Moist Chocolate Cake

Moist Chocolate Cake
Yields - One 9" round cake

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 11/2cup
Baking Soda - 1tsp
Salt - 1/4tsp
Butter - 1/2 stick or 50gms or 1/4 cup
Sugar - 1/2cup
Chocolate Syrup - 1cup
Vinegar - 1tbsp
Water - 1/2cup
Vanilla - 1/2tbsp

Method:

Sift flour with baking soda & salt.
In a bowl cream butter. Add sugar and continue beating till the mixture is fluffy. Add chocolate syrup, vinegar,vanilla & water and mix well. Gradually add the flour and beat till the ingredients are incorporated.
Preheat oven to 170 degree centigrade. Butter a 9" cake pan. Pour the batter in the pan and smooth the top. Bake for 40-45 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven & cool on a wire rack for about 10minutes. Invert the cake & let it cool down completely, before slicing.

And this is my contribution to JFI(January) - Chocolate hosted by Deepz of "Letz Cook"

Other Related Recipes

Mathanga Payasam

Mathanga Payasam - Easy & Nutritious.
Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients:

Mathanga/Yellow Pumpkin/Butternut Squash - 250gms
Thick Coconut Milk - 1cup
Sugar - 1/4cup(or as per taste)
Rice powder - 2tbsp
Cardamom powder - 1-2tsp

Method:

Cut the pumpkin into cubes. Pressure cook the pumpkin pieces in a cup of water. With the back of a spoon mash the cooked pumpkin pieces. Now add the coconut milk & sugar. Mix well & bring to a boil. Simmer for a few minutes. Mix the rice powder in a little water(Do not substitute cornflour instead of rice flour, as it is the rice flour which gives the payasam a distinct flavour.) Add this to the pumpkin mixture slowly. Keep stirring while adding to avoid lumps. Stir cook for few more minutes & switch off the flame. Add the cardamom powder. Can be served warm or cold.


Quick Pumpkin Facts:

The bright orange color of pumpkin is a dead giveaway that pumpkin is loaded with an important antioxidant, beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is one of the plant carotenoids converted to vitamin A in the body.Beta-carotene offers protection against Cancer, Heart disease as well as some degenerative aspects of aging.

Pumpkin Nutrition Facts
(1 cup cooked, boiled, drained, without salt)

Calories 49 Protein 2 grams Carbohydrate 12 grams Dietary Fiber 3 grams Calcium 37 mg Iron 1.4 mg Magnesium 22 mg Potassium 564 mg

Zinc 1 mg Selenium .50 mg Vitamin C 12 mg Niacin 1 mg Folate 21 mcg Vitamin A 2650 IU Vitamin E 3 mg

Rasgulla

Rasgulla
Soft, Juicy & Spongy sweet made from milk. The very popular Bengali sweet is originally from Orissa(India).

Recipe from blogs
Yields: 16 Rasgullas

Ingredients:
Whole Milk - 1 liter
Lemon - 2nos.
All purpose flour - 2tsp
Sugar - 1 1/2cups
Water - 3cups

Method:

Extract juice from the lemons. Boil whole milk in a big pot on low-medium heat, stirring occasionally. When the milk starts to boil, add lemon juice.After the milk starts to curdle.Turn off the stove and pour them into a cheese cloth. Wash four or five times in cold water to rinse out all the lemon juice from curdled milk. Tie a knot and hang them over a kitchen sink to drain out the whey. This should take about 1 to 2 hours. The cheese should be dry.

Process the cheese with 2 tsp of flour in a processor(for no more than a minute). Remove the mixture on to a plate. Slightly knead the mixture and divide the mixture into 16 equal parts and roll each part into a ball, taking care that there are no cracks on the surface. Place the cheese balls on a plate dusted with flour.

Pour 3 cups of water in a pressure cooker. Add sugar and bring to a boil on medium heat. When the sugar comes to a boil, gently drop the cheese balls to the sugar syrup. Close the cooker(I use a 4 liter, steel cooker from Prestige). Cook on medium heat throughout.After the first whistle, wait for 5-6 minutes and turn off the stove. Open the cooker after the pressure has come down. Cool before transferring them to a container and refrigerate. Serve cold.

Tips
1. Make sure you do not overcook the rasgullas, they might break apart.
2. For syrup you can use rose essence or cardamom powder or Saffron.
3. If you are using one gallon of milk which will yield about 40 to 45 sphere, make sure u cook only by batches of 12 to 15 depending on the size of your pressure cooker, because the spheres double in volume when cooked. And do not use the same syrup for the second batch.

Another good recipe (non pressure cooker recipe)

Vatteappam

Vatteappam
This recipe yields one 8" appam(1"thick). Serves-2

You will need:
Rice flour - 1cup
Semolina/Rava/Sooji - 1tbsp
Yeast - 1/4tsp
Sugar - 1/2tsp
Grated Coconut - 1/2-1/3cup
Cardamom powder - 1/4tsp
Sugar - 1/3cup
Salt to taste
Raisins for garnishing

Method:
Cook rava in a cup of water till it becomes soft. Let it cool.
When lukewarm, add yeast & 1/2tsp sugar to it. Allow it to froth.
Next, add rice flour to it and mix well. Set the dough aside to rise for 6 hours.
Grind coconut with sugar to a fine paste and add it to the dough.
Add cardamom powder. Mix well & let it ferment for another 4-6hours.
Add salt & pour the mixture into a greased 8" pan. Place raisins on top & steam for 5-10 minutes in a steamer or in a pressure cooker without keeping the weight. When done a toothpick inserted will come out clean.
Cool, cut into wedges and serve.

Tips: Alternately, for a quick vatteappam, you can mix rava gruel, yeast, rice, coconut & cardamom and keep aside to ferment for 3-4 hours. Add sugar & salt. Mix well and steam till done.

Pound Cake

Pound Cake