Perfect Chocolate Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 26

Bake of the Day: Perfect Chocolate Cake

It's the final day of the month long mega marathon and I wanted to end it on a sweet note. I made this perfect chocolate cake for my husband's birthday, but the pictures I took looked awful, so I made it again couple of days back.

When I started planning for the marathon, I listed about 40~45 recipes that I wanted to try. I wanted to bake dishes that I've never made before like meringues, panettone, flat breads and so on. But when actual reality set in, the list got shorter and the dishes got simpler. I am happy with the baked dishes I posted in the marathon and hopefully I'll get to the dishes I had on my list along with the long list of bookmarks from my fellow marathoners.

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Bagel Chips with Cinnamon Sugar

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 25

Bake of the Day: Bagel Chips

After a easy, breezy palmier recipe, here's another baked dish that is very very quick and easy to make. These Bagel chips are made using store bought bagels and they are crispy, crunchy and delicious.
I first saw these crunchy bagels on Siri's blog and mentally noted it down to try. My husband buys bagels from Costco & BJ's occasionally and if you know anything about these warehouse stores, you know that they come in wholesale quantities. So we get about 9~12 bagels in one shot. I don't usually eat bagels and it's just my husband and my son who have to finish the whole bag. After about 2~3 days, they get tired of them and we have these sad looking bagels in the bread box.

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Homemade Palmiers

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 24

Bake of the Day: Palmiers

We are slowing inching towards to the end of this marathon. Can't believe that we have been baking non-stop for the whole month of April -- it almost makes me sad that we won't be having this much fun baking, posting and enjoying each other's posts.
Today's bake, Palmiers, are so easy to make if you have store bought puff pastry sheets. I have seen quite a few recipes online to make quick puff pastry at home -- like this one by Gayathri. But I can't dare to make it at home, it seems to be a lot of work AND lot of butter. I guess I'm OK with the store bought puff pastry sheets that have same quantity of butter and even more other unnecessary ingredients.

Palmier (palm tree in French) or elephant ear is a heart shaped French pastry made in heart shape or palm shape. They are like the 'little hearts' we get in India. Costco sells a big box of them and I'm always tempted to pick them up, but knowing that they are very simple to make, I always end up not buying.

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Neapolitan Tarts (Chocolate crust with No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake filling)

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 23
Bake of the Day: Neapolitan Tarts (Chocolate crust with No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake) 

I can't believe we are almost at the end of April and our mega baking marathon is going to be done in 4 days. Time sure flies when we are having this much fun. If you want to know what I baked so far for the marathon, then check here.
For the final week I have some miscellaneous bakes, basically dishes that didn't really fall in any of my chosen themes for the previous weeks (breads, breakfast & cakes). First up is this Neapolitan tart -- with a chocolate crust and a no-bake strawberry cheesecake filling. 

Chocolate, Vanilla & Strawberry are the classic Neapolitan flavor combination (like in the ice cream). In this recipe, they are showcased in chocolate tarts filled with vanilla flavored strawberries. Recipe is from Vegetarian Times magazine.

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Lemon Almond Ricotta Bundt Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 22

Bake of the Day: Cakes -- Lemon Almond Ricotta Bundt Cake

I am not a health freak but I do look at what a eat. My motto is everything in moderation is OK. There was a phase in my life, few years back, when I tried making 'healthy' foods that really tasted 'healthy' (you know what I mean, right??). I'm glad that phase has passed and now I try incorporate healthy ingredients into my dishes but try to make them taste as normal as possible.

Coming to today's dish, I had a container of ricotta in the fridge waiting to be used up and a quick search landed me on this Lemon almond Bundt cake recipe. I loved the pics and decided to bake it.

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Fresh Strawberry Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 21

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes --  Fresh Strawberry Cake

I first saw this strawberry cake on Siri's blog. This cake recipe was making rounds in Facebook couple of months ago. A Strawberry Winter Cake movement was also started because it was strawberry season in India. All the cakes shared looked so amazing that I had to jump on the bandwagon and make this cake right away. This cake celebrates Summer in a delicious way!!

Even though it wasn't really strawberry season then (I still remember the super cold winter -- brrrrr), I found some decent strawberries and made this cake. It is a very pretty cake with whole strawberries beautifully arranged on top. I should have put the strawberries a little closer on top -- they seemed to have drifted apart after baking.

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Eggless Vanilla Cake with Condensed Milk

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 20
Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes -- Eggless Vanilla Cake with Condensed Milk

As I was organizing the recipes to post for this week, I was surprised to see that I was missing my daughter's birthday cake. Then I realized that I made an extremely small (6") cake and it was all gone by the end of the night. I only had one good picture of the cake. So I made it again recently.

It is a very basic eggless vanilla cake with condensed milk. Using cake flour makes the cake soft and gives it a great texture. It is not a very moist cake, but is not totally dry either.

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Eggless Berry Cake (with Sour Cream) -- Peppa Pig Fondant Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 19

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes -- Eggless Berry Cake (with Sour Cream)
After my son's birthday cakes (Cookie cake & Dulche de Leche cake), I made this eggless berry cake for my niece. I was volunteering to bake cakes left and right, so I can bake new cakes for the marathon. I think some of my friends & family were even creeped out on how obsessed I was to bring a cake to the party -- poor people ;-)

I asked my niece what flavored cake she wants -- she wasn't really worried about the flavor, she just wanted a princess cake that was pink. So I accepted the challenge and even found a recipe and instructions on making a nice Barbie princess cake. Initially it seemed easy enough to make but as I kept thinking about it seemed like a daunting task, so I changed my mind and decided on making this Peppa Pig cake instead because she is a big fan of Peppa. Good that I didn't promise her a princess cake in the first place. She was definitely excited to see Peppa on the cake.

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Eggless Dulche de Leche Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 18

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes -- Eggless Dulche de Leche Cake

After yesterday's giant chocolate chip cookie, I made this Dulche de leche cake for my son's birthday that weekend. My husband travels on business to Argentina frequently and gets this amazing local dulche de leche from there which I use in all kinds of different desserts, like this creme caramel and this yummy cake. You can make your own dulche de leche at home or you can buy the canned variety or you can use just regular condensed milk (it will taste different but it will still be good).

This is an eggless cake and is sweetened with just the dulche de leche. I always tell myself not to experiment a new recipe for a party. But I always do that -- I'm too bad that planning ahead of time. 

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Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 17

Bake of the Day: Celebration Cakes -- Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

I can't believe it is the third week of our month long mega baking marathon, after making breads, breakfast dishes, the next two weeks (or week and a half) are going to be focused on desserts -- cakes, cookies and so on.
I have been planning for this marathon for almost 6 months now. So I've been saving all the special baked recipes for this week. First up, is the cookie cake I made for my son's birthday. It is a giant chocolate chip cookie that is decorated like a birthday cake.

My son's birthday was on a weekday last year and I had planned to make a birthday cake for the party over the weekend. So on his actual birthday, I decided to keep it simple and made this cookie cake instead of an actual cake. That decoration was supposed to be a dinosaur because my son is a big dinosaur fan :-)

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Baked Chocolate Oatmeal with Bananas

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 16

Bake of the Day: Breakfast -- Baked Oatmeal

Baked oatmeal for breakfast is a great way to start any day -- it's easy to put together, quite healthy and can be made for 1 or for a crowd in almost the same time.

I tasted baked oatmeal with raspberries at a cute little restaurant in Harrisburg last year and it has been on my mind ever since. I actually wanted to try the same recipe with raspberries but I couldn't find any good berries in the store. So ended up making this chocolate version because the kids would prefer this version over the berries.

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Apricot Creamcheese Scones

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 15

Bake of the Day: Breakfast -- Apricot Cream cheese Scones

I love making scones because they come together very easily and are relatively quick to bake. Also they need all cold ingredients -- so there's no need to wait for the ingredients to come to room temperature (or worry about the melted butter that you hurriedly wanted to bring to room temperature in the microwave).

Scones from some of the bakeries are very heavy, dense and flavorless. But I am very tried so far happy with the scone recipes I've tried so far. They are not very dense and quite flavorful.
I've posted scones made with cream before and today's are made with cream cheese. Full fat or low fat cream cheese can be used and like other scone recipes, these are easy to put together and quick to bake.

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Baked Eggs Fra Diavolo (Baked Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce)

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 14

Bake of the Day: Breakfast -- Baked Eggs Fradiavolo

As I was looking for recipes of baked dishes, I wanted at least a few to be without flour, sugar and the other usual bread ingredients. I got this recipe for baked eggs in a newsletter from Chef Central. I immediately added it to my mega marathon list.

We are a egg loving family -- both my kids absolutely love eggs in any shape or form. I stopped baking with eggs though because I find eggless bakes are so much easier and most of my extended family prefers eggless bakes. So after all the flour based bakes without eggs, here's a really simple recipe for baked eggs.

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Caramelized Onion Biscuits with Indian flavors

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 13

Bake of the Day: Caramelized Onion Biscuits

After all the sweet bakes, here's a savory bake for a change. These caramelized onion biscuits recipe is from King Arthur flour catalog. I'm totally obsessed with King Arthur recipes, they have never failed me till now.

This biscuit recipe uses unfed sourdough starter and is a good use for the reject starter. The original KAF recipe is flavored with chives and I followed the recipe to the 'T' the first time I made it. Then I thought these biscuits would taste just like Indian pakoda if flavored with Indian flavors.

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Colomba Pasquale for #BreadBakers (Easter Dove Bread--Eggless Recipe)

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 12

Bake of the Day: Colomba Pasquale (Easter Dove Bread)

I'm taking a short break from breakfast bakes today and instead have a delicious Easter bread. I recently joined the Bread Bakers group. #BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. More information about the group and how to join in the baking fun is at the end of the post.

This month's theme is Easter, Passover and Springtime breads from around the world. I made these cute little spring breads last week and wanted to try a more traditional Easter bread for the Bread Bakers group. Found this Colomba Pasquale or Easter Dove bread recipe on King Arthur website. The dove shaped bread looked lovely, so I decided to give it a try.

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California Granola

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 11

Bake of the Day: Breakfast Bakes -- California Granola

We are starting the 3rd week of this month's mega baking marathon. After all the breads and baked with yeast and sourdough, this week will be all about baked goodies served for breakfast.
First off, I have a crunchy granola recipe that I personally loved munching on. Store bought granola is such a rip off, they are way too expensive and are loaded with sugar and other unnecessary ingredients. It is very easy to make at home and the quantity of sugar and oil can be adjusted as per taste.

This recipe is from Bobby Flay's 'Brunch with Bobby' cooking show. I love watching that show because he makes brunch recipes from all over the world and it is exciting to see the number of variations in pancakes, crepes, omelettes he comes up with on the show. This granola recipe is from his California brunch episode. It is quite simple to make with most of the ingredients from the pantry.

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Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 10

Bake of the Day: Breads -- Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Today I have a cinnamon raisin bread made with sourdough starter. I was planning to bake a sourdough bread and fed the starter the day before I wanted to make it. Then in the morning, I checked my blog to see that I already posted that recipe. So had to change the plan and a new search in King Arthur flour site landed me on this cinnamon raisin bread with sourdough starter.

It's been a long time I baked a cinnamon raisin bread and so started working on it right away. The difference between the one I usually bake and this is: here the cinnamon sugar and raisins are layered in after the first rise whereas in the other recipe, they are simply kneaded in.

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Turkish Pizza Bread (Pide)

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 9
Bake of the Day: Turkish Pizza - Pide
After all the breads and loaves posts, today I have a recipe for a slightly different pizza. It's pizza from Turkey called Pide. It is a soft and chewy bread that is made with yogurt and traditionally shaped with a slight hollow that can accommodate any number of fillings.

Pide is essentially a boat shaped bread that is used as a pizza base and can be filled with grilled veggies, cheese, eggs. Even sweet fillings like fruit and custard can be used as fillings and served as cake.

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No Knead Cheese Burger Buns

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 8

Bake of the Day: Breads -- No Knead Cheese Burger Buns

Today I have the recipe for some delicious burger buns that requires minimal hands-on time thanks to the no-knead method of preparing them. They are soft but sturdy enough to hold a veggie burger and all of its accouterments.

The ingredients are beaten in a mixing bowl for just 2 minutes and after that it is very very easy to make these soft, cheese-scented buns that are perfect for any kind of burger.

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Long Sandwich Rolls

BM# 51 -- Baking Marathon: Day 7

Bake of the Day: Bread -- Long Sandwich Rolls

The taste of freshly baked bread is just amazing. It is time consuming and needs some patience, but it is all well worth it. I baked these long sandwich rolls for last month's marathon and used them to make Hoagie sandwiches.

Initially I was planning on just buying store bought bread but then wanted to utilize the opportunity to bake something new and post it for the mega baking marathon. After looking through recipes for long sandwich rolls on the internet, I realized most of the recipes are similar to homemade bun recipes but shaped differently.

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