Sweet and Sour Stories

Eggless Vanilla Cake

Everybody loves cakes. Now a day, cakes are not only tasty but our beloved bakers have found different ways to decorate it too. Fondant, cream cakes, buttercream frosting and what not. But I still remember the plain cakes which I used to eat straight away from my mom’s kitchen. Plain, simple yet delicious.

If you are fan of plain cake too, I have got a just a perfect recipe for you. Simple plain cake, a hot cup of tea, favorite book and beautiful rains. The best combination ever. So, let’s start baking.

First here is the list of ingredients:

Oil: 50 grams
Butter: 45 grams
Milk: 250 grams (Room temperature)
Vinegar: 2 tsp
Condensed milk: 250 grams
Vanilla essence: 2 tsp
Plain flour: 200 grams
Baking soda: ½ tsp
Baking powder: 2 tsp
Powdered sugar: 40 grams (As I do not like too sweet cake, I don’t add it. I find the sweetness obtained by condensed milk is enough)

I have deliberately given all measurements in grams (even for liquid ingredients).

It is very easy to make this cake.

As I promised you all, this time I have managed to take photos of each step.

Step 1

Take Butter and Oil in a ball. Mix it together until well combined. You can make use of electric beater but it’s not compulsory. I used wire whisk.

Step 2

Add condensed milk. and mix it for at least 4-5 minutes with wire whisk. If you want to add powdered sugar for additional sweetness, you can add it in this step.

Step 3

Add Vinegar and vanilla essence into the milk and keep it aside. Also sift your dry ingredients together (Flour + Baking Powder + baking Soda).

Step 4

Now mix dry ingredients and milk mixture into your Oil, butter and condensed milk mixture into 3 batches. Do not over mix.

Step 5

Take a cake tin and line it with butter.

Step 6

Now put the cake batter in the tin. Tap the tin twice.

Step 7

Bake on 165 degrees for 30 minutes (I use convection mode for baking). If you are using regular over, bake it for 170 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

My final product was this:

Isn’t it amazing?

I will be posting another plain cake recipe in coming days. Till then Keep BAKING!

Prawns Masala Curry

Bakes

Hello Folks!

I grew up in small town in Ratnagiri district, Coastal region of Maharashtra. From the start, I have been always fond of the sea food. Prawns Rice, King fish curry, Pomfret starters are my all-time favorites. When I started to cook myself, I always wanted to try Prawns Masala. And after 4-5 tries, I found out the perfect recipe which always always works for me.

Prawns Masala Curry; You can eat it with Chapati (a Indian version of bread), appam, neer dosa or just plain white rice. This versatile dish can taste good with almost anything. A good seafood starter as King fish Rawa fry or fish tandoor along with prawn’s curry can throw away your blues like anything.

So without wasting your time, let’s start.

To prepare prawns masala, you need preparations in three stages. So let’s start with margination:

Margination
1 Kg Prawns (Before cleaning they were weighing 1 kg, after cleaning they weigh around 700-750 grams)
Turmeric Powder
Ginger Garlic paste
Red Chili Powder
Salt
Lemon juice.

So in margination stage, you need to mix all these ingredients together and keep it aside. Normally while marinating chicken we need to marinate it about an hour or more. Luckily this is not the case with Prawns. 15-20 minutes margination is just enough.

Coconut Masala
Freshly grated coconut
Green chilies
Ginger
Garlic
Coriander

This stage is easiest of all. Just make a smooth paste of all in the mixer grinder. Add little water if required.

THE RECIPE
3 Big tomatoes (Finally chopped)
3 Big Onions (Finally chopped)
Garam Masala
Red Chili powder
Oil
Fish Masala (I bought it when I was vacationing in Kokan)
Curry leaves
Salt
water

First heat up some oil in Kadhai. Once oil is hot, add curry leaves in it. Then add Onion and tomatoes. Let them cook for about 5 minutes. Then add Garam masala and red chili powder. Once the mixture is soft, mash it. (Like we mash the mixture while making Pavbhaji)

Once done, add coconut masala which we made in step 1. Stir the mixture continuously. As we have made coconut masala from the fresh ingredients, they need to cook properly. It may take 7-8 minutes. Keep the flame low and be patient. Now add salt and some water in the mixture. While adding salt keep in mind that we have added salt in the margination too.

I like Prawns Masala Curry not too thick and not too thin. It should go well with both, rice and chapatti. So I add moderate amount of water. So, feel free to add water as per your preference. After adding water and salt, keep the mixture on high flame and bring it to boil.

Now add your marinated prawns in the mixture and some Fish masala. Fish Masala gives that distinct flavor to the curry. Add some butter, around 1 tablespoon to the mixture as well. Mix all together and keep it on a low flame and cover it with lid.

Don’t check on the Curry too much. Keep it as it as for at least 12 minutes. As prawns doesn’t take much time to cook, check after 12 minutes. Normally, it will be done after 15 minutes.

Your delicious Prawns Masala Curry is ready. Garnish it with some coriander leaves and lemon. I made some Surmai (King Fish) Rava fry to compliment the main course.

Keep eating delicious and cooking marvelous.

See you soon guys!!

Blueberry Cake

Bakes, Uncategorized

Let’s have something sweet!!

Few days ago, me and my husband celebrated out third wedding anniversary. For the first two anniversaries, we went to holiday. So, I couldn’t bake the cake myself. But this time, due to work priorities, we decided to celebrate it at home itself.

Every year, as time passes, relationship becomes stronger. I remembered our wedding day. It was so beautiful, getting married with your dearest friends and family, really is a blessing. Ours was a love cum arranged marriage. We met, dated each other for 2 years and then got married. Every marriage is a combination of two souls, they may or may not be perfect individually but marriage make them perfect for each other.

Like I am dreamy, he is practical. I am more into books, poems and he is more into adventures sports. I am a typical Pisces and he is typical Libra. But when it comes to cakes, chocolate is our all-time favorite. But this time, I wanted to make something different. So I decided to make Blueberry Cake with Cream cheese frosting.

So to make this cake, we need make vanilla base and blueberry frosting.

Ingredients for base cake are:

Curd: 1 Cup
Flour: 1 ½ Cup
Powdered sugar: ¾ Cup
Baking Powder: 1 teaspoon
Baking Soda: ½ teaspoon
Vanilla essence or vanilla extract
Cooking Oil: ½ Cup (You can use any cooking oil which does not have a strong smell)

Mix these ingredients which hand mixer or wired whisk. Normally I take all the dry and wet ingredients together and mix them. But as we are using curd here, Mix Curd and Powdered sugar first with the whisk. Then add Cooking Oil and Vanilla extract or essence. Mix flour, baking powder and baking soda (Sift these dry ingredients). Fold dry ingredients mixture into wet ingredients gently and you are good to go.

Mixture should be of dropping consistency. If you find mixture is too dry add 1 or 2 tablespoon milk into it. Once done, bake your cake at 170 degrees in the preheated Oven for about 30 minutes.

For Frosting:

Cream cheese: 200 grams (Should be at room temperature)
Whipping cream: 320 grams (Should be kept in refrigerator only)
Blueberry Crush
Sugar Syrup (Dissolve 3 tablespoon Sugar into 1 Cup hot water and then cool it)

You can make frosting only using whipping cream as well. But I like little sourness of cream cheese. Normally, non-dairy whipping cream is easily available in market. So you can use any one of that. In dairy base whipping cream, fat content is lot higher. So it’s better to go for non-dairy whipping cream. I used ‘Fiona’ whipping cream in which sugar is already present.

Beat whipping cream with electric beater. Once Soft peaks are created add cream cheese and beat it again. Do not overbeat the mixture.

Cut your base cake in three layers. Put first layer or rotating stand and pour sugar syrup on it. After layering it with sugar syrup add handful of blueberry crush. After that layer it with cream cheese and whipping cream frosting. Then put second layer and repeat the process. Once all layers are done, apply Crum coat and keep cake in refrigerator to set for 30 minutes.

Take the cake out of the fridge and apply more frosting. Use palette knife for this. You can decorate your cake with real blueberries if available or with piping. I had pink and blue color available at home. So with Russian nozzles and piping bag, I decorated my cake. My final product was something like this :

While making this cake, I made it in rush and could not take step by step pictures. From next time onward, I will definitely try to take more pictures with each step. Thanks for reading my blog and please contact me for any suggestions or feedback. See you soon.

I will be posting an exciting recipe soon because LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO EAT BORING FOOD! Till then Bye!!

Journey Begins…

Uncategorized

Hello Everybody,

Thanks for visiting my blog. I am Pallavi . Being a typical Maharashtrian girl, I always hear my mother saying a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. So, whatever you do in life, learn to cook. She was far from the feminist world we live in right now. She was a fantastic cook, not only she used to cook delicious food but even if few ingredients are unavailable for some reason, she used to make it perfectly. Whenever my mother was not around, my father was in charge of the kitchen. To everyone’s surprise, he was a great cook too. Me and him used to perform our little experiments in kitchen. Different kind of Dal, Khichadi’s, Over and undercook roti’s and what not. Every girl starts her kitchen journey under observation of her mother, my case was little different. From those till today my fascination towards food started. After completing my schooling, I lived in different cities. So it was necessary for me to cook myself. From Masala Maggie to Upma, from half fried batata wadas to kothimbeer vadi, me and my roommates performed all kinds of cooking rituals. Then after completing my engineering and I joined a IT industry where daily I used to carry my self-cooked lunch box and after a while I got married. Me and my husband bonded over the passion of food.

And then my official food express started. He loves to try new dishes and I love to feed him. Cooking is not only the skill but it is a culture. So this blog is dedicated for the food culture. This is quite a journey you and I are going to have. From making dishes to trying one, from dhabas to elite restaurants, from history of the dish to food science, we are going to explore everything.

See you soon with a new post with a fab photo which will make your diet to break and heart to dance !!