Caramel Cake!!

Remember the garage scene in Kill Bill-1. How ‘The bride’ spots a garish yellow truck with the words Pussy wagon spray-painted on the tailgate, she climbs onto the backseat with difficulty and rests. She struggles to move her feet and  keeps repeating "Wiggle your big toe," Nothing happens. She repeats the line again, and again and again. Big-ups to this moment of cinematic brilliance which is almost the apt metaphor describing the  struggle to get my blog movin again :) :)

While my blog was at it, I was diligently baking at home and working not so diligently at the bank, met more people and made new friends than I ever did before, started drinking beer without making a funny face, ate beef like it should be eaten chewed and swallowed and not down it with water but the dislike stays, read a lot more ( if reading blogs counts  i.e) ,  
added expensive chocolate, real vanilla and 5  types of sugar to my pantry and finally graduated from baking basic chocolate cakes to more complex breads and pies. I now have a well organised baking corner where my whisk and Spatula's are at arm’s length, equipped it with nifty kitchen tools that I cant stop buying, a well stashed fridge with hard to find ingredients sitting pretty. Ever growing list of things to bake and books to buy.  All the right things just to make the baker in me happy.

And to Celebrate the coming back of my blog i leave you with a very simple to make  buttermilk Cake Topped with  a smooth creamy caramel glaze ...believe me when i tell you the caramel glaze was outstanding, the texture was smooth like butter,  just the right amount of sweetness  and butterscotch taste,  just the right qualities to be called holy goo!! 

Caramel Cake!!

Caramel Cake.

Adapted from-  Lottie+Doof

For the Cake:

• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sifted cake flour ( I substituted cake flour with ‘2 cups + 2 tbps All Purpose flour’ + 5 tbsp Cornflour)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (Omit salt if using salted butter)
• 1 stick (4 oz)/ 113 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup well-shaken buttermilk ( I made buttermilk using 3/4^th cup Yogurt + 1/4^th cup milk)

For the Caramel Glaze:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar (I  used 1/4^th cup dark brown + 1/4^th cup regular White sugar)
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

 To make the cake

• Preheat oven to 180°C , Butter and line an 8X8  square cake pan
• Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt leave aside
• Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3-4 mins. Add in vanilla. and beat for less then a min
•  Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition for about a min.
•  At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture may look curdled).
•  Add flour mixture in 3 batches, mixing until each addition is just incorporated.
• Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then tap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. 
• Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, flip cake so it is right-side up and then cool completely, about 1 hour.

To make the glaze:

• Bring cream, brown sugar, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved.
• Boil until glaze registers 210 to 212°F on thermometer, 12 to 14 minutes, then stir in vanilla.
• Put rack with cake in a shallow baking pan and pour hot glaze over top of cake, allowing it to run down sides. Cool until glaze is set, about 30 minutes.

Amateur blueberry cheesecake

I’m such a big slacker. This post must have gone out on 26th December, the day I made some of the best dessert ever, but like many others around the world I suffer from “Holiday laziness” and hence the delay.. what i made was nothing less than divine :)) dont believe me? Ask Father U, who I caught shovelling the cheesecake into his mouth with lightning speed,  also Sammy who devoured it in greedy gulps and told me that my cheese cake was the kind which would make one drop their spoon and perform an opera piece. I wouldn’t have called it a masterpiece if not for the boisterous, un-entertained kids of my aunt who said it was delicious except for one lame rascal kid who gobbled up an entire wedge and said that he liked sponge cake better.

In case I haven't already mentioned this, the greatest perk or bane (depending on how we’re looking at it) of my university is the incredible amount of time you get as off. There are so many holidays and long vacations that I can barely manage to keep track of them. As I’m jobless and I don’t have any other obligations what so ever I tag along with Sammyboy. This doesn’t necessarily keep me away from my ever so reliable white oven, although, it did run overtime when I baked carrot cake and some more cookies. Last week, I didn’t realize it was so incredibly simple to make cheesecake. I’m a sucker for all things cheese but this one didn’t really need cream cheese but was still worth the drool. When I decided to feed my friends and family cheese cake, V and I went scavenging one evening, daring a strike and the evening traffic at Paradise Circle, in search of the best quality of soya whipping cream. We returned with sore legs and a pack of what the shopkeeper claimed to be the best in Hyderabad. Now I was all set to make my first cold dessert. I had hung curds which would be used instead of cream cheese, Britannia digestive biscuits was to be used as the base and condensed milk, a little of which I could salvage after father U started using it in his tea for the right color (so he claims). Since Father U happens to be my favourite person, I let him eat my cache of walnuts, cashews and other dried fruits. This is something I’d never let anybody else even eye, let alone allow them to pop it into their mouths casually. And this applies even to my drive-me-nuts, lecturing, super-judgmental, critical, chronically-worrying, smaller-than-a-blade-of-grass, petite, lithe, 60 kg beauty who happens to be my mother and accidentally the other favourite person. I’m too broke to keep refilling them and my brother R loves me a little less these days to send me money to replenish my dwindling stock. With all the things I had gathered I started off to make what my masterpiece thus far

Blueberry Cheese Cake

What you need:
For the crust(A)
• 2 cups biscuit crumbs,coarsely ground
• 1/2 tsp ginger powder
• 1/3 cup melted butter
For the filling
• 350 gm hung curd
• 3/4th cup condensed milk (room temperature)
• 3/4 cup whipped cream (optional)
• 1 tbsp gelatin (only if using whipped cream)
• 1/4th cup water
what you need to do
Prepare the crust by combining the ingredients listed under A
• Rub the butter in to the crumbs using your fingers
• Press the crumb mixture to an inch up to the sides of a 8 inch spring-form tin and chill for half an hour
• Prepare the filling by beating the hung curds first till a uniform texture is achieved
• Add the condensed milk and whip till well combined
• Prepare the gelatin (only if using whipped cream) by double boiling 1 tbsp of gelatin with 1/4th cup of water  till it dissolves completely
• Add the dissolved gelatin to the hung curd and condensed milk mixture and whip on high speed
• Add the whipped cream and beat thoroughly
• Pour the mixture into the crust, smooth it out and chill to set
• After it sets slather blueberry preserve; a number of variations of cheesecake can be made.