Chocolate Cake Batter Cookies with Almonds

Chewy, fudgy and rich chocolate cookies loaded with Almond crunchy goodness.

The world of easy cookie recipe cant be any better than this. When you have the most easy recipe at your hand which would yield you the better than the best tasting cookies, you just cant be happier. I am a sucker of simple or rather I should confess “Simplest recipes”. Complex and elaborated recipes are for Chefs and Professional not for home bakers. We bake for taste, joy and above all love. Love for baking, love for the products, love for the entire home fill with the great aroma of baking and above all for people who gonna eat our dishes.

I have been a “Crazy Cookie Lady” lately. Whatever spared minutes and seconds I have got from my busy life, I spend it searching, surfing and reading cookie recipes. Chocolate, vanilla, whole wheat, coffee, fruit flavor based, crunchy, chewy or soft..there is no limit of variances. I came across cake batter cookies…Voila!! Well to tell you honestly it was not a new thing to me. Few cakes I made in my teens but more like cookies then cakes but I did not know at that time there could be such a thing like cake batter cookies.

This recipe is dedicated to all the people who think cookie baking is technical, go through the steps and you would be baking these lovely cookies even before you know it.

1 Pack Cake mix (I used Pillsbury’s chocolate cake mix)

½ cup refined oil (Canola, Sunflower anything will work)

1 Cup curd ( or 2 eggs)

1 Teaspoon Baking powder

1 Teaspoon Vanilla exract

1 Cup chopped Almond, take out 1/3 of this for decoration

Preheat oven to 180 °C.

Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix well. The mixture not be that wet and will take some efforts to get it all combine. Chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Pour chopped almonds onto a plate.  Form dough into tablespoon-sized balls and roll in the almonds.

Line a tray with baking paper and place prepared dough balls on it giving enough space to expand.

Bake 10 minutes. Let cool on the sheet for another 10 -15 minutes after removing from the oven.  

You will not be able to resist these chewy and fudgy chocolaty bits.

Molten Lava Cake - Oozy surprise

Welcome to chocolate indulgence. Molten lava cupcake is all about super rich chocolate taste and an encapsulated molten center in its super gooey texture.

Let me begin with asking you a question. Do you like surprises?

Who does not!!! And that’s exactly I adore about lava cup cake. Best enjoyed just out of oven and when you cut into it and molten chocolate oozes out….Yummmm!!

I don’t know why but I just feel excited every single time. The joy get triple fold when your home baked lava cup cake behaves the same. I have to admit I used to intermediated thinking about how the bake such a thing. I have gone through lot of recipes of lava cake but I was just scared to try them as most of them are too technical for me. Then I stumbled upon this super duper simple recipe…and wasted no time in embracing it my own. Simple chocolate cake better play with some simple trick and Viola!!! Done.

Try this out…take my words you will love it.

¼ cup   Chocolate chips

¼ cup   Cherry filling

2 cups   Refined flour

1 tsp   Baking powder

¾tbsp   Sodabi-carb
1cup   curd
A few drops  Vanilla essence
1cup   Milk
¾cup   White butter
¾cup   Caster sugar
6 tbsp   Cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 170*C. Grease a cake tin and line it with butter paper. Mix the chocolate chips with cherry filling and keep aside.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa powder together. Heat the milk till it is lukewarm.
3. Whisk the curd, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence together till smooth and frothy.

4. Fold in the flour mixture alternating with milk. Mix quickly but gently to a smooth batter.
5. Pour into well-greased muffin moulds and spoon chocolate chips & cherry filling mixture in the centre and bake on the center rack for 8 minutes.
6. Check the cake, remove cake from the oven and after a few seconds, demould it and serve

Chocolate Brownie made super easy

When a girl is not feeling that great well what really perks up her mood..yes we all say loudly Chocolate!!!! (Yet Again).

So yes I have baked couple of intense chocolate things lately. I have a special corner for brownies in my heart, not just because they taste sooo.. good but also for the reason that I have a very simple recipe for that (Because I am just about easy to bake stuff). So I have whipped up and baked these brownies one Sunday morning while making breakfast. Excuse for some not so great pics because before I could click the photograph my two year old would just grab a piece and start eating… :D.

A good brownie has good chocolate flavor loaded with nut and chocolate chunks with this gooey texture and slightly crusty top. Achieving all this not difficult at all. You just need good ingredients and lot of love while handling the batter. Though this recipe is very easy just asks for slightly higher attention while mixing the better. Please do not over mix the better, just enough to bring everything together. Over mixing the batter will spoil the texture of the brownie.

2 ½ Cup Plain Dark Chocolate Chopped

1 Cup unsalted butter

3 Eggs (Use 1 ½ Cup Curd, if you dont want to use eggs and make Eggless Chocolate Brownie) 

1 ¼ Cup Light Brown Sugar

3/4 Cup  Flour

1/2 Tps Baking Powder

1/2 Tps baking Soda

1 Cup gm Walnuts Broken ( You can add chopped milk and white chocolate as well)          

Preheat the oven at 190 ºC. Grease and line a square baking tin.

Melt the plain chocolate and butter in microwave for 2 min but keep string it every 30 sec or you can melt them in heavy base saucepan.

Beat Together eggs and sugar then beat in the melted chocolate mixture.

Shift together flour and baking powder and add this is in wet mixture. Add walnuts and mix to bring everything together.

Pour the batter in the baking tin and bake for 40 minute at 190 ºC until cake feels just firm on the crust but soft underneath.

Please do not overcook or the brownies will be dry.

Leave to cool in the tin and when cooled, turn the cake out and cut square pieces.

Yes, this is it and you will have heavenly chocolate brownies. Believe me you could just keep on eating them and they are so inexpensive as compare to the store brought ones. I hope you would try making them at home, as there is no reason you should not and let me know…who all were drooling after you ;)

Double Chocolate Cupcake with chocolate frosting

In the west you hear lot about comfort food, honesty this term does not make much sense to my Indian foodie heart as I feel everything we cook is comforting and specially what our mother would  cook for us is the ultimate comfort food. With this thought, I was thinking what really pops in our head when most of think of one thing which would bring a smile. Chocolates!!!

I am sure I could not be wrong with that. We all are so obsessed with chocolates and its loved by every age and gender. So I got my sleeve’s up to bake dark, rich, soft and extremely chocolaty double chocolate cupcake with a smooth chocolate frosting. Well I did not made my frosting super chocolaty as I like the chocolate chips to stand out but you can go ahead with adding 2-3 full tbsp of coco powder to intensify the chocolate flavor in the cupcake frosting.

Though I started with a mood to do beautifully frosted cupcake but in the end lost the steam and again washed my hand by rustic look (lazy look, I should write rather) but the taste did the talking and my little one came running for the next one as soon as finished her first cupcake.

Double Chocolate Cupcake

1/2 cup Unsalted butter

80gm Semi-sweet dark chocolate

1/2 cup Cocoa powder

3/4 cup All-purpose flour

1/2 tsp Baking soda

3/4 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup  granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp  vanilla extract

1/2 cup  buttermilk

Dark Chocolate Frosting

2 ¾ cup Confectioners’ sugar

2/3 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

6 Tbsp heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips for decoration

For the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners. I used a 6 cup pan and baked in two batches.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave for 2 min and stirring every 30 sec. You may also melt the butter and chocolate over low heat on a double boiler. Stir until smooth and let it cool a bit.

In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together until thoroughly combined.

 In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the cooled butter/chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk. (To make buttermilk at home just add a tsp of  white vinegar in ½ cup milk and let it stand for 5-7 min.)***

Repeat until everything is added. Stir until just combined; do not overmix. The batter will be very thick, so don’t worry.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting: sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder to assure there are no lumps. Set aside.

 With a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy - about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sifted sugar/cocoa powder alternately with the heavy cream and vanilla. Beat on low speed after each addition. Once all added, beat on high speed until creamy and combined for at least 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt if frosting is too sweet.

Frost cooled cupcakes and top with chocolate chips and that’s it. You have these lovely cute intense chocolate cupcake inviting to taste them. Do bake them and let me know, how they turned out.

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!!