Rum n Spice bake on a rainy day

Friends were coming over and along with all the hilarity and gushup that we girl pals indulge in, we also love to hog. Delhi weather has become all freaky and unpredictable, just when we thought of packing up our woollies it rained yet again and brought back with it a slight chill in the air. So some piping hot food would work very well on such a day. What better than serving tea with a banana loaf, warm and freshly baked from the oven!

A homemade cake makes your day special. This lovely spiced up banana cake is a real treat. It converted me into a banana cake lover. Now I just need an excuse to rustle this fabulous cake even to the extent of buying more fruit than we can consume so that I can then use the over ripened bananas in the cake. It's basically a tea loaf and comes out very light with a soft texture.

  Banana Rum Loaf

11/2 cups flour

2 ripe bananas

75 ml vegetable oil

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4th cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 tablespoon rum

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

In a bowl beat the egg and sugar well, and then pour in the oil and the mashed bananas. Mix well, and then stir in the vanilla extract and the rum.

In another bowl combine the flour, baking soda and, cinnamon. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones and fold in gently to ensure all the ingredients are well incorporated.

Pour the batter into a well greased loaf pan. Bake for 25- 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Cut the loaf into slices and serve.

  

Celebrating summer with a pear spice cake

We are in September and this is pretty much the fag end of the season for many a fruits - including pears. It has been a wonderful summer with abundance of both pome and stone fruits. Have been using them up in different ways -chutneys, jellies and of course jams. Some of the pears have been poached in brandy syrup and hopefully they would last till the next season. This was my first attempt so keeping my fingers crossed that they taste as good as they look after poaching.

In this season I had already made pear cake twice - however the son liked it so much that I made another one for him to take to college. So it was like enough of pear cakes for the summer but when I came across this new cake recipe I couldn't resist it and wanted to try it immediately. But the recipe specified - "fully ripened pears", so I had to be patient - not an easy thing for me for once a recipe catches my fancy my fingers ache to get on with it. Anyways, so the pears were  left outside to ripen, which took a couple of days because the hubby saw them lying outside and put them promptly back in the refrigerator ... can't blame him with temperatures hovering around 40 degrees C, ordinarily it sure would be madness to leave anything outside.

Finally it got made and what an amazing cake it was, the taste of cinnamon coming through so nicely. It didn't need any fancy glazing or much glamming up, just a fine dusting of icing sugar in case you wish to. A full bodied cake whose taste just grows on you and the flavors get more enhanced with each passing day ... only if you are able to make it last till then.

This Pear Spice Cake comes from Euro Pane bakery in Pasadena, California which featured in the LA Times and made it to their list of top ten recipes of 2012. A guest at the restaurant had liked the cake so much that she requested for the recipe and the owner Sumi Chang shared it with LA Times. This is in the owners’ words a 'humble looking cake but the taste is incredible". It is now an absolute favorite of mine with its firm well browned top, moist base and an incredible fragrance.

 

Pear spice cake

 "Euro Pane's Pear Spice Cake"-source LA Times

3 cups  ( 12.75 ounces ) flour

11/2 teaspoon baking powder

11/2 teaspoon baking soda

11/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 eggs

3 cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

7 ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped into cubes

2 cups walnuts

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. grease a 13 by 9 inch baking pan, line the bottom with parchment paper then grease again.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon and set aside

In a separate large bowl beat together the eggs and sugar, then beat in the oil. Beat in the flour mixture until just combined then fold in the pears and nuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until puffed and golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Check the cake after an hour and cover the top loosely with a sheet of foil if it browns too quickly before it is done. Remove and cool completely on a rack before serving.

Whole wheat mango cake - sans guilt

This is a very unpretentious no fuss cake. It’s a delicious dessert with wheat flour that’s easy to prepare and filled with flavor and wholesomeness. It’s the kind of cake that one could put together in a jiffy using whatever fruits are in season - here I have added mangoes. Any other fruit like plums, peaches or even apples could be used instead.

Whole wheat mango cake

This cake has the goodness of whole wheat and buttermilk and one can go for seconds without any guilt. It makes a great cake for your tea time table or as an after dinner treat. The whole wheat flour results in a cake with a delicate crumb and the buttermilk gives it moistness without making it heavy. I have used fresh, ripe mangoes which add a unique taste and loads of natural sweetness to the cake so that it requires less sugar. It’s a wholesome seasonal cake with a lot of natural heartiness. Indulge yourself by serving it with fresh whipped cream. Whole wheat mango cake

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup sugar

11/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup mangoes peeled and cubed

2 eggs

1/3 cup oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2 tablespoon dessicated coconut

Preheat oven to 180C degrees and grease a round cake tin. A tube pan or a Bundt pan can also be used.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Beat the sugar and eggs in a separate bowl till the sugar dissolves then add the oil, buttermilk, vanilla essence and mix well. Pour the buttermilk mixture slowly into the flour and fold in. Mix the batter until just combined, it’s very important not to over mix it.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and dot it with cubed mangoes and sprinkle coconut on top. Bake for 35-40 minutes till the cake looks done and a skewer inserted inside comes out clean. It will be rich golden with specks of coconut on top.

If you don't mind the added calories have it with ice-cream or a dollop of freshly whipped cream.