The baking must go on!

I returned from the supermarket and felt this strong urge to bake something.

Mom wanted me to somehow consume the brown sugar. We had no butter in the house and were in no mood to go out again for it so I began rummaging through the recipe diaries, just then I remembered that we had been wanting to try out chef Rahat's carrot cake recipe since quite sometime.

Actually I had made it last year for my colleagues and they all had liked it alot. Most of them thought it was a chocolate cake! I think its because it uses brown sugar and so it tastes even better than Betty Crocker's carrot cake recipe.

Baking always gets us excited :) so when I finally announced that I want to bake this cake, my sister got up to do the work.We had no carrots and my sister does not like nuts but we still went ahead with the recipe because the baking must go on!

Carrot Cake

3 eggs

1 cup oil

pinch of salt

1 and 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon powder

1 and 1/4 cups dark brown sugar

2 cups or less carrots, pealed and shredded

3/4th cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.

Mix together flour,baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon powder. Keep it aside.

Beat sugar,eggs and oil with pinch of salt. Fold in flour mixture.

Stir in carrots and walnuts.

Pour batter in baking pan.

I prefer to line bottom of pan with butter paper and grease it too rather than just greasing it.

Bake for 25 minutes or till knife inserted in center comes out clean.

For the icing: Mix 1 and 1/2 cups icing sugar with approximately 3 tablespoons milk. Spread on cooled cake.

Note: Icing is not necessary for this cake. I did it only because we had some leftover icing sugar.

Come to the dark side, we have cookies!

This is my all time favorite recipe.

My sister was baking cookies for the first time so we decided to split the recipe and go ahead with half of all the ingredients.

This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies and that's quite a lot of work for beginners in baking.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 and 1/4 cups regular sugar

1 and 1/4 cups brown sugar

225g butter

1/2 cup oil

1 tablespoon vanilla essence

2 eggs

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl beat both sugars, butter, oil, vanilla essence and eggs.

Caution! At this stage the batter tastes extremely yummy so please avoid licking it.

In another dry bowl first mix the dry ingredients (i.e. flour, salt & baking soda) then add it to the above mixture with spoon.

Mix well with hands to form dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 175°C/350°F.

Take a tablespoon of dough and make a cookie. Place cookies on a cookie sheet or baking tray.

There is no need to grease the tray.

Bake for 10 minutes ONLY. Cool slightly. Remove tray from oven and cool completely.

Staring my baking blog

After baking passionately for the past few years, I am finally starting my own baking blog.

This idea was given to me by my very dear friend shumaila. When I had told her about my love for baking few months ago, she had suggested that I blog about it. At that time I was busy working as a programmer and had no time for anything.

I always wanted to gather all my favorite recipes at one place for quicker accessibility and so for that purpose, what better way than blogging!

This recipe that I am sharing is adapted from here. I like to call it the 'Apple Cake'. It goes best with tea at breakfast.

My sister is having a go at baking these days so I am guiding her as I take pictures for my blog.

Apple Cake

3 eggs

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups regular sugar

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Apples, peeled and finely chopped (2 cups)

1 cup chopped nuts (almonds or walnuts) - optional

Preheat oven to 175°C/350°F.

Grease and flour baking cake pan.

I prefer to line bottom of pan with butter paper and then grease it too. This not only helps to remove the cake from the pan when baked but also makes washing the pan a great deal easier as the pan will be practically clean!

In a clean dry bowl first mix the dry ingredients i.e. flour, salt, cinnamon powder & baking soda.

Now in a separate bowl beat sugar, oil, vanilla essence and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in flour mixture until smooth. Stir in chopped apples and nuts.

Pour batter into the pan. Bake for 30 minutes or till knife inserted in center comes out clean.