Monday, July 22, 2013

A rainy Saturday and a Rainbow Cake [UBC Post 17]

Last Saturday (13th July) was fun. I finally attempted Smita’s Rainbow Cake. It turned out to be 4/5 on looks and 3/5 in taste. 

Frankly, during weekends, till afternoon we hardly get anything done except breakfast. We get up at the same time as on a Weekday but both the maids turn up a little later than usual, sometimes hubby takes little one for a stroll, sometimes they do errands for impromptu breakfast plans, and so on and so forth. Something or the other takes away the entire first half. 

Last Saturday afternoon, after we put sonny boy for a nap, we settled down to enjoy Pune’s awesome weather with a cup of tea. I finally indulged in some reading and hubby did some internet surfing. It was how the Saturdays should be, leisurely.

But the highlight of the day was certainly the cakes. Hubby does not eat non veg (including eggs) on Saturday, so I decide to make a little eggless cake and a bigger cake with egg. Actually, it was I, who had started this whole practice of not eating non-veg on certain days, then hubby joined in for Saturday. I don’t follow that too strictly anymore because we don’t follow it for our son, and I usually end up eating whatever he refuses to eat. He will get all excited about egg, almost force me to boil the egg, and then completely refuse to have it. What is a mother to do!

Anyways, so I got all the ingredients to make the rainbow cake which was supposed to be a practice session for little one’s birthday. We have stopped getting cakes from outside. Nobody likes them at our home and we prefer giving home-made stuff to our son, so now we bake our own cakes for big occasions. 

Hubby had got an interesting mould while getting the ingredients. It has all the insects like butterfly, bee, dragonfly etc. If somebody really took an effort to do a nice icing and paint it like the insects, they will look like the real ones. But I would do so much hardwork only when my son is old enough to realize how much effort has gone in making those cakes look like insects. I used this mould to bake the eggless cake. Hubby used 2 colours to get some effect. I followed this recipe at Smita’s blog.

For the Rainbow cake also, I have referred everything as per Smita, the only difference is that instead of Curd, I added eggs.

Here’s how I did it.

Ingredients:

Flour (maida): 1 and 1/2 cups (200 gms)

Eggs: 3 (I used 4 eggs but I felt that the batter was more on the liquid side and also the effect of eggs and baking powder was a little on higher side)
Sugar: 1 cup
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
Baking powder: 1 and 1/4 tsp
Cooking oil or Butter: 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence: 1 and 1/2 tsp
Colors: Pink, Green, Yellow, Orange (Pink+Yellow)
Note: Take more colors if you can get like Blue and its combinations with other colors like Purple.

Method:
Step 2
  1. Seive Maida and keep aside 
  2. Mix crushed sugar and egg till the batter is smooth. Add Baking Powder and Baking Soda. Mix well. 
  3. When you find bubbles appearing in it, add oil and vanilla essence, and beat well.
  4. Add Maida slowly to the mixture so that there are no lumps. The better you mix this batter, the better the cake will be. After mixing it with hand, I also used a
    blender to mix it evenly. 
    Step 5
  5. Pour the batter equally in separate bowls according to the number of colours you have. You can keep one for without colour as well, like I did. Add colour in each bowl. So, for me, there were 5 colours to work with. 
  6. Preheat the microwave in the convection mode at 180 deg 
  7. Grease the mould with oil. 
    Step 8
  8. Put same-sized spoons (the bigger the better) in each bowl. Here is a trick, the bigger the spoon, the thicker layers of colour you will get. Now start pouring each colour batter one by one at the centre of the mould. You just have to keep putting the colours one by one at the centre and the batter will automatically take shape. 
  9. Bake it at 180 degrees (in convection) for 30-40
    Step 9
minutes. Insert a pin or knife in the cake to check if the cake is cooked from inside. If you find any stickiness, bake a little more. When nothing sticks to the knife, it means the cake is done.

I had got the material for icing too, but I had lost all energy so I gave it a miss.

So, how does it look? I couldn't get over its prettiness :-)


18 comments:

  1. The cake looks so verry pretty!!! The real maza of this cake is when u do an icing to it & the colours are hidden. SO when the cake is cut there would be a surprise fo you :) And those butterfly/ dragon looks pretty!!!

    But can I give u some tips, For the egg cake? I am not saying that ur method is wrong but I feel these steps might make a difference!!

    a) mix the BP & BS with the maida
    b) beat the egg whites first & then the yellows. Beat the oil & sugar together making it creamy and then add to eggs!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I will do the icing on his birthday. I was so tired I thought why eat extra calories anyways. I am going to make again na!
      That insect mould is very nice but only if we use different colours and highlight the features well.
      Please free to give me all the tips. I am a novice.
      1. My mom used to seive maida and baking powder together. I knew this but I just followed your method to be on safe side.
      2. That I will remember the next time.
      My queries:
      a. The cake baked thoroughly but it erupted at the centre like a volcano. I felt baking powder or baking soda needs to be less since there are 4 eggs also. Tips?
      b. I felt the cake tasted a little on dry side, I think I should add more oil. Right?

      Delete
    2. U shud skip baking soda & add a little more oil / butter :)

      Delete
    3. OK. Point noted for the D-day. Thank you. I will also check out the link you told me about.

      Delete
  2. I quite liked the insects but the rainbow cake looks simply awesome. Hope you'll improve with 5/5 on taste on the D-day!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It looked so lovely I just wanted to keep looking at it for a while. I am going to add more colors on the D-Day. The taste was OK, but not perfect :-)

      Delete
  3. Anonymous4:41 PM

    ITs looking so yumilicious :-) I want to have it now :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. It is so simple to make with Smita's recipe, why don't you bake one for kids?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous4:26 PM

      I have never every bake a cake..For me it seems such a tough thing..I don't know anything about baking :-(
      Plus I also don't have convection.thiking from long to buy one but not sure I will be pro in making cake like you or not :-)

      Delete
    3. Buy one because kids love cakes. With so many easy recipes on internet, baking is really easy now.

      Delete
  4. It looks awesome bhabhi and must be yummy in taste :)...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Shikha! It was awesome. It is quite simple to follow the instructions. Why don't you try it. If you want to make an eggless one, the recipe I have linked is for eggless one. The best part is it looks gorgeous. Aayan will love the colours :-)

      Delete
  5. Is that Talent or is that Talent? :O Please Reema, send some my way. Both Talent and that yummy cake. :) I'm sure my family will send you an official request letter if I showed them this post. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha ha Sakshi. I have no such talent. It is just that the recipe I followed was very easy. Go check out the link of Smita's post and you will see this is quite simple to make, although the results are yummilicious. And it also appeals to the kids because of all the bright colours :-)

      Delete
  6. Wow! This looks awesome! The cake, I mean. I would never be able to eat such a gorgeous looking thing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much. I don't have such problem. I can eat any kind of cake. I loooooooooooove cakes!

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  7. The cakes look delicious. The butterfly looked super colourful until I scrolled down to Rainbow cake, Awesome. Wonderful way to spend your Saturday. Wish I was in Pune, I'd invite myself over ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much!
      Honey, by the time I even wrote it, it was over. But I am making it again soon. Come over :-)

      Delete