Creamy Butter Pound Cake with Lemon Butter Cream Frosting

I love butter cakes and I have been baking butter cakes since my high school days.  I have tried so many different recipes and I thought I finally found my ultimate moist butter cake recipe until I ate this cake. 

My daughter baked and decorated this cake for me all by herself for my birthday, which we celebrated last week.  This was actually her first attempt in baking a butter cake and decorating the cake  as well.  To me this was an excellent attempt and an  amazing piece of work.  She had taken so many details taken into account.   The cake looks so classy,  colors well chosen and I love the pink crumb coat that she put in.  Gives the cake a very beautiful contrast when the cake is sliced.  

Most of the recipes I have posted on my blog and recipes that I have tried are food that I love a lot or that my family loves a lot.  I know that my daughter loves me a lot because she baked a cake for her that she herself hates to eat!  I love you too babe and you are simply too AMAZING!

Candles by no means reflect my age

Beautiful pink crumb coating adding a nice contrast to 

Ingredients

3/4  cups unsalted butter
1 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 °F or 180°C.
2.  Grease and flour a 8" cake pan.  
3.  Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to cream well
     for 5-10 minutes. 
4.  Next add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
5.  Sift flour with baking powder and salt.  
6.  Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
7.  Lastly add in the vanilla extract and continue to beat until just mixed.
8.  Pour cake batter into the greased cake pan and gently tap the cake pan on a kitchen 
      counter to remove any excess  air bubbles.
9.  Bake for about 40 minutes or until the cake is done.  When the cake is done, invert the 
      cake onto a cooling rack. 
10. Decorate the cake with lemon butter cream frosting (recipe below) when the cake is      
      completely cooled. 

Lemon Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter
3 cups confectioners sugar or icing sugar, sifted
3 tablespoon lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
2-3 tablespoons cream

Directions

1.  In an electric mixer,cream the butter until fluffy.
2.  Change the mixer speed to low and gently add in the confectioners sugar a little at a time 
     and cream well.
3.  If the frosting gets a little too difficult to mix, add in the cream a tablespoon at a time 
      until you reach a medium firm consistency.  

Sharkarpara

This is a nice snack to  have and is usually served during Deepavali.  This is also my mum's favorite. I made some using the recipe below and gave some to her and she thought the paras were store-bought.

Ingredients:

500g all purpose flour
100g shortening (I used 50g unsalted butter and 50g vegetable shortenening)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 - 3/4 cup water to make a firm dough.
vegetable oil for deep frying
For the syrup:

300g sugar
100g water

Method:

1.   Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
2.   Rub shortening into the flour.
3.   Add in water a little at a time until you have a firm  and smooth dough.
4.   Wrap dough in cling wrap and let is rest for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
5.   Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thickness and cut  paras into 1 cm squares.
6.   Heat the vegetable oil in wok or pot on medium low flame.  When the oil is hot, carefully drop in the paras into        and fry until the paras are light brown.  Make sure that you fry the paras on medium low flame otherwise the 
      paras will brown too quickly but they will still be uncooked inside.
7.   Drain on paper towels and let it cool to room temperature.
8.   Once the paras are at room temperature, prepare the syrup for the sugar coating.
9.   Heat sugar and water in a wok and keep stirring the syrup until it it reaches soft ball stage.
      Syrup dropped into a bowl of cold water should be able to hold it shape and form a soft 
      ball.
10. At this stage, switch off the flame and drop the paras into the sugar syrup and stir quickly until all the paras      
       they are well coated with syrup.  After about 1 or 2 minutes of stirring, the sugar coating will become 
       frosted.  Transfer the shakarparas to a tray to cool.
11.  Store in an air tight container.

Note:
You can take a portion of the dough and add some food coloring to the dough. Knead the dough until you get an uniform color on the dough.  I added some red cochineal to about a handful of dough.

Homemade Roasted Salted Cashew Nuts

My husband loves roasted salted cashew nuts and I made this for Deepavali this year.  The preparation is quite easy but it does take like about an hour to bake and you need some time to air dry the cashew nuts after blanching it.  These roasted cashews are naturally sweet and just slightly salty even though the quantity of salt looks like a lot.  It is definitely batter than the store bought roasted cashews

Ingredients

2 lbs or 1 kg raw cashews
3 tablespoons sea salt
1 liter of water

Method

1.  Place the raw cashew nuts in a wide pot together with the salt
2.  Bring the water to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil, carefully pout it all over the 
     cashew nuts. Stir to dissolve the salt and close the pot.
3.  Leave the pot closed for about 15 minutes so that the cashew nuts absorb the salt.
4.  After about 15 minutes, drain the water from the cashews and place them on a towel. 
     Leave the blanched cashews under a fan or near a window to air dry the cashews.  It took
     me about 30 minutes to air dry my cashews under a fast fan.
5.  Preheat the oven to 300°F or 150°C.
6.  Once the cashews are dry, place them in a baking sheet and level them evenly on the 
      baking sheet. 
7.  Bake the cashews for about 1 hour or so or until the cashews have turned golden brown.           Make sure to stir the cashews around in the baking sheet every 10 minutes to ensure that 
      the cashews are evenly baked. 
8.  Store in an air tight container.

Deepavali 2015 Treats - Sri Lankan Christmas Cake

I made my favorite Sri Lankan Fruit Cake for Deepavali.  I have posted this recipe before but I have made some slight changes to the recipe.

Roasted Semolina

 Caje Batter 

 After 3 hours of baking at 300 °F or 150 °C

Bisectional view of yummy semolina fruit cake

Ingredients

for the fruit marinade:
250g raisins
125g blackcurrants
125 candied orange & lemon peel
125g  red cherries
125g green cherries
1 cup chopped or halved cashew nuts
1 tbsp rose essence
1 tbsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp almond essence
1/2 cup brandy or rum (I used rum)

Put all the ingredients above in a zip lock bag. Shake it well and leave it t marinate in the fridge for at least a day. I left mine in the fridge for a few days. 

for the Cake
2  1/2 + 1/2 sticks of salted butter (113g per stick)
240g  dark brown sugar
2 tbsp of golden syrup (I omitted this)
220g of semolina, used coarse semolina
80g of all purpose flour + 1 tsp of mixed spice, sifted together
5 large eggs, at room temperature (50gms each with shell)

Directions
1.  Roast semolina under medium low heat with 1/2 a stick of butter until you get a 
     nice nutty smell. Refer to the picture above.  Leave it to cool.
2.  Preheat oven to 300 °or 150 °C.
3.  Beat butter and brown sugar syrup until light and fluffy.
4.  Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5.  Beat in vanilla essence.
6.  Mix the cooled roasted semolina with the flour and spice and add it to the butter-
     egg mixture, alternating flour and the marinated fruits and nuts.
7.  Line a 9 x 9" or  cake tin with grease proof paper.
8.  Pour cake batter into a 9 x 9 " or a 7" x 12"cake tin and bake for about 2 1/2 to 3 
      hours or until a skewer inserted inside the cake 
     comes out clean.
9.  Once cake is done immediately remove cake from the oven and brush the cake 
      evenly  with 2 tablespoons of rum.
10. Cool well before refrigerating.  Cut the cake when it is at room temperature 
      otherwise cake will be crumbly.
11. Cake tastes better after a few days.

I Forgot AGAIN

The roses I got this morning for our wedding anniversary

This morning my husband surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of red roses.  I thought it was for my birthday but then my birthday is not until end of the month. Before he could say another word, I said "OMG I forgot AGAIN".  Every year without fail I would forget our wedding anniversary and every year without fail he would remember our wedding anniversary and will send me flowers or buy me flowers, get me a gift and even arrange a wonderful dinner for the both of us.  The first few years of our marriage, I  used to do similar things but when I had my babies, motherhood caught up with me I guess. But then it is no excuse to forget our wedding anniversary.  Last year I made a wow to remember our anniversary and to wish him before he did. So I put a reminder on my phone and first thing in the morning, I wished him "Happy Anniversary Darling. Ha ha I beat you to it this year." He just smiled and said "It's not today honey, our anniversary is tomorrow!"  

This year since our anniversary is one day before Deepavali and I was busy with the preparations, I completely forgot all about our anniversary.   It is so sweet of him to remember our anniversary year after year.  Love you Babe........Happy Anniversary to you too.

Deepavali 2015 Treats - Pandan Melon Seed Cookies

I have started baking cookies for this year's Deepavali festival.  I made my first batch of cookies today and this is my husband's favorite cookie.  My husband has his favorite cookie, each of kids have their favorite cookies and I try to make all their favorites each year.  I will be posting each cookie recipe as I bake them for this year's celebration.

Ingredients

250 gms salted butter, at room temperature
120 gms icing or confectioners sugar
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pandan* paste
450 gms all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup melon or kuaci seeds, roasted and roughly chopped
1/2 cup red cherries (for baking), roughly chopped

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 °F 180 °C.
2.  Sift all purpose flour with baking powder and set it aside
3.  In a bowl, whisk butter and icing sugar until the butter is light and fluffy.
4.  Next add in the egg yolk and the pandan paste and beat well.
5.  Fold in the sifted flour into the butter mixture.
6.  Place the cookie dough in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
7.  Roll out the cookie dough to about 5mm thickness and cut out the cookie with your favorite
     cookie cutter.
8.  Place the cookies in a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake in the middle rack for
    about 20 minutes.

Note:
* You can find pandan paste at any asian grocery store

Pizookie or Giant Cookie Cake

This week we celebrated my middle child's 16th birthday.  I asked him earlier in the week what kind of birthday cake he would like.  His favorite has always been cheese cake and I made strawberry cheese cake for his 15th birthday.  So I thought he would want a cheese cake this year too.  In fact I had already bought a big block of cream cheese and it was sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be baked.  But he said he wanted a 'pizookie'.  I said 'what'!  "I never heard of such a thing before". I thought he meant some kind a gadget or something and then my daughter said "Mom, it's a pizza cookie... pizookie,...get it". I was like huh....okay so what is it actually. My daughter said "it's just a giant cookie" and my son said "that's what I said" and I replied "why didn't you say so, I'm sure I can do it".  And I did do it.  I just used Mrs. Fields Blue Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and formed the cookie dough into a 12" round cookie.

First I lined my baking tray with parchment paper and I placed my "Kaiser Stainless Steel Adjustable Cake Ring" over the parchment paper and adjusted the cake ring to form a 12" circle.   I spread the cookie dough to cover the base of the cake ring.  The rest is as per the directions for the chocolate chip cookie recipe.   I did bake the pizookie for an extra 5 minutes than what was required in the recipe though.

Of all my years of baking and decorating birthday cakes for my kids, husband and family, this was by far most the easiest and fastest birthday cake to make!