Melt In the Mouth Chocolate Cake with Mint Chocolate Glaze

Chocolate...the name itself makes my mouth water....well I just had one! :) I love chocolate a lot and keep it in stock at home and munch on it mostly after dinner. My son also loves it a lot, so I cannot say no to him as I like  to eat it as much he does. So I decided to keep it healthy and started to prefer and choose dark chocolate. Now I love it more than the regular chocolate, as it has the right amount of sweetness to it, while the regular chocolate makes me think it's too sweet, eventually which is good for me that I think so. :)

I see that Anush likes to eat chocolate flavored with mint...I never tired and thought I would never like it. But few days back on of my friends had these thin chocolate mint wafer cookies, so I thought why not try it and see how it tastes. You will not believe, it tasted so good and the mint flavor just chills your throat and that feels awesome.

So adding mint to this recipe as a glaze was an accident :) because I didn't have enough chocolate chips, but had mint flavored baking chocolate chips, so now I love this flavor and combo of chocolate and mint.

Ingredients:
------------
Cake:
-------
3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 cup All Purpose Flour
1 cup Sugar
1/3 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
3/4 cup Milk
3/4 tsp Lemon Juice
1/3 cup Canola Oil
1 Egg
1 1/2 Vanilla Extract

Glaze:
-------
3 oz Bitter Sweet Chocolate Chips
3 oz Mint Chocolate (Baking Chocolate Chips)
1/2 cup Whipping Cream

Method:
---------

Cake:
-------
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Coat a baking pan or a spring foam pan with baking spray.
3. In a bowl mix milk, lemon juice, canola oil, egg and vanilla extract and keep it aside
4. In another big bowl swift together whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking soda, salt.
5. Mix the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix it until just blended and transfer the batter into the prepared pan and bake it until the cake is done or about 28 to 30 mins.
6. Remove the cake from oven, let it sit for 5-10 mins, then transfer the cake on a cooling rack or a serving plate.

Glaze:
-------
1. In a microwave safe bowl add the bitter sweet chocolate chips, min chocolate chips and whipping cream and microwave it for about 20 secs, stir it with a wooden spoon or fork.
2. Again put it back to the microwave and again heat if for 20 secs, keep repeating it until the chocolate is just melted and mixed well with the whipping cream.
3. Now let it sit for about 5 mins, or you can also pour this glaze over the warm cake to make it more moist and like melt in the mouth.

4. As and wen the cake cools down, even the glaze kinda hardens a bit. You can also enjoy this rich chocolaty warm cake with a scoop of ice cream.

You Might Also Like:

	Chocolate Pumpkin Pie Bar
	Beetroot Chocolate Ultimate Fudge Brownie - MADE EASY & HEALTHY
	Eggless Chocolate Pasta with Strawberry Cream Cheese and Chocolate Syrup (Pasta made from scratch)

Tofu and Pea Curry

Six months before, I was watching a cooking show by Anjum Anand telecasted over TV. She was explaining about all the cooking facts, do's and don’ts about Indian cooking which inspired me a lot and made me to look into one of her books "I love curry". I have tried many recipes from that book and today also I am planning to post her Tofu and Pea curry which paired well with hot steamed rice.



Tofu is something which look like a Paneer but it is made by coagulating the soy milk instead of our cow milk. It has low calorie, high protein, iron and has little fat. For more information about tofu, click here.



Basic Information:

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Peas - 1 cup, fresh or frozen

Firm tofu - 1 cup, cut into cubes

Tomatoes - 2 nos, small size

Onion - 1 no, medium size

Ginger garlic paste - 2 teaspoons

Oil - 1 tablespoon

Cumin seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Cinnamon stick - 2 cm length

Bay leaf - 1 no

Black pepper - 4 nos

Cloves - 2

Turmeric powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Chilli powder - 1 teaspoon

Coriander powder - 1 tablespoon

Salt - to taste

Whole milk - 1 cup

Water - 1 cup

Coriander leaves - 4 strings, forgarnishing (Optional)



Method:



1) Make a paste of tomato and keep it aside.

2) Heat oil in a kadai/frying pan/sauce pan. When the oil is hot, add cumin seeds, cinnamon, cloves, crushed black pepper and bayleaves.

3) When the spices spreads nice aroma to the kitchen, add onion and cook until soft and brown.

4) Add ginger garlic paste and add saute for few minutes.

5) Add tomato paste (As said in step 1) mix well.

6) After few minutes, add turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder and salt.  Reduce the flame and cover the pan. Cook untill the oil seperates from the gravy. Mix inbetween to avoid the gravy sticking with pan.

7) Add peas and tofu and gently stir for 1 minute to 2 minutes. Add milk with a cup of water. Bring this mixture to boil.

8) When the gravy starts boiling, simmer the flame and cover the pan untill you get the think creamy gravy consistency.

9) Adjust the seasoning and sprinkle coriander leaves before serving.

10) Serve with steamed rice.

 

Note:

1) Use only fresh and frozen peas for the best result.

2) As the gravy is little watery consistency, It will go good only with rice.

3) If you are not getting tofu at your place of stay, substitute tofu with paneer.

Almond Kesari

Have you tried my Pineapple Kesari? This is another variation of plain kesari. It tastes really good.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Sooji/Semolina
1 1/4 cup Water
1/2 cup dry Almond powder
5 tsp mtr badam feast (optional)
1/2 cup Sugar
A pinch of Saffron and Cardamom
Handful of roasted Cashews and Raisins
1/4 cup Ghee

Method:
In little ghee, roast cashews and raisins and set aside.
Fry sooji in the same pan on low flame till it turns light golden brown.
Add almond powder, mtr badam feast and cardamom.
In another vessel, boil water and saffron.
Add it to Sooji/Almond mixture gradually and stir continuously to avoid forming of lumps.
When Sooji is cooked, add sugar and mix well. Add ghee and garnish with nuts and raisins.

If you are not using mtr badam feast, increase the amount of sugar to 3/4 cup.