Cakes in Dhaka!

Just so you know, how the cakes in Dhaka look....some of these are pretty good, some not quite so...my favorite bakery in town is, King's Bakery..and majority of these cakes are from there!

Enjoy looking...as I did enjoy eating... ;)

                              

 

First time Baked a cake in Dhaka and it's the best Yellow Cake!

Woohoo so, I got to bake a cake two days ago for the first time in Dhaka! It was a long wait...I'd to get a new oven, getting ingredients one at a time (cause we could never remember to get everything at one trip to store!) etc etc etc... I'm happy to get into baking as I've plenty of recipes to try (thank you pinterest!).

So, of course first try was THE Yellow Cake that I baked few months ago in New York. It was a hit then. And I hoped it to be another hit here again. While I started to get things together, I realized there was a little hurdle I needed to get over. Measurement conversion! eek. My recipe calls for oven to be heated at 350 degree Fahrenheit, my oven has temp in Celsius... then, recipe calls for 1/2 cup of softened butter...and the pack of butter I had was a pack of 200 grams...so how do I measure it just right? Of course, like everything else google came in handy! What can't you find on Google? Seriously.

So, it  turned out 1 cup of butter is somewhere between 225 to 250 grams of butter. And remember, my pack is of 200 grams. So, when using 1/2 cup of butter, I just eye balled it and cut it in half chunk. It's obviously not perfect but it worked out. I know, I could have just easily soften the butter completely, and then take 1/2 cup...but even that I think can be totally off depending on how soft the butter is and how much I can squeeze into that cup.

And as for how much Celsius is 350 degree Fahrenheit? Apparently 176.something. And my oven can't do that 176.something...it can do 175. huh! And really who bakes at such a odd # of temp?

But anyway....now the pan....I didn't have two 8 inch pans as the recipe calls for. Instead I had a 12 mini cupcake pan, 1 9 inch pan. So, I baked 12 mini cupcake, 3 really thin 9 inch cakes....

And the verdict? It was GOOD and GONE!!I didn't use any frosting this time around, but first time when I baked I did make the cream cheese frosting and it was SOOOO GOOD!! One thing I changed this time was I used 1/2 tea spoon of salt instead of full 1 tea spoon, as I knew I wasn't gonna use frost. Without frosting, 1 teaspoon of salt would make it terribly salty FYI.

And here is the pic that I took next day...please don't let my bad pic fool you (this pic doesn't do justice!)....it's yummy.

And here is the link to the original blog with the beautiful pic of this cake how it should really look if baked on 2 pans (rather than three and mini-cup cakes!)

Recipe from the Original Blog

Old-Fashioned Yellow Cake

(adapted from McCall’s Book of Cakes and Pies)

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 + 1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup or 100 grams butter, softened

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/175 degree Celsius. Grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans.
2. In a large mixing bowl sift flour and sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. Add butter, milk and vanilla. Beat with a hand mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes, occasionally scraping sides of bowl.
4. Add eggs, beat for 2 more minutes.
5. Pour batter into prepared pans, dividing equally among both. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
6. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Turn out and cool thoroughly on wire racks. Frost with cream cheese or whip cream frosting. If using whip cream frosting the cake must be refrigerated.

Rainbow cake trial #1

So, I've been planning baby's first bday for the last few weeks already! And it's going to be Rainbow theme. I am set on that. Since it's still a while away (she's not even 4 months yet!), and I've been itching to try out the rainbow cake I decided to take the opportunity on 11.11.11 as it was my niece's bday. Though my niece is in Dhaka and I am here, it doesn't matter. I can still have a cake for her! I really loved the way my cake had turned out. I used Americolor food gel color, and I liked how vibrant the colors had turned out!

So here are the pics....

Milk Burfi: Indian Dessert

Recently, I'm going through another bout of youtube cooking videos addiction after a long time. Unlike previous times, however, this time I am determined to try out some recipes. Yesterday, I already made sheek kabab, since I followed that recipe almost to a T (well, almost except 1 ingredient that I didn't have handy), I didn't feel like writing about it or posting about it here.

Today, I made an Indian dessert that I never had before. It's called- Milk Burfi or in some places Kalakand. It's made of purely milk and sugar only.You just need varieties of milk..whole milk, skim milk, condensed milk, evaporated milk, cheese (freshly made out of milk of course)...well, you don't need all those types of milk in one recipe, but the variation of it.

I watched two videos on this, but I didn't like either fully. I liked some part of 1 and the other part of another recipe. For ex, in 1 recipe, they simply used store bought Ricotta cheese and used a cup of sweetened condensed milk and cooked it up in microwave..............yuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkk!!! I would never "cook" anything in a microwave, I reluctantly "warm" food in a microwave let alone cooking. However, I did like the idea of using condensed milk in the recipe.

In the other video, cook used regular whole milk and made fresh cheese out of it. And then used more whole milk and white sugar to complete the process. I didn't like the use of sugar here...so, then I combined the two recipes and add one extra thing in mine and came up with below and it tasted GREAT!! Veryyy sweet...but that's how I like my dessert....sweet.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

To make cheese:
3 cups of whole milk
3 tbs vinegar

1/2 cup of evaporated milk
1 cup of whole milk
1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk
Pistachio-grated about 2 tbs


Method:

Make Cheese:

Add 3 cups of whole milk into a pot and let it boil

Once it comes to a boil, add 3 table spoons of vinegar and give a stir

Turn off the heat and let the milk separate

Once milk is completely separated, drain the curled up milk/cheese and discard the water

Drain the cheese using a cheesecloth or paper towel very well, it should be dry.

Proceed:

Pour 1/2 cup of evaporated milk, 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup of whole milk to a pot on a medium heat

Start stirring and keep stirring for about 1 min

Add cheese to the mixture and keep stirring

Let it boil and let the liquid completely dry up (continue stirring on and off)

Once the milk-cheese mixture is all dried, keep stirring so it doesn't burn and turn off the heat.

Pour the cheese mixture into a serving plate or any square/rectangular shaped bowl

While hot press the mixture with spoon and try to make the surface as even as possible and sprinkle pistachio

Let it cool for few minutes and then put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it's completely cools and hardens up

Take it out from the fridge, and cut it up in square pieces and enjoy!

Now, the pictures:

Add 3 cups of whole milk into a pot and let it boil

Add 3 table spoons of vinegar  and turn off the heat and let the milk separate

Drain the curled up milk/cheese

Once it's drained using a cheesecloth or paper towel squeeze out all water it should look like this

Pour 1/2 cup of evaporated milk, 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup of whole milk into a pot on a medium heat and stir for a minute

Add cheese to the mixture and keep stirring

Let it boil and let the liquid completely dry up (continue stirring on and off)

In the meantime have the pistachios ready..grated

Once the milk-cheese mixture is all dried, keep stirring so it doesn't burn and turn off the heat

Pour the cheese mixture into a serving plate or any square/rectangular shaped bowl

While hot press the mixture with spoon and try to make the surface as even as possible and sprinkle pistachio;
Let it cool for few minutes and then put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it's completely cools and hardens up

Take it out from the fridge, and cut it up in square pieces

Enjoy!!