Fudge Cake With Chocolate Frosting

About 2 months ago, we had been to a farm near our place. We were hoping to do some berry picking. But unfortunately due to bad weather this year, they had lost their crop of berries and were no more allowing any pickings. If I say I was disappointed, then it would be a understatement. So anyway, we were in this small reception booth where they were selling few books as well as breads and other stuff. As usual, I went near the book shelf and one particular book caught my attention. Now, you all know, I have some craze for traditional and authentic recipes. So I picked up a thin book – Old fashioned Cake and Cheesecake recipes . I can say this is one of my best spent $3 on book shopping :).

After few days of that, one of my friends (who was my colleague) was leaving our company for a better opportunity somewhere else. I wanted to make a send off cake for her. When I asked her, she said she likes chocolate cakes. So I decided to bake a cake from the above book. But I was very tensed. All these days I had baked for my hubby and his friends who were not grown up eating cakes. They would accept any reasonable tasting cake and say it was good. But when I had to bake for some fine chefs(one of our colleague is a good chef), I was bit afraid. I didn’t want to loose my face in front of everyone.

It is better not to tell what happened in all my nervousness. It is enough to tell the cake looked like a disaster. Anyway, to top it off, I refrigerated it and next day the frosting had become hard like cement. I was close to tears. I took it to office anyway and shyly showed it to my friend and told her I was very sorry for the mess I had created. She and ‘the chef’, both looked at it and said it was not as bad as I had described it. We let it rest for 2-3hrs in which the cake came to room temperature and the frosting was back to its normal state. I can’t say how happy I was. Then we tasted it. I should say it was one of the best tasting chocolate cakes I ever made. Delicious, soft and moist, too good to be true.

Fudge cake: 1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1/2 tea spn baking soda 1 tea spn baking powder 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 1 tea spn vanilla extract 2 eggs 3/8 cup unsweetened chocolate 1/2 cup ice water

Method: Sift together flour, soda, baking powder. In a separate bowl beat softened butter with sugar and vanilla till they are well mixed. Now add eggs and beat again till fluffy. Melt chocolate on low heat, switch off heat and add to butter mixture. Add iced water and flour mixture alternately and mix well. Grease a baking pan and pour the batter in it. Preheat the oven at 350F for 10mins. Bake the cake for about 30-35mins at 350F or till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Chocolate frosting: 1/2 cup butter 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa 6tbl spn milk 1 tea spn vanilla 4 cups(approx 1lb) confectioners’ sugar

Method: Combine butter, cocoa, milk in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and take off from heat. Add vanilla, sugar, beating continuously till it holds a peak.

Finishing: Cut the cake into two equal half horizontally.

Spread a thick layer of frosting on top of it.

Keep the other half on top and spread remaining frosting on the cake. Decorate with pecans and raspberry(I thought these two would look good on this cake, it was not mentioned in recipe).

PS: The frosting was not very easy to handle. So you can see the cracks on the cake :(.

I have been cooking a lot of pastas these days. We love pasta, but the main purpose behind this is, I am hell bent on learning to make good pasta dishes. These dishes get ready in a very short time, so they are perfect for weekday nights when I return home tired with little patience to cook anything elaborate. A funky weather is adding to all my laziness. I somehow loaded up my pantry with different pastas, sauces, olives etc, which I need to finish. So all these are adding to the increased pasta/pizza nights :).

Initially when I started cooking pastas, it would always turn out to be an Indian version of pasta. I would have either fried garlic or onion till they turned brownish and it would give a very different taste to these dishes. Then I started following more closely and after many trials, I can say, I am somewhere close to the dishes available here in Italian restaurants. I hope one day will come when I can get the exact taste that is available in restaurants, fingers crossed :).

On one such trial and error days, I made this dish. It was inspired by one recipe – ‘spaghetti lasagna’, that I had found in a book called “Casseroles – simple recipes for hearty meals”. I twisted it completely to suit the materials I had in hand. It came out superb (otherwise I would not have posted it here). We simply loved it. So I am writing it down here before I completely forget it.

Ingredients: 1/4 th pack angel hair pasta (1/4 lb) 1/2 tbl spn butter 1/2 tbl spn extra virgin olive oil 1/2 tea spn finely chopped garlic 1/2 cup marinara sauce 4 oz cream cheese (I used fat free cream cheese) 1 and 1/2 cup vegetables – Onion, capsicum, zucchini, olives, capers 1/4th cup Parmesan cheese 1/2 tea spn pepper(approx) Salt

Method: Bring water to boil with salt. Pour the angel hair pasta. Cook till the pasta is almost done. Heat olive oil and butter in a pan. Add garlic, onion and cook for a min. Add capsicum, zucchini and stir. Let it fry for 2-3 mins. When they are half cooked, add marinara sauce, olives, capers, salt, pepper, mix well and take out from heat. In a separate bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Coat a casserole dish (I used a bread loaf pan) with baking spray. Spread half of the marinara sauce mixture in the dish.