Swings & Roundabouts

P has been eating my head to bake him a cake for quite a while and so, I searched the ‘Net for a simple, no-fuss one. And I found one that uses no butter or oil! Wa-hey! It is called Aunt Martha’s Sponge cake and I got the recipe from Cooks.com. It was rather easy to make and uses just about five ingredients. The result was a real yummilicious cake. P was absolutely delighted with it!

If you want to try this at home, you’d need the following ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
4 tbsp. warm water
1 cup flour
1 level teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
(yes you read it right, no fat!)

Lightly grease a baking dish. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees celcius, Gas mark 6.

Take the eggs and beat for a minute at low speed. Add a cup of sugar and beat for five more minutes until the mixture becomes thick and takes on a lemon colour.

Next add four tablespoons warm water to the bowl and mix for a minute. Sift together plain flour (maida) and baking powder and fold. Make sure you don’t get overzealous and mix it too much – then you’d end up with a rock-like cake!

Lastly, add the vanilla essence, give it a stir and transfer to a shallow baking dish. Bake at gas mark 6 for five minutes and then at gas mark 5 for 15-20 minutes.

Cool and serve.

P decided to decorate it with ready-made icing and some hundreds & thousands. Sugar overload!

Meeta of WFLH recently celebrated her birthday. I came to know of that fact and her decision to throw a Birthday Bash earlier this morning when I was checking out Nandita’s blog for any new goodies. At the birthday girl’s request to make some party grub for her, I put on my thinking hat and wondered what to make. After scratching my scalp away, the bulb went off in my head – I could make my world-famous (ish!) Mexican almond cake. Called ‘Torte del Cielo’ or a slice of heaven, this cake is truly scrumpilicious. So, here it is! Oh, happy birthday Meeta!

Things you need to make this are:
Almonds in their skins – 175 gms
Eggs – 3
Plain flour – 9 tbsp
Butter – 225 gms, unsalted
Sugar – 225 gms
Almond essence – 1 tsp
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
Nutmeg – 1 tsp
Salt – a pinch

For decoration
Toasted almond flakes – 1 tbsp (optional)
Icing sugar

Now, take a cake tin (preferably round), lightly butter it and line it with baking paper. Preheat the oven at Gas Mark 4 (350 deg F).
Grind the almonds to make a rough mixture. Set it aside
In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy. Add lightly beaten eggs, the almond mixture, nutmeg and the two essences and beat well till they are mixed well.
Slowly sift the flour into the bowl, add salt and fold it all together.
Pour the batter into the greased tin; smooth the top of the cake.
Bake the cake for about 50 minutes; when a pick comes out clean, you’d know the cake’s done.
Remove it from the oven and let it rest on a wire rack.
Decorate with almond flakes. Dust icing sugar all over it and serve.