Poached Apple Cinnamon Cake (Eggless and Whole Wheat)

After a long hiatus, I baked again and I baked a lot. I wanted to share an awesome new recipe that I tried out – Poached Apple Cinnamon Cake. This cake apparently is the best cake I have ever made.

I modified the recipe for Spiced Pear Cake from Passionate About Baking, who is in turn had gotten the recipe from Food Network Canada.

There are two parts to this cake – the poached apples and cake itself. You can place whole poached apples into the cake, but I cut mine up into quarter slices and spread them around. Next time, I cut an apple into 4 quarters and further slice each quarter into 2 to 3 pieces so that you can get pieces of apple in each bite.

As I am writing this up, I realized that I used WAY less water than was stated in the original recipe for poaching, but it worked out fine!

Next time I am going to try making this without sugar (using honey instead) to make it a sugar-free, vegetarian dessert!

Here is my eggless version:

Poached Apple Cinnamon Cake
Makes 2 – 4 X 8 inch cakes make in a loaf pan

Ingredients

Poached Apples

• 2 medium apples (cut into quarter slices, cut further after poaching)
• Juice of 1 small lemon (mine was a circular lemon about 1.5 inches in diameter)
• 1 cup water (original recipe says 4 cups of water)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick

Cinnamon Cake

• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup ground almonds / walnuts
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 apple puree

Directions:

Poached Apples

1. Peel the apples and slice into quarters.
2. Place the apples in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. Set aside.
3. Place the water, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
4. Add the apples and the remaining lemon juice.
5. With the syrup barely simmering, poach the apples until tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
6. Transfer to a plate and let cool to room temperature.
7. Return apples to cooled poaching liquid.

Cinnamon Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease and flour pan.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, spices and salt. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, cream the butter with the brown sugar. Add apple puree and mix until smooth.
4. Measure out 1/4 cup of the poaching liquid.
5. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the poaching liquid.
6. Pour the batter into the pan. Place poached apple pieces in the batter.
7. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the cake between 2 apples comes out clean.
8. Let cool on a rack and unmould gently.

Fresh Strawberry Topping

Its technically spring, but winter like weather and fruit season in India. Lots of sweet strawberries, kiwis (well they are almost gone), pears, chickoo, pineapples and more. I tend to buy strawberries every time I go to my fruitwalla. Sometimes though, I dont get around to eating them.

I had a 200g carton of strawberries that needed to be used up, so I decided to make some fresh strawberry topping that I could use sometime in the next week or so, as long as I kept it in the fridge/freezer. I've actually kept this in the freezer for longer in the past. As long as you can prevent freezer burn, it should keep.

Ingredients

• 200grams fresh strawberries, chopped
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  

Directions

• Chop all strawberries and set aside 1/3 of them.
• Place remaining 2/3 strawberries along with sugar and vanilla on medium heat until bubbly. Reduce to low and cook for additional 10 minutes. Be sure to stir regularly to prevent sticking.
  
• Transfer cooked strawberry mixture to blender and puree.
  
• Add the uncooked strawberries to puree. Allow mixture to cool on counter.
  
• Serve over ice cream, pancakes, cakes and more or keep in fridge for use within week, freezer for longer storage.

I ended up using this on the vegan mini chocolate cakes.

Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips

A super easy recipe that is delicious and quite healthy. You can mix and match the fruit according to the season or use frozen fruits for a tasty treat that can be dessert or an appetizer. Works best with a mix of atleast 3 fruits

Ingredients

Note: Feel free to mix and match with whatever fruits you wish.

• 2 kiwis, peeled and diced
• handful of seedless grapes, cut in half
• 8 ounces strawberries (or any fresh or frozen berries, thaw before using)
• 100 g pineapple, diced
  
• 3 tablespoons fruit preserves, any flavor (cherry, orange or apricot jam or marmalade work well- try a different flavour from the fruits used)
• 8 ounces raspberries or peaches or blueberries (fresh or frozen, thaw before using) - optional
  
• 2 apples - peeled, cored and diced (optional)
• mangoes or any soft fruits (optional)
  

• 10 (10 inch) flour tortillasbutter flavored cooking spray or butter, melted
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
  

1. In a large bowl, thoroughly mix fruit and preserve. If using apples, add them last to minimize browning. Cover and chill in the refrigerator at least 15 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. Coat both sidse of each flour tortilla with butter flavored cooking spray or brush with melted butter. Cut into wedges. Put the cinnamon mix into a large ziploc bag and add the tortilla wedges. Seal and shake to coat the buttered chips well. Remove and arrange in a single layer on a large baking sheet.
   
4. Bake in the preheated oven 8 to 10 minutes. Repeat with any remaining tortilla wedges. Allow to cool approximately 15 minutes. Serve with chilled fruit mixture.

Eggless Pineapple Coconut Cobbler

Its birthday season in December. Time for birthday number 2.

Things to keep in mind:
- he doesn't really like sweet stuff or chocolate
- something with pineapple or coconut would work well

After some head scratching, I settled on a pineapple coconut cobbler. I modified this recipe by simply adding coconut. And as are many of my kitchen adventures, it did not go without its hiccups. I did not have a deep pan, only my 2 1-inch deep cake trays, so the first question was what to bake it. I ended up using deep metal bowl type tray that I had, which meant longer baking time as its 4-inch deep and the recipe filled the bowl to the rim. So baking took a lot longer than expected. The shredded coconut widely available here is unsweetened, so to me the cobbler was lacking in that department, but everyone was happy and I think the side of vanilla ice cream did the trick. In the future, I would probably not make this with pineapple though, unless they are canned and/or mixed with another fruit. I think peaches, pears, apples, cherries are better suited for cobblers.

The recipe itself is very easy and you can omit the coconut and replace the fruit.

Pineapple Coconut Cobbler

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 cup white sugar [can increase to 1 1/4 cup if using unsweetened coconut]
  
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 4 cups sliced pineapple (or any other fruit)
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened
  

Directions

1. Melt butter or margarine in a 9 x 13 inch pan. Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
   
3. Stir together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Mix in milk and vanilla. Pour batter over melted butter. DO NOT MIX OR STIR. Spoon fruit with juice over the batter. [Since I used a deeper dish, I poured half the batter then added half the fruit and repeated].
   
4. Bake for 55 minutes if 9 x 13 in pan, I baked for 1 hour 20 min.
5. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
   

Chocolate Orange Mousse Cake (Eggless, Sugar-free)

Everyone here loves Terry's Chocolate Oranges. Its the no-brainer gift to bring from North America. Taking inspiration from the chocolate, I ventured into making my first mousse, eggless of course and made from fresh cream, sans preservatives. Its tasted great and looked pretty good. I used a slice of orange, cut into four, a Lindt dark chocolate thin and some orange pulp for decoration.

The mousse would have been more fluffy and light, but I made the mousse in the morning, when I didn't have biscuits for the base and put it into a bowl in the fridge (stupid.. i know). This of course set the mousse by the time I returned to it 4 hours later, but in the wrong shape. So I melted it all again using a double boiler. Then poured it onto the base (made blended parle-g's and makhan - saltfree butter), let it cool for a bit in the fridge before attempting to re-whip it while it was on the base. It still tasted fab - just like the chocolate oranges.

Ps. I used the wrong lens on my dslr, but you can still see how pretty it was =)

There are two ways to make this - one with Terry's Orange Chocolate for the orange flavour, the other with orange rind. I didn't use sugar, though you can.

Terry's Orange Chocolate Mousse Cake

Ingredients:

• 150 g Terry's Orange Chocolate (I forget how many slices this is)
• 19 Parle-g Biscuits
• approx 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (more or less)
  
• 3 tbsp heavy cream
• 20g unsalted butter (makhan) - optional
• 200 ml heavy cream

Directions:

1. Crush the biscuits (I blended them using the chutney blender)
2. Add 3 tablespoons of butter to biscuits until you get a workable biscuit, add more butter if needed. Line the bottom of 7in springform pan with biscuit dough to make a crust.
   
3. Pour cream into a bowl and beat till the cream fluffs up and forms soft peaks. Keep aside.
4. Put the chocolate pieces, 3 tbsp of cream and butter (optional) in a bowl and melt the chocolate in double boiler. Once the chocolate has melted, whisk (by hand) the mixture so it is blended.
5. Slowly fold the cream into the chocolate mixture till well blended, trying to keep as much of the fluffiness in it as possible. Pour onto biscuit crust and chill in fridge for several hours.

Fruit and Coconut Quick Bread

I found a recipe for pomegranate quick bread, didn't have all the ingredients, so I made some substitutions and came out with this - pineapple, apple, pomegranate coconut quick bread (aka fruit and coconut quickbread). It turned out great. A bit on the dense and moist side, but still delicious. I got to use my loaf pan for the first time =) The best part, it's def much healthy than the majority of the stuff I bake.

Fruit and Coconut Quick Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sifted wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice
• 1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
• 1/2 pomegranate arils
• 1/2 of cup unsweetened applesauce (I used freshly blended apples) + olive oil (I filled 3/4 of the 1/2 cup with applesauce then the rest with olive oil and ended up adding a little bit more applesauce and oil while mixing)

So the applesauce/oil portions are not exact. When mixing I thought there was not enough liquid, so added a bit more. When replacing oil with applesauce, you should keep some oil, which is what I was trying to do. Applesauce makes baked goods as does wheat flour (compared to all purpose), which would explain my denser quick bread. Also I think I might have added a bit too much applesauce/oil as my bread is a bit on the too moist side.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180*C. Grease loaf pan - I sprayed mine using my new PAM baking spray.

2. Combine all ingredients in large mixing bowl; blend well.

3. Pour batter into loaf pan.

4. Bake for 45 minutes until top is firm and an inserted toothpick comes out clean. I baked mine for 53 min.

5. Allow loaf to cool before serving.

Great as a snack or for breakfast!