Easy One-Bowl Butter Cake with Chocolate Cream Frosting

How long does baking a cake take you from start to finish? 2 hours? 3 hours? Somewhere in between?

What if you could bake one in 40 mins, frost it, and serve it within an hour? That's almost like magic, right?

This is the third cake I tried from A Piece of Cake by Camilla Saulsbury and I must say it worked like a charm. I made it for dessert on a weeknight (as you can tell from the pics) when we had guests over and I made it alongside dinner. How many cakes can you say this about?

Other cake recipes from the book - One-bowl Orange Fruit Cake | One-bowl Chocolate Truffle Cake

Easy One-Bowl Butter Cake with Chocolate Cream Frosting

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Makes one 8" cake
Serves 8 people
Source: A Piece of Cake by Camilla V Saulsbury

Ingredients:
1 ? cups of plain flour
? cup of sugar
2 tsp of baking powder
� tsp of salt
1 egg
? cup of milk
� cup of butter, softened to room temperature
1 tsp of vanilla extract

How I Made It:

1. 1. Preheat oven to 350F / 180C. Grease an 8� baking tray with butter and flour.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt

3. Add egg, milk, butter and vanilla to the flour mixture.

Using an electric mixture on medium-low speed, beat for one minute. Scrape down sides and beat for another minute

4. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan.

5. Bake for 25-30 mins until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out with moist crumbs at the end. Cool on a rack.

For the Chocolate Cream Frosting:
1. Beat one cup heavy cream until fluffy - about 1 min on high speed.

2. Add 2 tbsp cocoa powder and 1 cup icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) to this.

3. Beat again for a minute on high speed until the frosting reaches spread-able consistency.

4. Spread evenly on completely cooled cake. Since I didn't add too much sugar, the frosting was not too stiff.

Cut and serve!

Notes:

- I used brown sugar because I didn't have any white sugar in hand. Use white sugar for a fluffier, whiter cake
- The frosting ingredients and measurements are eye-balled. You can add more sugar (another cup) if you want it to be stiffer. You need to beat it for longer too
- Take care not to overbeat the mixture, otherwise the cake will not be soft

Potato and Soya Chunks Masala | Soya Chunks Recipes

Confession: I didn't know Soya Chunks were called Nutrela. Or textured Vegetable Protein (TVP). Anyway, my mom never cooked with it much and I have only ever known them as soya chunks or "chung chung" as amma calls them, with emphasis on the 'g'!

Turns out TH really likes soya chunks and I try to make different things out of it as much as possible. Cooking it with potatoes and tomatoes is probably my favourite. It goes well with rotis and is neither too watery nor dry - just perfect!

Looking for other soya chunks recipes? Try Chilly Soya Chunks | Soya Chunks Cutlets | Soya Chunks Kurma | Soya Chunks Biryani

Potato and Soya Chunks Masala Recipe

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 of medium-sized potatoes
1.5 cups of soya chunks (TVP / Nutrela / Meal Maker)
2 of onions
2 of tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 small piece of ginger, grated
2 of green chillies
1/2 tsp of red chilli powder
2 tsp of coriander powder

3 tbsp of oil
1/2 tsp of jeera (cumin)
1/4 tsp of mustard seeds
1/4 tsp of saunf (fennel seeds)
1/4 tsp of turmeric powder
1/4 tsp of urad dal
A few curry leaves
Salt to taste

How I Made It:

1. Chop the potatoes into small cubes. Peel and cube it if you prefer. Also, potatoes here cook up very fast so I don't par boil them. If you feel it will take too long, pressure cook the potatoes or boil them in some water for 10 mins before using. You can use any variety of potato you like.

Slice the onions and tomatoes thin and long.

2. Cook the soya chunks in boiling water with some salt for 10 mins until soft. You can also pressure cook it in some water but I find that cooking it this way is easier. You can add some milk to it at this stage to get rid of the smell of soya chunks. We don't mind it so much so I don't waste milk doing that.

Drain and set aside.

3. Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds. When they pop, add the cumin, urad dal, fennel seeds, green chillies, garlic ginger, and curry leaves. Saute for a minute until the ginger and garlic smell roasted. Then add the onions and saute until they turn golden brown. Follow it with turmeric, red chilli powder, and coriander. Fry for another minute.

Then, add the tomatoes and cook until the mixture turns mushy - about 3-4 mins.

4. Squeeze the water out of the cooked soya granules as much as possible and add it to the above mixture along with the potatoes. Mix well and add salt. Sprinkle some water over it and cook covered, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are cooked soft - about 10 mins.

Serve hot with rotis or chapatis. I have also served this with jeera rice and it goes well.

Eggless Whole Wheat Waffles Recipe

I love waffles. They are a great breakfast option and I make them as often as I can, always defaulting to this basic waffle recipe that works well for me each time.

But I don't always have eggs in hand. And, the beating of the egg whites until stiff in that recipe puts me off sometimes. So I decided to come up with a super easy eggless waffles recipe. Just to kick it up a notch, I made it with whole wheat flour (not atta, the pastry flour) and it turned out nice.

I must say though, these waffles are not crisp when they get cold. They are more soft and spongy, and still taste great! You can substitute the whole wheat flour with regular flour in a beat.

Eggless Whole Wheat Waffles Recipe

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 cup of whole wheat flour (not atta, but the whole wheat flour used for pastries and cakes)
1 cup + 2 tbsp of milk
2-3 tsp of sugar
A pinch of salt
1.5 tsp of baking powder
1 tbsp of melted butter + more for greasing the waffle iron 

How I Made It:

1. Melt butter in a pan and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well until the flour doesn't form any lumps. The batter should be thick-ish.

2. Heat the waffle iron until it smokes and grease with some butter. Pour the required amount of batter and cook until golden brown. My iron takes about 1.5 mins to cook it nice and brown.

Serve immediately with maple syrup.

My measurements are approximate. I want to try adding 1 tsp baking powder next time to see if it makes a drastic difference. Since these waffles have no eggs, I wanted to play it safe with the baking powder but you may not need that much. If you try with a lesser amount, please let me know.

On the milk, I added one cup first and felt the batter was too thick so added a couple more spoons. You can start with a cup and see how it goes.

To make vegan waffles, substitute the milk the soy milk and the butter with any neutral oil.

Mango Avocado Milkshake Recipe, Mango Milkshake with Avocados

Mango Milkshake is a delicious drink and there's no denying that. But if you added some ripe avocados to when making mango milkshake? Even better! I've had family over the past couple weeks and thinks have been crazy ranging from cooking to sight seeing to shopping to eating.

Along with 6 people came a carton of mangoes, my favourite fruit. Although we were eating them as fast as they ripen, we were still left with a lot of mangoes that needed finishing up, a problem I was most happy with. There are so many different things you can make with ripe mangoes, like mango cheesecake, vegan mango cake, mango lassi, and even mango ice-cream milkshake.

So we made mango milkshake every day for 4 days and had it in the evenings. I had some overripe avocados which we threw into the mango milkshake one day and it turned out delicious.

Mango Avocado Milkshake Recipe

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Yields 4-6 glasses

Ingredients:
2 of ripe mangoes
1 of ripe avocado
2 cups of milk
2 cups of water (adjust according to consistency desired)
Sugar of as needed
A pinch of salt
A few drops of vanilla essence (optional but recommended)

How to make Mango Avocado Milkshake:



1. Chop up the mangoes and the avocado. Keep all other ingredients handy and get your blender out.

2. Blend the mangoes and avocado into a smooth paste with no lumps. It will be super thick. Now add the milk and water and blend until well combined. You can adjust the water as needed. We added quite a bit because the avocados make the milkshake extra rich and thick. You can use just milk if that's what you prefer.

3. Once you get a uniform mixture, add the sugar, salt, and vanilla and blend some more. Chill and serve.

Notes:
- the avocado gives the mango milkshake a greenish tinge
- if you want just plane jane mango milkshake, then omit the avocado
- we used full cream milk but you can also use low fat milk
- adjust the sugar level after checking how sweet the mangoes are. the ones we used were bland so we had to add about 3 tbsp of sugar for this quantity of milkshake