Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Although an upside-down cake is traditionally made with pineapple, fruits like peaches, pears, plums, apples or berries work just as well. I always thought that an upside–down cake was too challenging and complicated to make until I saw this simple recipe on Joy of Baking.

This was my first time making a cake like this and I was very pleased with the results- this is a cake that tastes as good as it looks.

I did make some minor changes to the recipe by cutting down on the butter, sugar and milk and the cake still turned out fine. The proportions I've mentioned worked well for me.

Ingredients:

For the topping:

• 3 Tbsp butter, melted
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 pineapple (peeled, quartered, cored, and sliced ¼ inch thick)

 For the cake batter:

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 5 Tbsp butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup milk

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease the bottom and sides of a round cake pan.

In a small bowl, melt the butter and brown sugar in the microwave. Mix well and heat for another minute or so till the sugar melts and the mixture turns bubbly.

Pour this mixture into a round cake pan and spread it around a bit so that it coats the bottom of the pan and arrange the pineapple pieces in a single layer over it.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and mix well.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients together. Add milk to loosen the batter a bit and mix well.

Dump the batter into the pan over the pineapple layer and spread to get a uniform layer of batter. Smooth the top and place in the oven. Bake at 350 F for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. (I let the cake sit in the oven for another 10 minutes after turning it off.)

Cool the cake in the pan for about 5 minutes, run a knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it and invert onto a serving plate. Slice and serve warm.

Update: I made this cake again but used plums this time. I also added the zest of one orange to the batter. The cake was a big hit and was gone in just 2 days! 

                       Plum upside-down cake

Christmas Fruitcake

I made my very first fruitcake, in time for Christmas, a few days back. After going through a lot of recipes, I finally picked one that I saw on Edible Garden. I have made many changes to the original recipe since I did not have many of the ingredients on hand and I’d decided that I’d only work with what I had. Despite all the additions and substitutions I had to make, the cake turned out to be fantastic.

* I started by preparing the caramel. Melt ½ cup sugar in a pan slowly until it turns clear, smooth and dark brown; this recipe requires a dark brown caramel and it took me 5-7 minutes to get to this stage. Turn off the heat and add ¼ cup water carefully to the caramelized sugar to thin it out a bit. Stir and set aside. (See here for tips for making the perfect caramel.)

*Next, preheat the oven to 350 F and grease your baking dish of choice. I used my 9" springform pan.

*In a large bowl, mix together these dry ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp powdered cloves
• ¼ tsp powdered cardamom
• ¼ tsp ginger powder
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt

*In another bowl, cream together the following:

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 Tbsp butter + 4 Tbsp oil (I did not have enough butter and that is the only reason I used a combination of butter & oil.)
• 3 eggs
• 2 Tbsp orange marmalade
• 2 tsp rum extract

*Combine the dry and wet ingredients together and then stir in the caramel. Mix well.

*Add a cup of dried fruit and ½- ¾ cup of chopped nuts to the batter .I used a combination of dried figs, cranberries, golden raisins and cashews. (I first tossed it all together in 2-3 tsp of flour to prevent everything from sinking to the bottom of the cake while it baked.) Mix well.

*Transfer the batter to the cake pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

Strawberries are available year-round at all grocery stores, but the local strawberry season has been brief and is nearing its end. I've been trying to do as much as possible with these sweet and juicy berries before I'm forced to buy the tasteless ones off the supermarket shelves.

Recently, I was looking for a recipe where I could do something different with strawberries, but after going through a whole lot of recipes on the Internet, I finally decided to just tweak a Martha Stewart recipe that I'd tried a few months back.

I used buttermilk in my cake after I saw this. I always have buttermilk in my fridge and I’d just bought strawberries a few days back.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar (set aside 2 tsp for sprinkling over the berries)
• 1 egg
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 10-12 strawberries, finely chopped
• 6-10 strawberries, quartered
• 1/4 cup white chocolate morsels

Method:

Preheat the oven to 375 F and grease your baking dish of choice. I used my 9" springform pan for this.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, beat together the egg, softened butter, sugar, buttermilk, and vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture in small batches and mix well after each addition.

Add the chopped strawberries (I tossed the fruit pieces in some flour first to prevent them from all sinking to the bottom of the batter) and chocolate chip morsels and mix well.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Arrange the sliced strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down, and sprinkle the remaining sugar over the strawberries.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. The insides of my cake were done in 45 minutes but the surface looked uncooked, so I carefully broiled it for 5 minutes.

Slice and serve.

Chocolate Marble Cake

I'd been looking for a good marble cake recipe when I stumbled upon this one on Spicyana. The pretty design of the cake makes it look very fancy and professional; all it involves is a gentle swirling of the vanilla and chocolate batters together.

Here's what needs to be done-

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

Mix together the following dry ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup corn starch
• 2 tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt

Cream together 1 stick of softened butter and 1 cup sugar. Add 2 tsp vanilla extract and 2 eggs. Mix well.

Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients and mix well. Add ¼ cup milk (or just enough to loosen the batter a bit) and mix again. The batter will still be thick after the addition. Set aside 1/3^rd of it.

In another bowl mix ¼ cup cocoa powder, 1 tsp coffee powder and 2 tsp sugar with boiling water until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.

Dollop the chocolate and vanilla batters into the greased pan alternately to make a checkerboard pattern. Take a knife and swirl it through the batter to create a marbled look.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or till the cake is done.

Notes: The cake had a nice texture and the marble effect is absolutely beautiful. Although the cake is wonderful enough on its own, I thought it needed an icing of some sort; it tasted a little too plain.

Strawberry Cake

I've been baking a lot lately. Here is a strawberry cake I made recently using a recipe from the Martha Stewart website.



Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• A pinch of salt
• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar (set aside 2-4 tsp for sprinkling over strawberries)
• 1 egg
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2-2 ½ cups of sliced strawberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease your baking dish of choice. I wanted to bake this cake in smaller batches, so I used a small baking dish and 2 mini loaf pans instead of the 10-inch pie dish used in the recipe.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, beat together the egg, softened butter, sugar, milk, and vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture in small batches and mix well after each addition.

Transfer the batter to the prepared baking dishes. Arrange the sliced strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down, and sprinkle the remaining sugar over the strawberries.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Slice and serve.

Ina Garten's Lemon Yogurt Cake

I picked up a copy of Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa At Home from the library a few months back. One of the first recipes I promptly tried out from the book was the lemon yogurt cake. I watch Ina’s show on television and have made a few of her recipes before with excellent results. This one too turned out to be fantastic.

Ina uses vegetable oil and yogurt instead of butter in this cake. I followed her recipe totally but used low-fat yogurt instead of whole-milk yogurt. I skipped the lemon glaze altogether and used just the lemon syrup, and the cake still had a nice lemony flavor.

Ingredients:

· 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

· 1½ tsp baking powder

· ½ tsp salt

· 1 cup plain yogurt (I used low-fat)

· 1 cup sugar

· 3 eggs

· 2 tsp grated lemon zest (2 lemons)

· 1 tsp vanilla extract

· ½ cup vegetable oil

· 1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the lemon-sugar solution:

· 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

· 2 Tbsp sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a 9x5- inch loaf pan and set aside.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, oil, yogurt, lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla extract.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients and mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Stir together the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves.

While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar solution all over the cake and allow it to soak in. Cool, slice and serve.

This cake is flavorful, light, moist and absolutely delicious, and it has now become one of my favorites. The recipe is a keeper for sure!

Cranberry Ricotta Loaf

I had a lot of cranberry sauce left over from Thanksgiving which I promptly froze till I figured out what to do with it. I pulled it out of the freezer recently when I had some leftover ricotta cheese. I decided to use both cheese and sauce in some kind of a cake. Loosely inspired by this recipe from Inside The Kaganoff Kitchen, I gathered my ingredients together and set about making the cake.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour a loaf pan.

In a bowl mix together the following dry ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt

In another bowl, beat together these wet ingredients:

• 8 oz ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 4 Tbsp butter, softened
• 1 scant cup of sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Zest of a small lemon
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• A couple of splashes of milk (I did this to thin out the batter a bit)
• ½ - ¾ cup cranberry sauce (I do not have a recipe for this- this was just something my husband had made for Thanksgiving)

Combine the dry and wet ingredients (except the cranberry sauce) together. Mix well. The batter will be a relatively thick one.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. I had enough batter for a loaf pan and a small heart-shaped pan.

Place half of the batter in the loaf pan. Add a layer of cranberry sauce followed by the rest of the batter. Then add the remaining sauce in small blobs all over the surface of the batter and run a knife through it to create swirls on top.

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out relatively clean.

Cool, slice and serve.

Chocolate Banana Swirl Cake

This wonderful cake can be made with little effort. If you like bananas, this is a cake you'll definitely love - it's very banana-y. I didn't bother frosting it but decided to create some swirls on the surface of the batter instead for a pretty finish. I baked this late one night and took it in to work the next day - it disappeared pretty quickly.

My cake was inspired by this recipe from Week Of Menus. I made a few changes to come up with a slightly healthier alternative.

Here's what needs to be done:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9-inch cake pan.

In a bowl, mix together these dry ingredients-

• 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt

In another bowl, beat together:

• 5 Tbsp softened butter
• 2 oz melted semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed well
• ¾ cup yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp rum extract

Combine the dry and wet ingredients together. Mix well. The batter will be a relatively thick one.

Add 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter and mix again.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Melt 2 ounces of white chocolate. Drop small blobs of the melted chocolate all over the surface of the batter and run a toothpick through it to create beautiful swirls.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out relatively clean.

Cool, slice and serve.

Notes: I was a little disappointed that I could not taste the rum or vanilla flavors in the cake. I could not even taste the chocolate in the cake though I'd added almost 6 ounces of it in addition to the cocoa powder. The banana flavor had overpowered all of the other flavors in the cake. Next time, I'd like to try adding some coffee to the cake for a different taste.

I'm sending this over to Deeba for the Fruit in Baking edition of the Monthly Mingle event that she's hosting.

Zebra Cake

Yesterday, I finally made Farida's gorgeous Zebra Cake. I'd come across her spectacular looking cake sometime last year and had promptly bookmarked it. I remember being rather intrigued by the wonderful zebra-striped pattern of her cake and wanting to make it right away. In spite of being very eager to try it out in my kitchen immediately, I finally got around to baking it only last night. The cake turned out pretty well considering that it was my first attempt. The texture was perfect- the cake was soft, light and very moist. Taste-wise, I found it to be just alright. It was missing a little something, but I can't quite put a finger on what it was. However, it looked so pretty that I'm willing to overlook the fact that it was not flavorful enough. I'm sure that with a little tweaking, that can be rectified. In any case, this cake’s all about the looks- I'm definitely going to be making it again!

I followed Farida's recipe and instructions very carefully but ended up making a few changes (based on what I had on hand).

I had enough batter to bake 1 round 9-inch cake and 2 mini heart-shaped cakes.

Wet ingredients:
1 cup sugar (I would add more the next time)
4 eggs
1 cup oil
1 cup milk (I only use 2 % milk so I used ¾ cup of that, and to add some richness, I also added about 3 tsp of ricotta cheese because I had a tub that was nearing its expiration date.)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda (optional)
A pinch of salt
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey’s)
2 oz Hershey’s baking bar (optional)

Method:
Line a 9-inch round baking dish (I do not have a cake pan) with foil and grease it. (I also greased 2 other small heart-shaped pans that I had since I found that I had more than enough batter for just the baking dish alone.)

In a large bowl mix together the sugar and eggs till creamy and light yellow. (I use my hand mixer for this.) Add the oil, milk and vanilla extract and mix well again.

Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in another bowl and whisk together. Add to the wet ingredients, a little at a time, making sure that everything is incorporated well and the batter is lump-free.

Pour half of the batter into another bowl. Each bowl will now have roughly 2 cups of batter. To one half add the cocoa powder. (I also melted 2 ounces of chocolate and added it to the brown batter as a result of which it got a little denser/thicker than the white batter. I'd recommend adding a tsp or 2 of milk to thin it out a bit.)

Pour the vanilla and chocolate batters alternately into the center of the baking dish. I used 2 ladles (1/4 cup measurements) for doing this. (Farida has explained the process very well in her post.) Repeat until all the batter has been used up.

Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes. Check after 35 minutes or so. The surface of my cake was done before the rest of it was, so I covered the top with some foil and continued to bake it for another 10 minutes till it was all done. Cool. Slice and serve.



Notes:
The cake was pretty plain and not as sweet as I'd have liked it to be. Next time, I'll definitely increase the amount of sugar (by another ¼ - ½ cup), and maybe I'll use a frosting of some kind (nutella would work well, I think) although that would cover up the lovely pattern on top of the cake. I might even try replacing the oil in the recipe with butter. I’m going to play around with the basic recipe and see what I can come up with to make this cake taste as good as it looks.

Eggless Mango Cake

A few months back, I came across this cake on RedChillies' blog and promptly bookmarked it. It looked like one of those recipes that I just had to try out immediately and I did- the very next day, and with fantastic results. Since then I've made this cake many times.

I most recently baked a loaf of this bread/cake a few weeks back for my sister and brother-in-law when we visited them in Montreal. It was a big hit and was enjoyed by all.

My recipe is adapted from RedChillies' recipe, which in turn is inspired by this recipe on Sify Food.

I replaced the butter in the original recipe with oil and used almonds instead of walnuts in this recipe although I have used walnuts at other times. I like to use brown sugar instead of the granulated sugar that the original recipe calls for.

Ingredients:
1 cup canned mango pulp (you can find this at most Indian grocery stores)
1 cup + 1 Tbsp semolina/rava/sooji
½ cup + 2 Tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp powdered cardamom
1 tsp baking powder
¼ cup oil
A pinch of salt
¼ cup slivered almonds (reserve a few for sprinkling on top of the batter)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a bread pan with foil and grease with oil/butter.

Mix together the mango pulp, semolina, sugar, cardamom powder, oil, salt, almonds, and baking powder. Let the batter stand for 10 minutes and then pour it into the greased pan. Sprinkle some almonds on top of the batter and bake at 375 degrees F for 25- 27minutes (check after 25 minutes).

Cool, slice and serve.

Blueberry Cornmeal Cake

Berries are in season now and I usually buy whatever it is that’s on sale in my grocery store. Last week, I picked up 2 pints of blueberries. After leaving them sitting in the refrigerator for almost a week, I finally decided to make a blueberry crumb cake using a recipe I’d come across in a magazine.
Now, I’ve never been one to follow any given recipe exactly- I usually just take the general idea and go from there. This time too it was no different. I started out by making a couple of minor changes to the original recipe. By the time I was done though, I’d tweaked the recipe to such an extent that it looked nothing like the original- what started out as a recipe for a blueberry crumb cake ended up becoming one for a blueberry cornmeal cake! But it turned out pretty well, and so I wanted to document it for myself.

Here's what I used-

Dry ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup fine white cornmeal
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt

Wet ingredients:
2 eggs
½ cup sour cream (I used light)
¼ cup oil
1 cup brown sugar (use more for a sweeter cake)
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of one lemon
1 pint fresh blueberries

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a foil-lined round pan/baking dish with oil.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, sour cream, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest until smooth.

Add flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; whisk gently to combine.

Toss in the blueberries (reserve a few for topping the batter) and mix gently.
Pour the batter into the pan; sprinkle the remaining blueberries on top.

Bake until the cake is cooked and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Cool, cut in wedges, and serve.

Orange Yogurt Bread

I came across this recipe on Nicole’s wonderful blog- Pinch My Salt and decided that this was something that had to be tried out immediately. It looked so very appealing. And for once I had all the required ingredients at home!

I made a couple of changes to the original recipe. I cut down on the amount of butter used, increased the amount of yogurt, substituted the granulated sugar with equal amounts of brown and regular sugar and also threw some raisins into the batter.

The results were pretty impressive, if I may say so myself. The batter turned out to be enough for almost 2 loaves so that’s what I ended up doing- baking 2 loaves.
They turned out really well. They were moist, sweet, soft and spongy- just the way I like it.

Ingredients:
Wet:
4 Tbsp butter
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
½ cup+ 2 Tbsp low-fat yogurt
½ cup orange juice
2 tsp orange extract

Dry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ cup raisins
½ tsp salt

For the glaze:
Powdered sugar
Orange juice


Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs, beat well.
Add the yogurt, orange juice and orange extract. Mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients well and combine with the wet ingredients. Add the raisins and mix into the batter. Pour into greased loaf pans.

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. (Check after 35 minutes or so. I found that the top had started to brown while the rest of the loaf needed some more time. Cover loosely with foil at this stage.)

Cool the loaves. Poke a couple of holes on the surface of the bread. Drizzle the glaze and spread all over.


This is a really good bread/cake to have along with a hot cup of tea or even as an after-dinner treat when you are craving something sweet. We simply loved it and I am definitely going to make this again and again.

Nicole, thanks a ton for the recipe!

Apple Cake

Eggless chocolate cake

For my dearest sis...
My first attempt at baking, on your birthday...