Of Birthdays and Graduations

The last weekend of April I was quite busy with baking. It began on the Wednesday when my baby brother asked me to bake the carrot cake, that I have, by now, perfected, for his birthday.

Baby Brother's Carrot cake - his friends went wild for this :)

The current recipe for the cake includes more flour as some of my reviewers felt it was too moist. I must say, right now people are happy with the current recipe.

Of course, one cake does not constitute "busy with baking". On the Thursday, my baby brother's birthday, I had to do a bit more baking for my step mother's, "mom 2" as I say when I need to differentiate between my two mothers, graduation tea on the Friday. Anyway, this blog is not about that. Uhm, to get back on track, I made five cakes, the carrot again, two chocolate cakes, a coconut cake, and a carrot coconut cake.
I don't think I shall talk much about the carrot cake as that is a very well sung song.

Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake with Nutella topping

I have also, by now, gotten better at making chocolate cakes. This recipe is very easy and does not use hot water like I did before. The ingredients are not much - its just flour, baking soda and powder, cocoa powder, oil, sugar, a few scoops of fig jam (not marmalade or preserve) and eggs. So, jo (by the way this is not a typo), mix together, whisk, pour and bake. I baked four of these to make two iced cakes.

The icing on the cake couldn't be more simple, just sandwich the cakes together with fig jam and cover the top of the cake with Nutella. Simple!

Coconut Cake

Island Coconut Cake with Mango Coconut Syrup Icing

I was in such a island mood, which is something quite alien to me - I'm a winter and snow type of girl, and decided to bake a coconut cake. I've never attempted one before as I was always fearful of it being too dry. Mind you, this cake uses butter, quite a large amount of milk and tons of coconut. I also added some spices just so it did not come out bland.








I was not quite sure what to do to make this cake attractive - first of all it is quite a large cake so I was overwhelmed. In the end I used cream cheese icing to sandwich the base and the top together and then used mangoes (in true island mode) for the top before drizzling over a mango and coconut syrup. For the syrup I used mango juice, desiccated coconut, icing sugar and a bit of lime and simmered this in a pan until it reached the consistency of maple syrup.

Monster of a Cake

On cutting the cake it felt just a little hard and all my fears of a dry cake seamed to be coming true. But when one ate the cake it was moist and soft so I was quite baffled.

Coconut Carrot Cake

Coconut Carrot Cake

The last cake I baked was made similar to the coconut cake, but with two thirds of coconut to a third of grated carrots and no milk only butter.










Anyway, this cake is so different from the coconut cake as the cakes are flat (probably because the moisture is less) and hence produce a small tea cake. To ice I used smooth cream cheese icing with desiccated coconut.

Messy plate :(

Please let me know of any cakes you would like me to try out next and just general food recipes are also welcome.