Mango Cake

One of the best things about summer (other than the summer vacation) while growing up, was the abundance of mangoes and getting to eat mango and all the different dishes made from raw and ripe mangoes. I must confess, it is my favorite fruit. Of course, the best varieties that I have tasted have been in India and of all the ones available there while growing up, the "Alphonso" was my absolute favorite. The memory of walking into a room filled with the smell of ripe mangoes is still one of my happy memories.

The varieties that I have come across in the stores here are generally from the Phillipines or Mexico and I have found that they are more fibrous. The one that I like most among the ones that are easily available here, is the Ataulfo mango. Now, while this is found in the local store all through the year, the best taste is only found during summer, which is when the mango is in season.

I have made and different kind of dishes made with mangoes, but had never eaten a mango cake, which was infused with flavors of mango within the cake. So, I decided to experiment and the result was delicious. In fact, the first time I made it, it was gone before I could take a singe picture. I managed to sneak in one picture the second time I made it. I have also used it as a base in a mango mousse cake. It is absolutely mouth watering. Hope you like it as much as I did, when you make it.

Ingredients
1 and 1/4 cups, plus 2 tbsp of all purpose flour (maida)
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter - room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup mango pulp ( it is generally sweetened. it can be found in a store which carries Indian products)
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup mango pieces, diced

Method
Grease a baking dish with some butter and dust with some all purpose flour. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Sieve all the dry ingredients together and keep aside. Sieve these ingredients a couple of times. In another bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar. Beat it till the butter is fluffy. Add one egg at a time to this and beat each egg into the mixture till it is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Add one third of the dry ingredients to the batter and fold it in. Mix the mango pulp and milk together. Then add half of this mixture to the batter. Alternate between the milk and mango mixture and the dry ingredients till they are all incorporated into the batter. Then add the mango pieces to the batter and fold it in carefully. Do not over mix and deflate the batter.

Bake the cake at 350 F for about 30 minutes. Use a knife and insert it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. If not, bake for a few more minutes.
Take if out and let the pan cool on a wire rack for 10-15 mins. Then invert the pan onto the cooling rack and slide the cake out. Let the cake cool if you wish to ice it.

Tips

To prevent the mango pieces from sinking to the bottom of the pan, dust a little flour on the pieces and coat them before folding them into the batter. Make sure to grease the pan completely and generously, so that the cake doesn't stick. You can also add a parchment paper to the base of the mold and grease it before pouring the batter if you want to be certain that the cake will come out easily. 

Pineapple Cake with Whipped Cream icing

I enjoy baking and icing cakes. I have been trying out a variety of  cakes off late. One of my friends suggested that the next time I bake a cake, I should make a pineapple cake. Well, it was her birthday recently and I got an opportunity to try it out. I decided to make it for her. I was able to work the pineapple into the cake batter and infuse a good amount of pineapple flavor into the cake, by adding chopped pieces into the layers of the cake. I was very happy with the result. I iced it with a lightly sweetened whipped cream icing. Absolutely delicious!

Ingredients
Cake
1and 1/4 cups, plus 2 tbsp of all purpose flour (maida)
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter - room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup pineapple juice (unsweetened)
1/4 cup pineapple pieces, canned and chopped finely

Icing
2 cups  heavy whipping cream
4 tsps powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Filling
1/4 cup pineapple pieces, canned and chopped finely
whipped cream icing (see above)

Method
Pineapple Cake
Grease a baking dish with some butter and dust with some all purpose flour. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Sieve all the dry ingredients together and keep aside. Sieve these ingredients a couple of times. In another bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar. Beat it till the butter is fluffy. Add one egg at a time to this and beat each egg into the mixture till it is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Add one third of the dry ingredients to the batter and fold it in. Then add half of the pineapple juice and mix. Alternate between the pineapple juice and the dry ingredients till they are all incorporated into the batter. Then add the pineapple pieces to the batter and fold it in carefully. Do not over mix and deflate the batter.

Bake the cake at 350 F for about 30 minutes. Use a knife and insert it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. If not, bake for a few more minutes.
Take if out and let the pan cool on a wire rack for 10-15 mins. Then invert the pan onto the cooling rack and slide the cake out. Let the cake cool if you wish to ice it.

Icing
In a mixing bowl, mix the heavy cream, essence and sugar and using a hand mixer or whisk, whisk it till the cream has thickened and when you lift the whisk, the cream stays in peaks.

Assembly
Slice the cake into two pieces horizontally. Ice the lower layer with a layer of whipped cream. Next spread out an even layer of the pineapple pieces on top of the whipped cream layer. Then place the next cake layer of the cake on top. The whipped cream and pineapple pieces are sandwhiched between the two cake layers. Then cover the cake with the whipped cream icing. Decorate with maraschino cherries and pineapple pieces.

Tips 
Raw pieces of pineapple are quite tough and hence use canned pineapple in this recipe.
While making the batter, ff the eggs are separated and the whites beaten separately before being added to the batter, the cake will be lighter. You can add the yolks right after the butter and sugar. But fold in the egg whites after all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the batter.
Wrap the cake in foil and then some plastic wrap before you freeze it. The cake will stay in the freezer from a couple of weeks to a month. The cake should be completely cooled down before icing it. If need be, refrigerate the cake or freeze it for an hour before you ice it.

Batura - Delicious Fried Bread

Batura (Bature when plural), while it looks like puri, is a little different. Batura is made from all purpose flour while the puri is made from whole wheat flour. Another difference is that yogurt is added to knead the batura dough, while the puri dough is kneaded using water. The main difference is that I have always eaten bature with chole and never with any other vegetable or curry preparation, while I have eaten puri with all types of curries and dals. This has led me to conclude that the batura must only be made when served with chole. If  anyone knows of any other combinations that you can serve baturas with, I would really like to know. This combination also finds its own place in restaurant menus and is listed as "chole bature". The restaurant version of the fried bread is generally very large, as big as the plate it is being served in (sometimes bigger) and beautifully fluffed up like a balloon. At home, you are limited by the size of the the pan that you are frying it in as well as the size of the surface that you roll it out on, and sometimes it may just puff up partially. But the best part is that, when you make it at home, you can eat as many servings as you want.
This is the first time I tried it out and I am very glad that I did, because I realized that it is very easy to make and we enjoyed the dish to our hearts' content.

INTRODUCING - Videos. If you are a regular reader of the blog, you would have noticed that it has evolved over the last two years. I am adding more photos and trying to visually present the method to make the recipes clearer. With that aim in mind, I am going to create videos for recipes (as time permits) where a visual demonstration will help explain the method of preparation. Your feedback is appreciated.

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour/maida
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp semolina/rava/sooji
1/2 cup of yogurt
1/2 - 1 cup water, a needed to knead the dough
oil to fry the batura (should be at least 1.5 - 2 inches deep)

Method
In a bowl, mix together the all purpose flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and rava. Then add the oil and yogurt and mix together. Add additional water as needed to knead the dough. The resultant dough should not be too soft or loose. So just add enough water that all the dough comes together and can be kneaded without it cracking. At this stage, you need to let the dough rest for a couple of hours or more. If you want, you can even rest it overnight. The dough will ferment. If it has been kept aside for a couple of hours, the rise may not be noticeable, but if kept for a longer duration, you will notice the rise. Addition of the yogurt adds the bacteria from the yogurt culture which enable the fermentation.

Once the dough has rested for a while, you are ready to roll it out into round discs and then fry it. Heat the oil. The oil must be hot when you add the rolled batura to it, else it will not puff up and also, will not become crispy.  Take a fistfull of dough and roll it into a ball (about 1.5 inches in diameter). Then flatten it into a disc and roll it out. The rolled out batura should be aboue 4-5 mm in thickness. It should not be very thin. If the dough is sticking to the rolling surface, use oil to grease it so that it doesn't stick. Do not dust the rolling surface with flour.

Release the batura gently into the hot oil. Be careful not to splash any oil on your hand. The batura will sink. Hold your slotted spoon/strainer on the batura and hold the batura down. As the batura cooks, it will start puffing up and the pressure of the spoon being held over it, will help the batura puff up evenly. This process takes a few seconds. The underside of the batura which is in the oil will become golden brown. At this stage, flip the batura over and cook it for a few seconds till it is golden brown on the other side as well.  The batura is ready to be served hot with chole.

Tips
Adding of the semolina/rava and oil in the dough helps the batura stay puffed up in a ball shape and not flatten out immediately as it cools. Make sure to use dry spoons and pans when heating oil. Addition of water droplets to the oil will cause it to splatter. Never use flour to dust the rolling surface while making puris or batura. The excess loose flour will get added to the oil as the batura/puri is fried, which will burn and as you fry more bature/puris, they will get coated with this burnt flour. The batura dough is elastic and it is a little tricky to roll it out. You may want to roll out a couple of baturas before heating the oil.  To check if the oil is hot, add a very small pinch of dough into the oil. If it rises up immediately, the oil is ready. If the oil is already hot and you are still rolling out the dough, turn the heat to low so that they oil cools down a little or turn the heat off. There is always a danger of the oil catching fire if it is overheated. In such a case, place a lid on the pan containing the oil. This will cut off the oxygen and will extinguish the fire. Never ever pour water on an oil fire as it is extremely dangerous and may cause the oil to splash out.

French Butter Cookies - Sables

As December comes around, you can find stacks of butter cookie tins everywhere. They are probably available year round, but you just can't miss the huge stacks of tins during the holiday season. They are so delicious that I do cave into temptation and end up buying a couple of boxes. The ones that I see stocked in the local store,  generally are called "Danish" cookies and over the years I have come to associate butter cookies with being Danish.  A few days ago, I was watching the cooking show "America's Test Kitchen" and they demonstrated a cookie recipe called "Sables". Now they kept calling it a a French cookie. Their cookie platter looked delicious on the show and reminded me of butter cookies. Of course, I made fervent notes and jotted down the detailed recipe with all the tips they provided. I couldn't wait to try out the recipe, so I prepared the cookie dough (rather late at night) and then baked them the following day. Oh the result!!! Absolutely delicious and decadent. It was just like the butter cookies that I indulge in during the holiday season. So, based on this experience, I must conclude that I love all butter cookies. I have also learnt that they taste delicious and similar, irrespective of what they are named and what country they come from.

Ingredients
10 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 yolk of hard boiled egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1.5 cups all purpose flour/maida
1 egg white
1 tsp water
2-3 tbsp sugar (garnish)

Method
Mash up the egg yolk so that it is soft and lump free. Using an electric mixer or whisk, beat together the butter, sugar, salt and yolk for a couple of minutes. Once the ingredients are mixedd together, add vanilla essence and mix. Then add the flour a little at a time and mix till the flour is completely incorporated into the mixture. At this stage, the mixture will have a soft dough like texture. Bring it all together and roll out the dough into two logs. These will be about six inches in length and about 1.75 (1 and 3/4) inches in diameter. Roll up these logs tightly in parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate these rolls in the fridge for at least an hour. Then take these well chilled logs and cut them into diskettes about 1/4 inch in thickness. Place these on a baking sheet. Don't crowd the cookies, leave about an half to an inch space around each cookie. Then, make an egg wash by mixing together egg white of one egg and water. Brush the top side of each cookie with this egg wash. Sprinkle a little sugar on top of each cookie. Bake the cookies at 350F for 10-15minutes.

Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheets itself, then transfer these to the cooling rack. Enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea.

Tips
Process the egg yolk through a sieve using a spoon to mash it up and squeeze out of the sieve. This will ensure there are no big chunks or lumps. The butter should be room temperature, but still solid. You can freeze the dough once you roll it into a log and you can bake the cookies when you are ready to eat them. The egg wash helps the cookies get a shine and also helps the sugar stick to the cookie.