Cracked wheat Payasam

Its my husband's birthday! I am planning on making a black forest cake in the evening.His mom , as a sentiment , prepares milk payasam (kheer) on his birthday ,every year. Since we are away from India, I planned on preparing milk payasam. But instead of using the traditional way of boiling rice or semiya with milk, I found a new recipe which uses cracked wheat. What more , you have got a dessert and a healthy choice too. This recipe is so simple that you would love it and you can prepare it on any day within 15 min.

Cracked Wheat Payasam

Cracked wheat- 1/2 cup
Water - 2 1/2 cups
Milk - 2 cups
Jaggery or Brown sugar-  3/4 cup or more for a sweet tooth
Cardomom - powdered

Optional for topping
Roasted Raisins- 1 spoon
Roasted Cashew nuts- 1 spoon

1. There are two varieties of cracked wheat, i. fine granulated and ii. coarse. Pressure cook the cracked wheat along with 2 cups water for 3 whistles, if its coarse variety. Else 1 whistle is sufficient. Switch off.

2. Wait till the pressure settles.Add the jaggery or sugar to the boiled wheat and blend.

3. Add 2 cups of milk and boil in medium for 5 min. Keep stirring and switch off when its well blended.

4. Add the cardomom powder and toppings and serve.

Serves 4 people.

Carrot Cake

This week end I didn’t have the time to do any baking. With our visit to one of our friends place for his birthday and some of our friends visiting us,the weekend just flew by. I squeezed some time on Monday and tried out this recipe from this book abigail johnson dodge.The cake tasted good as promised. One difference I found was the time it took to bake the cake. The book mentioned that at 15 min the cake would be done. But while I tried it, after 15 min I found the cake was only half done. It took 25- 30 min for the cake to be done.

Carrots add more moisture and flavour to the cake. Be careful not to over bake the cake else the cake may turn out dry.You can try out this cake even without the frosting. If you would like to have a more rich and heavy cake try it with the frosting.

Carrot Cake

For the cake

All purpose flour - 1 1/3 cups

Eggs large-2

Carrot grated-1 cup

Brown sugar-3/4 cup

Veg oil- 1/2 cup

Baking powder- 1 tsp

Baking soda- 1/2 tsp

Salt-1/2 tsp

Cranberries sweetened-1/4 cup

Raisins-1/3 cup

Vanilla extract- 1 tsp

For frosting

unsalted Butter- 1 cup

Cream cheese - 1 cup

Confectioners sugar- 2 cups

To Make the cake

1. In a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients, flour,baking powder, baking soda,salt,sugar,grated carrot,raisins and cranberries together.

2. In a medium bowl whisk the eggs,oil and vanilla until well blended.

3. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix until well blended.

4. Grease an 8 inch square pan and spread the batter onto it evenly.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees C. Place the pan on the middle rack and bake until a tester come clean when pressed in the middle of the cake. It takes 25- 30 min.

6. Cool the cake completely.

You can enjoy the cake as it is now or try it with some frosting.

To make the frosting

1. In a large bowl combine the cream cheese and butter. Beat it until its foamy.

2. Add the confectioners sugar and beat until well blended and fluffy.

3. Use it when the cake has been cooled completely.

4. Cut the cake crosswise into 2 parts. Place one layer on a flat surface and spread the frosting evenly using a spatula. Place the second layer on top of the frosting. Spread the frosting on top and on sides evenly.

5. Cover and referigrate for atleast 2 hours before you serve.

Marble cake

In continuation with weekend baking series , this week I tried out a recipe from Simple Home Baking- by Carol Pastor.This recipe brought back memories of a cake I used to love when I was in India. In India, we get a brand of cakes called as Milka Wonder cake. The line of cakes were released around the time I was in school. All of us loved it. Though it was the first brand of cakes that were packed with an expiry date, the cake slices were soft and tasty.Usually the cake was a combination of two flavours, chocolate and vanilla or orange and vanilla. The colour contrast attracted all the kids and parents too, to fall in love with them.When I saw the marble cake recipe with two different layers, I had to try it. For the chocolate layer I used cocoa and powdered chocolate chips and cofee powder. All three ingredients add more taste to the layer.

Marble Cake

All purpose flour- 2 cups

Baking powder- 1 tsp

Milk-1/3 cup

Eggs -2 (large)

Veg oil-1/2 cup

Granulated white sugar-1 cup

Unsweetened cocoa powder-1/3 cup

Chocolate chips coarsely powdered-1/4 cup

Coffee powder-1 tsp

Vanilla Extract-1 tsp

Salt-1/2 tsp

We are going to prepare 2 layers of batter for the cake.

Vanilla layer

1. In a bowl, whisk the veg oil and sugar together.
2. Add the eggs one by one and whisk them until they are light and fluffy.
3. With the above mixture,sift flour,baking powder and salt. Add the milk and mix them using a spatula until they are well blended.
4. Transfer half of the batter to a second bowl.In the first half add the vailla extract and blend with the spatula gently.

Chocolate layer

1. Take the second bowl of batter and add the coocoa, coffee powder and powdered chocolate chips and blend using a spatula.

Preparing the Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees C.
2. Grease a medium loaf pan. Pour half of vanilla layer batter into the pan and spread evenly.
3. Pour in the chocolate layer batter over the vanilla layer.
4. Pour the remaining vanilla layer batter over the chocolate layer.
5. Using a knfe, gently swirl in so that the vanilla and chocolate are mixed. Do not swirl a lot.
6. Bake the cake for 50- 60 min. Remove when the toothpick tester inserted comes clean.

Cool for 30 min.
Serve slices of marble cake.