Valentine's Day Hidden Heart Cake

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup

Sugar - 1 1/2 cup

Eggs - 2

Vanilla essence - 1 teaspoon

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon 

Vegetable oil - 3/8 cup

Milk - 1/2 cup

Salt - 1/ teaspoon 

Pink food colour 

For chocolate cake

All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cup

Sugar 1 1/2 cup

Eggs - 2

Vanilla essence - 1 teaspoon 

Baking powder  - 1 teaspoon 

Milk - 1/2 cup

Vegetable oil - 3/8 cup

Salt - 1/2 teaspoon 

Coco powder - 30 grams

For topping (optional)

Butter cream frosting

Chocolate shavings

Finely chopped red cherries 

Preheat heat oven to 180 degree Celsius. In a bowl, beat egg and sugar until it becomes fluffy. Slowly add flour, vanilla essence, baking powder, salt, milk and vegetable oil. Finally add pink food colour. I have used wilton food colour here. Mix it well. Make sure not to over beat it. Use a rectangle shape cake mould and bake it for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

Let it cool on a wire rack once it is out of microwave oven. When it is completely cool, cut this cake into 2-3 cm wide slices. And using a heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out heart shapes out of it. Keep it aside.

Now for chocolate cake, follow the same procedure as above. Just you need to skip the pink colour and instead add coco powder. Once the batter is ready, use a rectangular cake mould and arrange these heart shaped cake pieces in the middle of the cake tin. Make sure to leave at least 2 cm on the edges. Once it is arranged in order, Slowly start pouring chocolate cake batter on the sides and top of it. So that the entire heart shapes should cover with this chocolate cake batter. Bake it for 40-45 minutes.

Once it is cool, you can decorate it with butter frosting, chocolate shavings and red cherries which is completely optional. And one thing I have learned after making this cake is, not to use bigger cookie cutter. It will be better if you use medium shaped cookie cutter to get the heart shape. So that the chocolate cake batter will cover it completely. Here, I struggled little bit to cover it with chocolate batter as it was little less and these hearts were little big like my heart...:). But the cake was yummy as always. Please try it out today for your loved ones. Wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. 

Finally I would like to share a pic from The Capgemini Family Cookbook. It was an excellent initiative taken by Capgemini for Chennai Flood relief. I was excited to be a part of this initiative as two of my favourite recipes was posted in this book.

Please find below link for those two recipes.

http://bakemode.blogspot.in/2015/12/pathiri-pancake-rice-flour-malabar.html

http://bakemode.blogspot.in/2015/12/chicken-stew.html

Vanilla Custard Fruit Salad

Ingredients

Vanilla custard - 4-5 tablespoons
Milk - 400 ml
Fruits
Condensed Milk - 4 tablespoon
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup

Start by adding custard powder and 50 ml of milk in a bowl. Mix it really well and make sure there are no lumps. Now boil the remaining milk. Once it's really hot, add this custard mixer in that. Start stirring in one direction. Later custard will become thick and at this point turn off the flame. Keep it aside to cool. Now add all finely cut fruits to this. Finally add condensed milk and refrigerate it for 20- 30 minutes before serving. Try using fruits of your choice. Here, I have used banana, apple, papaya and red cherries. It was so yummy and it got over just like that:). Kids will love this. Please try it out.

Cheesy Discs

Ingredients

Tomato - 1
Onion -1
Capsicum -1
Pepper powder - 1 teaspoon
Salt
Cheese - 50 grams
Paneer - 50 grams
Tomato ketchup - 1 tablespoon
Oregano - 1 tablespoon
Coriander leaves

For Sauce

Butter - 2 tablespoon
Tomato ketchup - 2 teaspoon
Cheese - 2 tablespoon

In a bowl, add finely chopped onion, tomato, capsicum, paneer,  cheese, pepper powder, tomato ketchup, oregano, coriander leaves and little salt. Mix it really well. Keep it aside.

Now in another small bowl, add butter, cheese and tomato ketchup. Keep this aside. Meanwhile using bread, we need to cut out round shapes. For this, try using cookie cutter or use round lid of any jar. This should be a medium size one. Now using small round shaped cutter, cut out small rings from the round shaped discs. Here, we will take only the outer ring and not the small discs as in pics. Also, preheat oven to 180 degree  Celsius.

Now, spread the sauce in the centre of the bigger round shaped disc. Now keep the outer ring on top of the disc. Keep the filling in the centre and bake it for 5 -8 minutes or until it becomes golden brown in colour. It's a yummy snack so serve hot with ketchup. :)

Vanilla Muffins

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 2 cups
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
Milk  - 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tablespoon
Butter - 250 grams
Vanilla esscence - 2 teaspoon
Egg - 2

In a bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until it becomes fluffy. Now add sifted all purpose flour, baking powder and salt to this. Again mix it well using a hand mixer. Slowly add milk to this. Mix it well and once the batter is ready, Immediately transfer it to muffin mould and bake it for 20 to 25 minutes until a tooth pick inserted in the centre of the muffin comes out clean.

This is going to be my 50th post. I started blogging in the year 2015 just for fun. And planning to continue this hobby in 2016 as well. :) Wishing you all a Very Happy & Blessed New Year !!! :)