Peach Chiffon Cake

This is a simple peach chiffon for my god brother's birthday. The cake is very soft and spongy with the strong peach flavor. I infused some dried apricot with brandy a week before making this cake. So the flavor of brandy was quite strong as well. Of course, children might not like the brandy so better don't add in any liquor for this cake if serving children.

Another thing is I should have more practice as my skill for cake decoration still very lousy. Look at the cake I've brushed with fresh cream, it is quite messy. I really need to improve.

However, we had a good time having this peach chiffon cake during the birthday dinner. The dried apricot inside the cake is just so match with the peach sponge. I added some peach puree into the fresh cream to make this cake much peachy.

Recipe for 24cm chiffon cake tin:

Egg whites 235g
Caster sugar 118g
Corn flour 13g

Egg yolks 90g
Water 40g
Vegetable oil 78g
Peach puree 118g
Flour 105g
Caster sugar 25g
Dried apricot 118g (infused with brandy **optional)

Fresh whipping cream 250g
Sugar powder 20g
Peach puree 50g
10 slices can peaches
10 Chinese parsley leafs

Method:

1. Whip the egg whites until peak form then slowly add in caster sugar continue whipping until a shiny and smooth consistency. Add in the cornflour and whip until just combine.

2. Mix egg yolks, oil, water, peach puree, flour and caster sugar until everything combine. Then mix in chopped dried apricot.

3. Add in 1/3 of the egg white mixture to (2) until combine. Then add half of the left over egg whites mixture. Then continue adding the remaining egg whites mixture. Slowly and gently combine everything.

4. Pour into the baking tin and bake 60minutes at 160'C.

5. Let the baked cake turn upside down for cooling before unmold it.

6. Whip the fresh cream with sugar powder then slowly mix in peach with spatula. Decorate it with your creativity.

8. Keep the cake in the fridge it could last for 4 - 5 days. Best serve in 3 days.

Green Tea Chiffon Cake

I think I was quite brave to make this cake for my guests without any experience of this recipe and much time. Well, I really like to give it a try so I marblized some chinese red tea (红茶) with japanese green tea (抹茶) and hopefully they both could become a friend (kind of sensitive topic). Don't worry, I'm just talking about "Tea".
Somehow, the marble effect not very obvious because I've mixed too much during the marblized process. Without any chance to change the marble effect I shall continue with a simple decoration using some fresh cream and sprinkling some green tea and sugar powder mixture.
Well, by the time I cut it out, I still could see some marble effect but I believed without mixing too much it would be much prettier.
This cakes is full of tea flavour, especially the green tea. I store it in the fridge and serve it to my guests with this hot and humid weather.
Recipe for 24cm chiffon cake tin :

Egg whites 235g
Caster sugar 118g
Corn flour 13g

Egg yolks 90g
Water infused with red tea 78g
Vegetable oil 78g
Flour 118g
Caster sugar 25g
Green tea powder 7g
Water 25g

Fresh whipping cream 250g
Sugar powder 20g
Pinch of Sugar powder
Pinch Green tea powder

Method:

1. Whip the egg whites until peak form then slowly add in caster sugar continue whipping and until a shiny and smooth peak form. Add in the cornflour mix until combine.

2. Mix egg yolks, red tea, oil, flour and caster sugar until everything combine.

3. Add in 1/3 of the egg white mixture to (2) until combine. Then add half of the left over egg whites mixture. Then continue adding the remaining egg whites mixture. Slowly and gently combine everything.

4. In another clean bowl mix the green tea powder with water until it become a green tea paste.

5. Mix the green tea paste with 120g of the mixture (3).

6. Add mixture (5) to mixture (3) to make a marble effect. (not to mix too much)

7. Pour into the baking tin and bake 60minutes at 160'C.

8. Let the baked cake turn upside down for cooling before unmold it.

9. Whip the fresh cream with sugar powder and decorate it with your creativity.

10. I mixed some sugar powder with green tea powder to sprinkle on top of the cake.

11. Keep the cake in the fridge it could last for 4 - 5 days. Best serve in 3 days.

Panchmel Dal and Baati

When RCI Rajasthan was announced, I had bookmarked few recipes. I found Dal Baati , part of an ordinary Rajasthan menu. Most of the Rajasthani recipes were new to me. Finally I tried Baati and Gatte ka Pulao. But since my personal life kept me busy, could not post it in time for the event. Even now, its the routine cooking going on in my kitchen. Meanwhile, the to-be-posted recipes will make it to the blog.

Baati
For baati, I followed partly sanjeev kapoor's recipe and Aathika's .

Whole wheat flour - 1 1/2 cup

besan - 1/2 cup

ghee - 3 tbspn

curd - 1/2 cup

baking powder - 1/2 tspn

ajwain (omam) - 1/2 tspn

salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients and knead into a soft dough using water.

Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and shape into balls.

Cover and keep for one hour.

I use my MIL's old handvo cooker for baking. I baked for nearly 30 mts. By that time, I could see cracks on top of the baatis. To have a look at the handvo cooker, visit here.

Panchmel Dal

Recipe source - Sanjeev Kapoor

As the name indicates, this recipe calls for 5 different dal. Needless to mention about the protien punch hidden in this recipe.

Bengal gram (chana dal) - 1/4 cup

Whole green gram (whole moong) - 1/4 cup

Split black gram (urad dal) -1/4 cup

red lentils (masoor dal) - 1/4 cup

turmeric powder - 1/2 tspn

salt to taste

ginger - 1 inch

green chillies - 2

oil - 3 tblspn

hing - a pinch

cumin seeds - 1/2 tspn

cloves - 5

red chillies - 2 (broken into two)

cumin powder - 1 tspn

coriander powder - 1 tspn

red chilli powder -1/2 tspn

tomatoes - 2 nos

garam masala - 1/2 tspn (I used Kitchen King masala)

Wash all the dal together. Pressure cook with enough water and turmeric.

Grind ginger and green chillies to a paste

Heat oil in a pan. Add hing, cumin seeds, cloves and red chillies. When cumin seeds change color,
add ginger-chilly paste and saute for few seconds.

Stir in cumin powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder.

Add the chopped tomatoes. Cook till oil separates.

Add cooked dal and additional water if needed.

Cook for ten minutes with occasional stirring. Take care the dal doesn't stick to the pan.

Add garam masala powder and remove from heat.

Serve hot with baati.

Baatis are usually broken into pieces and dropped in a bowl of dal and eaten.