Strawberry Cake and Muffins

It was raining strawberries at home last week. My toddler just started eating strawberries and he likes it a lot even if its soar.Just the fact that my son has started a liking towards these pinkish beauties made my husband go for loads of them.Yes, he brought home a whole bag of it.

The best part of it is that he didnt know that strawberries doesnt have a longer life even if its refrigerated. So two days later I started browsing for some recipes to use the left over fruit, and came across two wonderful recipes.

The first one was Aparna's Strawberry muffin.

The recipe was so simple I immediatly baked them. As she mentioned in her post I added some sugar to the berries before mixing as mine was very sour.But the muffin tasted really good with no trace of the sourness.

The next one was a Strawberry spring cake from Asha's Foodie's hope.

This recipe was already book marked by me when she posted it last month, waiting for some neglected strawberries, and so baked that wonderful soft cake the next day.

Over all the recipes were so good and welcomed by all , that I baked them twice.

Iam posting the recipes here for keepsake:

Strawberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar*

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped (not too fine) Strawberries

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 egg (or flax seed substitute**)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Put the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl and whisk lightly to mix well.

Add the strawberries to the flour mixture and mix to ensure they are well coated with flour.

In another bowl, lightly beat the egg/ flax seed substitute, vanilla extract, milk and oil together. Add this to the strawberry-flour mixture and gently mix together, in a folding motion, about 4 or 5 times. Do not over stir, or the texture of your muffins will suffer.

The batter will be lumpy and slightly floury.

Grease the muffin tins/ cups and divide the batter equally between them, so that each one is about 2/3rds full.

Bake at 180C for about 25 minutes till the muffins are done and lightly golden brown on top.

Cool for 10 minutes, unmould them and cool completely on a rack. This recipe makes 8 muffins.

Note : I used whole wheat flour completly for this recipe, and somehow my batter become a little thin , but my muffins came out just fine.

Strawberry cake

:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ( 1 stick) softened butter,

2 eggs,

1 cup regular white sugar,

1 tsp vanilla essence,

1 3/4 cups plain flour,

1/8 tsp salt,

2 tsp baking powder,

2/3 cup fresh red ripened Strawberries pureed.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F/190C.

Spray cake pan with no-stick oil or butter well and keep aside.

In a mixer bowl, beat the sugar and butter first until fluffy.

Add in the eggs,mix. Then add in the vanilla.

Sift flour and baking powder, add to the creamed butter mixture and mix again gently on low speed until everything comes together.

Now, stir in the strawberry puree, beat until batter is well mixed and evenly pink.

Pour into the prepared pan, tap on the kitchen counter to top get the bubbles out.

Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden and skewer comes out clean form the center.

Take it out of the oven, let it sit for 5mins. Invert gently on the cooling rack.

When cool, sprinkle powdered sugar on top to serve or you can use Vanilla icing.

I served it with whipped cream.It was delicious.

Hence ended my starwberry saga for this season and No more for this year ! :)

Sending these Muffins and Cake to 'The Strawberry Feast' hosted by Happy Cook at 'My Kitchen Treasures'

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Since I have started blogging after a long break, its quite difficult to catch up on the food events and the hustle bustle of the food blogosphere.But its very interesting to find lots of new event chains, and many new food blogs.
Checking on some of the old and favorite events first, I came across the good old Monthly Mingle event hosted by Meeta of "Whats for Lunch honey". The Theme for this months event promptly reminded me of my "Pineapple Upside Down Cake' which I made last spring, and somehow didnt get to post it.

So now is the right time for that.... here goes the recipe.



Ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
6 slices pineapple or 1 can (20 ounces) can of drained pineapple chunks

Cake
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
Method:
Melt little butter in the cake pan; sprinkle with brown sugar. Arrange pineapple pieces on sugar, making a design.
Cream 1/2 cup butter; gradually add 1/2 cup sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk; beat until smooth, ending with dry ingredients. Pour over arranged pineapple pieces.
Bake at 180°C for about 35 minutes.


Let cake cool for about 5 minutes before turning out onto a serving plate.
Serve warm with whipped cream, if desired.

Healthy Peach upside down cake.

Well, this post is a result of a huge bag of peach that I brought from the farmers market two weeks back. Not only Peach I also brought Plums and Cherries. Could not resist them as they were fresh , glowing and not to say they were on Sale too!!!. Thats why I love summers. While cherries and plums got over by sunday evening peaches were not touched. As my Husband hates peaches, the whole week I managed to finish off most of them by myself.

Finally I had 5 more ripe peaches left in the basket, and I started looking for a peach cake recipe. As usual I mix and matched few recipes and came up with this healthy version(no butter , no egg but some oil though) which made a delicious snack for our short trip over the weekend. Here is the recipe.





Ingredients:
For the base.
4-5 ripe but firm peaches
2 tblsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnomon
1 tsp flour
1 tsp vanilla powder/essence

For the Cake:
1 cup All purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1tsp Baking soda
1 tsp cinnoman
1 tsp vanilla essence/powder

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F /180 C
Coat the baking pan with a tsp of melted butter.

Blanching:
Boil a pot of water, remove from the heat and put the whole peaches in it, close with a lid. Peel the skin after 10 minutes.



Slice the peaches and place in a plate. Sprinkle cinnomon, brown sugar and vanilla essence and flour over it. Carefully toss it using a spoon so that its well coated.
Arrange these slices on the Baking pan. Reserve the left over juices from the fruit.









For the cake beat the sugar and oil well, and the add milk beat well. Sift the dry ingredients once or twice and then add to the sugar oil mixture. Add the reserved juices and blend well.
Pour the mixture over the arranged peaches. Bake for 30-35 mins










Invert the cake after its completly cooled.

Serve warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.
















Since Peaches are very much in season here in july and august off this dish goes to the "Eating with the Seasons" hosted by Maninas