Simple Egg Cake
Sharing the cake recipes, that I have tried recently, was on my to-do list for a long time. I thought may be I can start with this cake. I have posted banana cake recipe a few days back, but this will be the first recipe anybody will give you, if you want to learn baking cakes).
I am successfully pursuing the baking art and its whole and sole credit should go to my Pachi(Aayi’s sister). When I was a kid, many times I observed her baking some delicious cakes. I always wondered, ‘How she manages to do that? Only professional bakers are supposed to do that!!! Its such a big procedure’. I never thought one day I would bake cakes!!. I never even tried to ask her about the recipe.
Then when we got our first oven, Pachi gave me this recipe. I prepared it and it was so good and it was so easy :D. Still this cake is on my favorite list.
Ingredients: 1 cup butter 1 and 1/4 cups sugar 1 and 1/2 cups maida or All purpose flour 1 tea spn baking powder 4 eggs 1 tea spn vanilla essence/extract
Method: Preheat the oven at 350F for 10min. Sieve together flour and powder. Keep it aside. Beat sugar in butter till it becomes a smooth paste. Then add one egg at a time beating it all the time. Add essence and mix. Add flour 1 tbl spoon at a time mixing slowly. Grease an oven safe dish with butter. Then sprinkle some flour on it and spread the flour. Now pour the cake mixture into this dish and bake the cake for around 40min at 350F (or till a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean).
Serves : 4 Preparation time : 1hr
For the last few days I was too much held up in something, so I couldn’t go to purchase any sea food. The only place where I get fish (I mean the fish I know), is City Market and it is open only on weekends :(. But last week I bought a pack of frozen shrimps from Price Chopper . My piece of advice would be, if possible always use fresh shrimps, becasue the frozen ones are a bit harder even after cooking and they have some smell :(.
We get fresh shrimps at our native. Most of the time, they will be alive when brought home. The smaller shrimps are more tasty than the big ones. But it takes a hell lot of time and patience to clean those (In small villages like my native, we cannot get cleaned fishes/shrimps. So we have to clean it on our own).
Well…In Bangalore, we always ate ‘chicken hariyali’, it was one of my favourite chicken starter. I tried the same with the prawns this time and it turned out to be great :).
Ingredients: Prawns(big) 15-20 Coriander leaves 1/2 cup Pudina(mint) leaves 1/4 cup Ginger 1″ piece Garlic 2 Garam masala 1/2 tea spn Cumin powder 1/2 tea spn Yogurt(thick) 1 tbl spn Green chillies 2-3 Chaat masala 1/2 tea spn Turmeric a pinch Salt
PS: The mint leaves which I found here have a very strong taste and smell compared to the pudina leaves we got in India. If that is the case, reduce the amount of mint leaves(you can just add 2-3 leaves instead of 1/4th cup).
Method: Grind coriander leaves, pudina, ginger, garlic to a very smooth paste without adding water. Add turmeric, garam masala, cuming powder, yogurt and salt. Mix well with a spoon. Apply this mixture on prawns and leave it for around half an hour (If the mixture becomes thin, the prawns don’t get the uniform coating and the taste is lost, so be careful not to add water). Preheat the oven to 400F. Keep the prawns on a greased oven proof dish and bake them for 30-40mins. If you don’t have an oven, heat a tea spn of oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the prawns. Cook on a low flame till the prawns are completely done. This version takes less time compared to baking in oven. Sprinkle chaat masala on prawns and serve.
Serves : 3 Preparation time : 50min
