The Coffee Cake you've all been Salivating for!

When I say coffee, I don't mean a cake you have with coffee. What is mean is a cake that smells gloriously like coffee with each bite; a cake that coffee lovers can get addicted to - Don't say I did not give you fair warning. So… (as my wonderful host in Spain started most of his sentences) I am revealing to you the best recipe - alas cannot claim credit - of the most enjoyable cake I've tasted, evah! And thanks goes to the Pioneer Woman whose recipe worked like a charm and my daughter who is my best baking buddy!

The recipe I am turning over to the link here - Just follow verbatim - really!

I am just showing you my results. Please drool, at least a little :)

RECIPE

Ingredients

• FOR THE CAKE:
• 2 cups Flour
• 2 cups Sugar
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 2 sticks Butter
• 3 Tablespoons Instant Coffee Crystals
• ½ cups Buttermilk
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla
• _____
• FOR THE ICING:
• 1-½ stick Butter
• 1 pound Powdered Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Instant Coffee Crystals
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Heavy Cream

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two round baking pans.

In a large bowl, mix sugar, flour, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

Melt 2 sticks of butter in a pot over medium-low heat. While that’s melting, add 3 tablespoons instant coffee to 1 cup boiling water. Set aside.

Once butter has melted, add coffee mixture to the butter in the pot. Let it come to a boil for about ten seconds, then turn off the heat. Set aside for until slightly cool.

In a separate bowl, add buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix until well combined.

Pour the butter/coffee mixture into the flour mixture. Stir the mixture together gently. The purpose here isn’t to mix it together perfectly, but to cool down the heat before adding the egg mixture.

Add in the egg mixture and stir gently until well combined. Then pour into pans. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes or until set.

Allow to cool completely.

Combine all icing ingredients, then ice the cake. Chill for an hour before serving.

The recipe and preparation is courtesy Pioneer Woman

Banana & Coconut Pradhaman/ Payasam

I am not usually a fruit in a payasam sort of person - I love me milk with sugar and cardamom, at times with freshly cooked rice. But the challenge for Avant Garde Cookies for the hush-hush week that Roshni laid on me was using fruits or whatever to make a pradhaman. Thanks for the push, Roshni - We actually loved it and it was almost a meal to have a cup of that, as a replacement for breakfast.

A very simple and quick to put together recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 ripe bananas
• 1 can condensed milk
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1 cup of sweetened coconut (grated)
• 1tsp of cardamom
• 7-8 crushed cashews
• 1tsp of coconut oil
• 1tsp of butter

Method

1. Empty condensed milk and the evaporated milk in a sauce pan and whisk together. 
2. Pour into a mixer along with the bananas and blend until smooth
3. Pour back into the saucepan and start heating
4. In a separate pan, lightly brown the coconut and cashews with 1 tsp of butter
5. Add to the boiling mix 
6. Allow it to cook with the pradhaman for about 2-3 minutes
7. Add 1 tsp of coconut oil before serving 

Enjoy :)

Cardamom & Pistachio Cookies

These should ideally be called the everything-in-it cookies.

After yet another looooong haitus, here I am back in a holiday mood with a cookie recipe. It was also for a friend’s son whose birthday. If one knows the basic requirements to make a cookie, like flour and baking soda, oil etc, then one can get creative with cookies and make them as healthy or decadent as one wants it. I had experimented with Giada’s pumkin and Raisins oatmeal cookies and they were a hit even with my little lassie, so I ventured on to try a similar cookie with several new and interesting ingredients. My little one offered a cookie to a lady who took her pictures and my son’s senior pics and I just got an email from her with compliments on the cookie and a recipe. So this one’s for you Melody J Most of these ingredients are dispensable or changeable depending upon what’s available in your kitchen and what you like in your cookie. And with those caveats in place, let’s check out the recipe.

Prep Time 20 minutes

Bake time 15-18 minutes

Makes about 25-30 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tbs coconut powder
• 2/3 cup rolled oats
• 3 tbsp quinoa flakes
• 3/4 cup turbinado raw sugar
• Zest of 1 clementine
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/2 cup of chopped dates
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 cup veg oil
• 1/4 cup chopped pistachios
• 3 tbsp milk 

Method

1. Set oven to 350 F
2. Grease couple of cookie pans
3. (parchment paper –optional)
4. Mix all the dry ingredients nicely
5. Throw in the nuts and the dry fruits
6. The proceed to add the oil, milk and maple syrup
7. This should make a thick nice consistency – you may add additional spoons of milk should you find your mixture too thick.
8. Either with your hands or with a tablespoon, drop small amounts on to the prepared cookie sheet an inch apart.
9. Cook for about 5 minutes –
10. Open oven and pull out the cookie sheet
11. With a flat spatula gently press down on the cookies – they will have melted just enough at this point for your to shape them
12. At this point sprinkle some sugar on top of each cookie
13. Put them back in the oven and cook for the rest of the time
14. Each oven varies so please keep a watch on the cookies and if you see their underside getting browned that is a good time to remove them
15. Cool on rack and enjoy with friends and family  These will make great holiday gifts and don’t forget Santa – a personal and delicious one.

Enjoy and I will try to be back more holiday recipes soon.

Nutella Cookies

My first post for Avant Garde Cookies this month was a challenge - to make a dish with 5 ingredients or less - now as an Indian, you will know we use a lot of ingredients to make our food and I was turning a few recipes in my mind, including the raita I posted last ... But as luck would have it, my yoga teacher posted this cookie recipe with 4 ingredients and I was jumping with joy - Yes!!!!!! There is my post for the event :) A recipe from My Tasty Kitchen

Simple and delicious Nutella Cookies -Makes about 22- 8 minutes to prepare and 8 minutes to bake and voila!

Ingredients

• 1 cup nutella
• 1cup all purpose flour
• 1/2cup of sugar
• 1egg

Method

1. Heat oven to 350 F
2. blend all 4 ingredients together 
3. Make 1 inch balls 
4. Flatten with the base of a cup
5. Bake for 8 minutes

Goes to Avant Garde Cookies -Check out the other AGC thoughout this week 
Anusha, Jayanthi, Kavitha, Radhika, Veena, Priya S, Roshni

Banana Upside Down Cake

What do you do when you have a sweet craving? Sometimes you give in and go the whole nine yards and make something with what you've got. Thus came about this banana upside down cake. I has several super ripe bananas - hate those btw - and the only way I could imagine having them was in either a bread or with this recipe, in a cake. I used a recipe that I'd already tried out for the cake and just added the caramelized bananas...
Ingredients

• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1.5 cup all purpose flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 4-6 ripe bananas
• 3-4 tbsp Demerara sugar 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Butter a 9 inch pan (I used pyrex)
3. Cut bananas lengthwise and arrange neatly on the bottom of the pan
4. Sprinkle the Demerara Sugar generously over the bananas
5. Cream butter and sugar in a mixer
6. Add eggs 1 at a time
7. Then the flour with the baking powder
8. Mix until it s a creamy batter (don’t over mix)
9. Pour the cake batter evenly over the bananas making sure not to disturb the arrangement.
10. Bake for about 30 -35 minutes or until the top of the cake is golden.
11. Cool it before loosening the sides of the cake
12. Gently invert on to a cake holder.
13. The bananas should look glazed, caramelized and delicious. 
14. Enjoy by itself of with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.