the rainbow colors. Lots of lungs involved there, I must say. :)

I wanted the cake table to be eye catching but not so much that the decorations took away from the cake. So I decided to go with a simple decoration of mason jars with colored water and white flowers. If you put the flowers in the colored water the day before, as the flowers drink the water it will change the white flower into whatever color the water is. I didn't want this to happen, so I got my jars ready the night before, but I put the flowers in only that morning. I also got some matching colored napkins and put them beside the flowers.

The balloons became a bit deflated by the time of the party as they were all blown up the night before..It may not be state of the art, but I was pleased at how it all came together in the end.

The Happy Birthday Banners were homemade. I just printed out the letters on cardstock, punched some holes and threaded a ribbon through them for the square shaped banner and for the circular banner just hung them on twine with some adorable rainbow colored wooden pegs.. Easy Peasy! So much prettier than the ready made ones and fitted our theme perfectly. The photo banner too was pretty simple to make. Just printed them out on regular paper, stuck them onto some cardstock and hung them on a twine usingmore of those colored wooden pegs. The lighting on that side of the room wasn't too great, so I don't have a good picture of it unfortunately. I must say thanks to all my friends that helped with the cutting and pasting involved in making these banners. I couldn't have done it without you!

Party favors. No party seems to be complete without them . I did that for Kochu's party 2 years(!!) ago, but I wasn't too keen on it this year. This was mostly because we had kids of all ages and I'd have to shop around to find gifts/toys suitable for each kid.That was too much of a hassle and I didn't have the luxury of time. Instead I decided to go with a Candy/Sweets Station. That was a definite win-win as it would easily double up as a party decor and party favors in one.

I'd seen pictures on Pinterest of big apocrathy jars filled with candy, but when I thought of it realistically, after the party I'd have no use for those jars and it would just be a waste of money and space. That's when mason jars came to my rescue. They were big enough to hold a decent amount of sweets and yet afterwards I could easily find use for them in my kitchen! I used little organza bags in various colors as the favor bags, so they could keep the bags long after the candy had gone. I printed out a sign that said " Lucas' Sweet Shoppe. Grab a bag and help yourself to some sweet treats" and stuck on the table so that everyone knew that the sweets were for taking and not just decorations.

The hall was decorated with balloons all over by our friends. Thank you Blenheim Boys and Girls for all your help and lungs!!! You are awesome.

The food was prepared at home this time with help from friends of ours and we were stoked with how good the food turned out! The menu was Pork fry, Chicken nibbles and Beef cutlets as starters. Mains was Dum Biryani with lemon pickle, raita and papadoms. Dessert was Double Cookies & Cream Ice Cream and a surprise pudding made by another dear friend! Special thanks to Nikhil, Lenin, Nithin, Kevin Chettan, Vijayan uncle, Priya aunty, Jerin, Johnny and Binu chettan for your help with the cooking and cleaning.

This fruits carving was done by one of our friends, Leni. It was a surprise and it was stunning. Thank you Leni! Awesome talent, my dear.

All in all I think it was a fun party, with good food and good company. I'm thankful to everyone that helped out with the planning and preparations, none of this would have been possible without you. And a special thank to our besties, Anto and Liz, who flew in from Auckland just to attend the party! Kochu's and Chackochi's favourite people! :)

I'll leave you with some random pics from the party. Have a great weekend people!

Birthday Boy

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Cheese Rollups

There are so many recipes sitting in my drafts folder that I've wanted to put up but haven't because I couldn't find the time to sit down and write out a full post. As usual, I just can't seem to find enough time to do everything. Seriously,  24 hours in a day is just not enough! :)

But that's not really true is it.. I think it may just be my poor time management skills. I know I suck at time management and so I'm always on the lookout for tips to manage my time better.
One such tip that I now definitely swear by is to plan the night before. That is, I plan for the next day, the night before. This makes my mornings so much easier and not so hurried as it used to be. Renju and I try and make sure the dishes are done, lunches are made,clothes are set out and daycare baskets are set out for the next morning before bed.

Another tip I'd give you is to Delegate! No one can do it as good as you, right? Right! It’s true. Renju does not clean the kitchen the same way I would and sometimes I get irritated when he does it differently. But I've learned to let it go. I have bigger problems, like getting to bed on time. :) So I will take on any help I can get!

Ok, that's my elderly wisdom for the day :) Let's move on to more pressing matters, like today's recipe.
This is one of those recipes that you can quickly whip up as a snack that is yummy and satisfying. I came across this in some blog a couple of months ago, but now for the life of me cannot remember where i saw it!
So, if by chance the author of this recipe ever comes across this post of mine, please don't think I stole your idea, I just don't know who to give credit to!

Cheese Roll ups
Ingredients:
Bread – 4 slices
Cheddar cheese – 2 slices
Butter - 1 tsp

Method:
1. Cut off the crusts off the bread slices(optional)
2. Flatten the bread slice a bit using a chapatti roller. You would do this so that the bread slices are easier to roll/fold without breaking.
3. Cut a cheese slice into 2 and place  ha;f a slice each over bread slices. Roll up and brush with melted butter.
4. Place under a preheated grill for 2-3 minutes each side or until golden brown. Or you can just toast these in a non-stick pan.


Allow to cool before serving as the cheese filling can be really hot!

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Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake with Nutella Icing

It was a pretty full-on week last week; we just celebrated Chackochi’s first birthday last weekend. I still can’t believe my baby is 1!  The party deserves a post on its own and so I’ll put them up once I get my hands on the party pics.

We had a small family celebration on his actual birthday, 10^th July and then a full on party for all friends and family in the weekend. I made two cakes, one for Chackochi’s kindy and one for the family do. The lighting was not too good when I took the pic, so that's not the actual color of the icing.. Its more like the next picture below.

I baked the cake and made the icing and even managed to decorate it a bit. I was absolutely proud of the results. Let me make it clear, I’m no baker. I’m pretty much a novice when it comes to baking and decorating cakes and so if I can do it, anyone can J I also made the mini bunting on top of the cakes! So simple to make and so much easier than trying to pipe out Lucas onto the cake with icing. The one on the left is a 9" cake and the one on the right is a 2 layered 8"cake.

Both my cake recipes are from Maria's Menu and both cakes received a lot of praise, so I’m pretty sure these recipes are keepers! For kindy, I made the ultra-moist chocolate cake with Nutella icing and for the family do I made the Chocolate cake with Nutella Icing.

The Ultra moist chocolate cake, as its name suggests it extremely moist and so, not so good for layering. But this is my favorite chocolate cake recipe. I’m yet to taste a chocolate cake that tops this one. All my boys love this cake and it’s usually gone within hours of coming out of the oven! J

I sadly did not click any pictures of a sliced piece so you could see how it looked on the inside. Maybe next time! But I've loads of pics of the cakes and muffins I've made with this recipe… So you now realize how often I make this at home. So much that I know this recipe by heart!!!! 

 And then this awesome cake when topped with Nutella chocolaty goodness takes it to a whole new level! It was like dying and going to chocolate heaven! J I promise you, your family will love you forever and will beg for more!

I've followed Maria’s recipe to the ‘T’. It’s come out perfect every time so I haven’t needed to change anything with the recipe.

Ultra Moist Chocolate Cake with Nutella Icing

Recipe Source: Maria's Menu

For Cake:

Ingredients:

• Milk – 1½ cups
• Butter – 100 gms
• Oil – ¼ cup (See notes)
• Cocoa Powder – ½ cup 
• Self-Rising Flour – 1 cup (See notes)
• Egg – 1 beaten, room temp
• Baking Soda – ½ tsp
• Sugar – 1 cup + 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease your cake tin well & dust with flour or cocoa powder. 
2. Heat together milk, butter, oil & cocoa powder until the butter melts. It does not need to boil. Keep aside and let it cool to room temperature.
3. Sift flour, baking soda and sugar. Add in the beaten egg & the wet ingredients to the flour mix. Mix well.
4. Pour the batter into your greased and floured cake pan. I doubled the recipe to get a 9 inch cake for the birthday cake. 
5. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. My cakes are usually ready around the 20-25 mins mark.Cool cakes in the pans for about 10 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack(s) to cool completely. 

For Icing:

• Unsalted butter – 250 gms, softened
• Nutella – 440 gms
• Icing sugar – 2 cups
• Milk – 1 tbsp

Beat butter until smooth. Add Nutella and beat together until thoroughly combined. Slowly add powdered sugar, mixing until combined. Add 1 tablespoon of milk. Add additional milk or powdered sugar as needed to reach desired consistency.

I did a crumb coat first on the cake and left in the fridge for a couple of hours to set before I did my final coating of icing and decorations.

Notes: 

• I used Canola Oil, whereas in the original recipe I think Maria used Sunflower Oil.
• Maria's suggestion for Substitution for self raising flour – to get 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1½ tsp baking powder+ ¼ tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. 
• I doubled the recipe to get a 9 inch cake. Otherwise this would usually give me an 8" cake and about 3 cupcakes.

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