Magical Giggales

There are many special dates in our lives. Birthdays and anniversaries top the list as they come around every year. Then there are dates like when we joined our first job, when we met  " The special one”, when we brought our first car and things like that. Sometimes I really get amazed that whenever we think of these special days our heart gets filled with the same feelings as we must have experience long back. One of such days for me is when my daughter was born. It felt like magic, I could not believe that little rosy bundle of joy is my own. Touch wood!!

The time has flown by and now it was her 1st birthday and I have baked everyone’s favorite dark chocolate eggless cake for our midnight celebration (Yes now days kids don’t sleep that early). Blowing magic candles making her giggle like ringing bells and its all feels magical all over again.

It’s a simple gooey eggless cake with chocolate mousse icing.

Chocolate Mousse:

Semisweet chocolate – 150 gm

Butter – 2 tablespoons

Cold Heavy whipping cream – 1 cup

Pure vanilla extract – ½ teasp

•  Take semi sweet chocolate and butter in heat proof bowl.
• Put this bowl on top of simmering water saucepan. Basically we are melting the chocolate by double boiler technique. Make sure that water is not touching to the bottom of the top bowl. Melt the chocolate completely and stir continuously. You can do it in the microwave as well; just keep chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl and warm for 2 minutes. Remove it from double boiler/Micro wave and let it cool completely for about 15-20 minutes.
•  Meanwhile whip the cream in a bowl by using hand mixer or by hand with wire whisk, until go get soft peaks. When you pull the whisk out of cream a peak of cream will be form and it will remain there until you shake the bowl gently. At the soft peak stage cream feel firm yet soft and light like foam.
• Add vanilla extract and gently whip one more time. Don't over whip now.
• If melted chocolate mixture is cooled completely, add third of whipped cream to it
•  Fold the cream in gently by moving your spatula round and then cut that round in half. (We do not want to deflate the whipped cream.)
• Then add another third of cream and fold. Then add remaining whipped cream and fold gently. It will be very airy in texture.

Keep this in the refrigerator. Now move on to the cake. It’s a simple vegetarian cake with good taste and great texture.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

2 cups   refined flour

1 tsp   Baking powder

¾ tbsp   Soda bi-carb

1 cup   Thik curd

A few drops Vanilla essence

1 cup   Milk

¾ cup   White butter

¾ cup   Caster sugar

6 tbsp   Cocoa powder

• Make sure all the ingredient is at room temperature. This makes a lot of difference in baking.
• Preheat oven to 180*C. Grease a cake tin and dust with flour and remove excess flour.You can also line it with butter paper instead of dusting flour.
• Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa powder together. Heat the milk till it is lukewarm.
•   Whisk the curd, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence together till smooth and frothy.
• Fold in the flour mixture alternating with milk. Mix quickly but gently to a smooth batter.
• Pour into well-greased cake moulds and bake on the centre rack for 8 minutes.
• Check the cake, remove cake from the oven and after a few seconds, Demold it.

When the cake is completely cooled off, spread the mousse icing on top of the cake. Take generous amount of the icing and spread evenly from top to the sides. Try to spread in one stroke till edges to get a smoothly finished icing on the top. Though you can have fun as you want, try making small swirls and spike by a flat knife. As my cake was birthday cake, I kept it smoothly finished and filled up some mousse in the piping bag (I made at home from butter paper) and made some twisty borders at the edge. Melted some dark chocolate and filled it in another piping bag to write on the cake.

Chocolate mousse cake icing  does wonders to this simple cake. Its not just add the rich creamy lux to the cake but  also accentuate the chocolaty flavor. You can add a spoon of coffee with chocolate while melting the chocolate for making mousse. Grownups will love it even more. ..

                                        Happy Baking!!