Pound Cake Recipe

Pound cakes brings me back sweet memories of home. This cake is called the pound cake because the traditional recipe contains one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, one pound of eggs, and one pound of flour. It is usually baked in a loaf pan or a Bundt mold

. I made today's recipe with a different proportion and also used sour cream. While I served this pound cake dusted with powdered sugar, you can also coat with an icing. Toast a slice of pound cake or make a trifle.And the real treat is when you make pound cake french toast(wink wink:)

Click here for my Grilled Pound Cake recipe and Pound cake French Toast Recipe

I love pound cakes more than any other cake. If you give me pound cakes for every meal 365 days, YES, I will still survive. Couple of days back I made this cake and this is the recipe.

Ingredients

Butter 200 g (1 cup)

Sugar 250g ( 1 and 1/4 cup)

Eggs 5

Plain Flour 300g (3 cups)

Baking Soda 1/2 tsp 

Salt 1/2 tsp

Sour Cream 1 cup

Vanilla essence 2 tsp

Foster Clark(Mandarin Flavor) or Tang 2 tsp(optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius

Butter the pan. If you are not using a non stick pan line the pan with parchment paper

Mix sour cream with Foster Clark powder in a bowl. Keep aside

 In a different bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda. Keep aside.

Cream the butter. Add sugar and beat till light and fluffy. This will take about 7 minutes.

 Add the eggs one by one beating well after each addition. Add vanilla essence. 

Add 1/3rd of the flour mixture. Incorporate this into the cake batter on low speed and add 1/2 cup of the sour cream. After mixing well, add the half of the reamaining flour, mix well and add the rest of the sour cream. Add the last portion of the flour till incorporated. 

Pour the batter into the pan. Bake this for 45 mins on 190 degree Celsius.

After 45 minutes insert a tooth pick into d cake. If the tooth pick comes out clean, that means you cake is DONE. otherwise bake the cake for some more time.

Invert the cake onto a greased wire rack. The cake can be served plain with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

I will be making my mothers recipe soon which is the ultimate pound cake!

Recipe adapted from tasteofhome.com

Happy Cooking!

Fudgy Brownie Recipe

I love brownies and I enjoy baking them too. I was going to see my niece last weekend and I wanted to make something for her-something easy yet rich.  If you are a 'chocoholic' like my family give this a try, you won't be disappointed.This has a thick crackle top with a dense moist inside. And I don't know why I feel brownies taste better the next day after its baked!! 

There are three types of brownies- 'cakey', chewy and fudgy. Fudgy brownies are my favorite because of its richness. I have always felt that this brownie tastes the best after a day or two. Secrets? Well, the overload of melted chocolate and the really well beaten eggs. You have to beat the eggs with the sugar on high speed till it becomes pale and frothy. This gives the meringue like texture to the brownies yet so dense and rich inside because of the melted chocolate and egg yolks.

These brownies can be frozen and this recipe makes about 16 large brownies.

Let get right into the recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips(I substituted 1/2 cup with dark chocolate)

1/2 cup or 110 g butter at room temperature

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

Plain flour 1/2 cup

Almond meal 3/4 cup

salt 1/4 tsp

cinnamon powder 1/4 tsp(optional)

Brandy or rum 2 tsp (optional)

1/4 cup chopped nuts(optional)

You can even add some white chocolate chips. However, I like this plain :-)

Method

Preheat the oven to 350 degree F(180 C)

Butter an 8 inch square pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Mix flour, almond meal, salt, cinnamon powder and nuts(if using) and keep aside.

Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring (double boiler method). I always melt the butter a lil bit and then add the chocolate chips. I don't want the chocolate to get burnt you see.

When the chocolate and butter has completely melted, remove from heat and keep this aside to cool.

 Meanwhile, put sugar and eggs into a bowl and beat this till pale and frothy. 

I used an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. This takes about 3 minutes. This will make sure that our brownies will get a crackly top.Add vanilla essence.

Add chocolate mixture to to the egg mixing well.  Fold in the flour mixture. If you are using any alcohol and add that too.

Bake this 30 to 40 minutes. Do not over bake this.

 The top will be cracked and when you insert a tooth pick 

it should come out with moist crumbs,

 Cool this  and cut this into pieces serve this plain or with vanilla ice cream. You are supposed to cool this for a few hours but I couldn't wait to get my hands on these. 

Happy Cooking!

Joy of Baking inspired Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

             I love Joy of baking website and the the host Stephenie. She has tons of recipes in her site. I have tried many of her recipes and the latest one I tried was the chocolate chip cookies recipe. Her recipes are with videos which are easy to follow. All the recipes have an introduction about the dish followed by the ingredients and instructions. The ingredients section is very clear as she mentions the quantity of each and every ingredient in multiple ways. For example, if it is butter its given as 1 cup (2 sticks) (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature. There is no way of messing this up. I would strongly recommend this site,especially, if you are new to baking. 

My husband loves this cookie(YAYE!). I have never seen my husband have a cookie or biscuit before. He loves this one. Its true when you say 'there is a time for everything', isn't it? He likes to have this slightly warm.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients that I used :

1 cup (200 grams) unsalted butter,room temperature (226 grams in JOB)

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar

3/4 cup (160 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla essence

2 1/4 cups (295 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup  walnuts coarsely chopped  (I used some hazelnuts too)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips

Method :

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) with rack in center of oven. I used a nonstick pan but if you are not line the cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Cream the butter in the bowl of your electric mixer (paddle attachment or with a hand mixer). Add the white and brown sugars and beat. As per the JOB this takes about two minutes to become fluffy. Add the eggs one by one beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat till incorporated. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt add to the egg mixture.Beat till incorporated.

  Add the chocolate chips (keep few aside) and nuts(I kept few hazelnuts aside too)  about half way through mixing. I refrigerated this for 30 minutes.

I dropped 1 tbsp of cookie dough on the pan and press in few chocolate chip cookies and hazelnuts on the dough.

Bake it till the edges were golden brown. Voila! how can it easier. I made 5 cookies and freezed the rest of it. As you can see in the below picture the cookie which had the chocolate chips and hazelnuts pressed into it is more appetizing(for me at least:).