My Baking Days

Blog Blog Blog… Everybody around me seems to be blogging and I have been thinking about joining the bandwagon , never really being able to decide what to write about. What with my extremely active 2 yr old, being extremely allergic to me sitting at the computer.. It just was not working out. So in the middle of trying to potty train her and getting her to eat something - I decided that enough was enough and I am going to write and here we go.
So ! As my little girl seems to be saying these days., what better to write about other than food.. Now , despite the fact that I am a full time , stay at home mum, I am not a great cook - but I love food - I actually dream about food and these days the only thing I watch on TV is UK TV food .. So what better to write about other than food.
Now , to give you an idea , of the kind of cook that I am. I end up cooking good stuff accidentally - I never seem to know how to replicate anything I cook well.. So to my husband constant disappointment - I can barely get his favorite dal-chawal right . Having said that my total passion is for baking. I love cakes - I can stand for hours at Morrisons Bakery section gazing at the cakes - embarrassing poor dear hubby to no end. And my favourite browsing sites are always food sites - baking of course. And there is something about the smell of baking that I just love! I always loved it since I was a little girl when Amma used to bake the most delicious cakes ever.
So when I took time off work to stay at home with my daughter , my most enthusiastic experiments were always the baking ones.

Here is the very first recipe that I tried out and amazingly came out really well.. It is an Annabel Karmel recipe - and is very very simple.


225g/8oz butter, room temperature
225g/8oz caster sugar
75g/3oz ground almonds
175g/6oz sifted self-raising flour
4 eggs
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp almond essence
1 tsp finely grated orange rind
75g/3oz plain chocolate, broken into pieces
1 tbsp cocoa powder
icing sugar (optional)


Method
1. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Sieve the almonds and flour and add to the mixture.
2.Gradually beat in the eggs one at a time and add the milk.
3. Transfer half the cake mixture to another bowl and stir in the almond essence and orange rind.
4. Melt the chocolate in a microwave or double boiler, and stir the melted chocolate and sifted cocoa powder into the remaining cake mixture.
5. This looks best when baked in a 20cm/8in ring tin, fluted for the prettiest effect.
6. Grease and flour the tin first or use a non-stick baking spray.
7. Spoon alternate layers of the cake mixture into the tin and use a skewer or a knife to swirl through the mixture to give a marbled effect.
8. Level the surface and bake for about 1 hour at 170C/325F/Gas 3 or until the cake is well risen and golden.
9. Turn out on to a wire rack to cool. If you like, you can sieve a little icing sugar over the top.

It is absolutely delicious this way , but on my daughter's birthday, I baked 2 cakes, and filled and topped with Chocolate Buttercream topping - Yum!! Unfortunately , I do not have any photographs of the cake - next time I bake it - I will remember to take some snaps and add it on.

Happy Baking!

p.s. I have to really thank my friend Ramya - as I posted this right after having a conversation about blogging all the recipes that I tried out:)