Cherry cake

Baked this beautiful cake past weekend with some leftover cherries from the farmers market.

Browsed a lot of recipes from the net and finally settled on the one from Joy of Baking.

I followed the recipe as given, but had to replace the sugar with brown sugar, as I realised that I ran out of white sugar, after beating the eggs.

But the cake baked beautifully and was delicious.I made this in the evening and the cake plate become empty by the time we had tea.

Ingredients:

1 pound (454 grams) fresh cherries, pitted
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup (150 grams) brown sugar
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup (80 ml) milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).

Butter and flour an 9 inch (23 cm) spring form pan and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
Rinse, dry, and pit all the cherries. Cut the cherries as desired.

Take about 1/4 (about 15) of the cherries (to be placed on the top of the cake during baking) and cut them in half.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl , beat the eggs and sugar until thick and lemon colored (about 3-5 minutes).

Add the melted butter, milk, vanilla, and lemon zest and beat just until incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Gently fold in the whole pitted cherries.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula.
Bake for 15 minutes then remove from oven.

Quickly arrange the remaining cherries, cut side down, on the top of the cake.

Return the cake to the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the cake portion comes out clean.
Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly.
Serve warm or at room temperature with a dollop of softly whipped cream.
Makes 8 - 10 servings.

Source : Joy of Baking

Eggplant curry with Peanuts for JFI

This is a delicacy which my mother makes often.I relish this dish just with plain rice and a tsp of ghee.This is also a great side dish for any spiced rice such as pulav, biriyani, jeera rice etc.,

Here is the recipe

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant

1 handful of roasted peanuts , ground into a coarse powder.

1 medium onion chopped

1 small tomato chopped

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp turmeric pwd (optional)

1 tsp whole pepper

1 tsp cumin/jeera seeds

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp urad dhal

1 tsp channa dhal

1 tsp tamarind paste dissolved in 1/2 cup of water

curry leaves optional.

salt and oil to taste.

Method.

Wash and cut the brinjal or eggplants into 1 inch long strips.

Take 2tblsp of oil in non stick kadai/pan.

Add the mustard and wait till it splutters.

Now add the urad dhal, channa dhal, pepper , jeera and currey leaves.

Once the dhal is brown, add the onions and fry till translucent.

Add the eggplants and fry nicely till it shrinks in size, now add the tomatoes, chillipowder, turmeric, and salt. Sprinkle some water, reduce the flame and close the pan with lid.

Allow it to cook for 8 10 mins, and then add the tamarind juice(1tsp paste dissolved in 1/2 cup water).

Increase the heat and stir well till all the juice is absorbed.

Now add the coarse peanut/groundnut powder , chopped coriander leaves, stir well to combine and switch of the stove.

Note:

• Always add the peanuts, only when all the water is absorbed and the curry is almost dry. Otherwise the dish will become very soggy.
• As a variation you can also add 2tblsp of shreded coconut with or without the peanuts .
• Roasting the brinjal in more oil (20r 3 tblsp more) and allowing the brinjal to cook in the oil will definitly enhance the taste even better i.e. if you are not worried about the extra calories or fat that bringa along with it :).

This is a great dish to prepare for potlucks, get together's or any party for that matter.

Iam sending this to ths months JFI conceived by Indira hosted at 'The cooks hide out'

Test Post

POst to check if my feed is picked up correctly

Dates and Walnuts Muffins

Wanted to bake something healthy and filling for our weekend trip to Paris last weekend.When I started browsing, I came across Aparna's post on Dates muffin and I was quite satisfied with the recipe as all the ingredients mentioned were in my pantry and dates sounded more healthy and the combination with walnuts suited my taste.

Muffins are easy to pack and carry too.

I had a type of whole wheat flour with the bran, so I decided to replace the all purpose flour and the wheat germ with WWF and increased the amout of oil by a tablespoon.

The result was a delicious and sweet smelling muffins. The smell of the wwf doesnt seem to bother my toddler and the muffins kept him going during that tiresome weekend.

Ingredients:

2 cup whole wheat flour

¾ cup light brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup dates, deseeded and chopped finely

½ cup walnuts

1 cup milk

4 tbsp oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Chop the the dates and walnuts into smaller pieces. Set the oven to 200C.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Put all the wet ingredients in another bowl and mix well.

Now pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and fold so that everything is just mixed.

If the batter is over-mixed, the muffins will not be soft and springy in texture.

Spoon the batter into greased muffin cups about 2/3 full.

Bake for about 15 to 2o minutes.Mine baked for 25 mins probably because of the wholewheat.Cool slightly, remove to a rack.

I made 10 as my muffin cups are slightly on the larger side.

Will bake these often from now on, probably will add some orange juice next time as suggested by Madhuram. Iam sending these muffins to her 'Whole Grain Baking - whole wheat ' event.

Pictures and Memories - A "no cooking" Event Announcement

Well, let me start with event announcement first.
Its summer already and Iam sure many of you have planned your travel and some of you might have just returned from your trips during the long weekend.I love travelling in Summer, be it a simple picnic or a long tour for days I try to enjoy the most. Thanks to technology now every one of us carry a digital camera around and trying to capture the beautiful moments of our trip.In that coarse we always end up with loads of photograph which lays unnoticed after a week or two.
During summer I see some posts here and there about the summer trips and some clicks
Lets make it interesting and take it one step further through this event
Lets start sharing our memories through some pictures with our blog friends, so that others can also get to know about the spot/city/place you visited.

But an event is not an event without some rules. So lets get to the rules, shall we...

To make this event intersting I have two categories.
Category 1: Foodie shots
As a food blogger myself , whenever I travel, I like to take pictures of restaurants, street stalls, cafe's, fridge magnets, soveniers....etc., anything that is cute , related to food, and has a local flavour captures my attention and I start clicking them and Iam sure its the same with the rest of you.
So dig in your archives and find those cute pictures and post it in this category .

Few examples that I could think of...

• a local street stall sellinng waffle, hotdogs, burgers, Indian street food, Ice creams etc.,
• A a unique table setting in a restaurant
• Something interseting in a menu board that captures ur attention
• soveniers, fridge magnets related to food..
• a picnic lunch spread up on the park...

Any picture that has an association to the culinary side are welcome in this category.

For those of you who are planning to travel , keep this event in mind ,and bring us some nice foodie shots.

Category 2: " My favourite pictures" .
This can include pictures that are your favourites.It can be a landmark , scenic pictures or wildlife or anything that you like.

And now coming to the Rules.

1. Please write a post about your recent summer trip with pictures that goes into two categories as mentioned above.
2. You can post 1 or 2 pictures in the 1st category with a maximum of two pictures.(minimum 1)
3. you can post 3 to 5 pictures in the 2nd category with a maximum of 5 pictures.(minimum 3)
4. Please give atleast a two line descripton about each of the picture. You can share your memories and also the trip details
5. Please note that this not a photography event or competition, so dont worry about how the picture looks.This is just an event to share our memories.
6. The last date is Sep 30 2009. Iam planning it to be a quaterly event.
7. Send me an email with the folloing details: ( sumi (underscore)ammu(at)yahoo.com)

• your name
• your place of travel
• your blog url
• your post url
• and attach a picture from category 1.

8. Dont forget to link this event announcement page in your post.
9. I will post the round up by October first week
10. Non bloggers can also send in their entries through the email.I will post it in my blog as and when I get it.

With the rules being laid out for the event, let me post my entries to the event.


A Trip to Paris
Last weekend we packed our bags to Paris, although its a mere one hour train trip from Brussels , we were very excited about it.Especially my 22 month old toddler after watching endless episodes of "Thomas the tank engine" was very much obssessed with the train that at one point he refused to come out of the Station.

Paris...Its a very lovely city vibrant with colours and with streets filled with people.It was kind of nice to watch a hustle bustle city even at the late hours after a long time.We took the tour bus and enjoyed the trip around the city eventhough we had a tough time packing and unpacking the stroller everytime we get on and off the bus .Yes..Can you beleive it , we were not able to take the stroller in the bus.Thats the one thing I didnt like in this trip, the city was not at all stroller friendly, even the entry to the metro station..Oh.. I dont want to start about it.

But over all we had a nice time, walking around the city and thanks to mother nature the weather was too good.We absolutly loved the Lovre Museum, and the Eiffel tower at the night.
Try to visit the city if you get a chance.

And here are my entries to the event.

Category 1 : Foodie shots

These cute fridge magnets captured my attention the moment I landed in Paris which was in my purse a while later.





Category 2: My Favourite pictures:


Eiffel tower at night.

During the day time

The incredible 'Mono Lisa'

The Lovre Museum

A view of the open tour bus.