Simple mini chocolate cake with chocolate froasting, in microwave oven

Luke 1:37

                          It's a cool Saturday evening. Sipping your coffee, you sit at the veranda watching the rain watering the plants in your garden. It's so good to relax after a week's hard work at the office. Your thoughts wander. Finally you put a break at the birthday party you went to a few weeks back. 'That was a yummy cake', you thought and suddenly you have that strong urge for a cake. Yes, a chocolate cake can go well with this cup of coffee. But it has been a while since you bought a cake. It's heavily raining outside that it's not a good idea to go out to buy cake. What to do now? Luckily there is some cocoa powder at home that your daughter uses to make her chocolate milk. So you take your smart phone, open the youtube and type in 'Chocolate cake recipe' . You select the first video. Good! You have at home all the ingredients they say. Now comes the beating egg, butter part. Hmm it's so time consuming and needs too many mixing bowls and a lot of elbow grease. You had almost decided to drop the plan when you see the final step. Baking the cake in oven and that too for 30mins. So that marks the end of your making-your-own-cake idea. What you have at home is only an ordinary microwave oven. You decide to buy a cake tomorrow suppressing the thought of biting into a piece of sweet, soft, moist chocolate cake. But wait! I have a solution. Yes I do. Trust me friend.

  

             You can easily make a chocolate cake in microwave oven and it doesn't take much time. Below are the ingredients and the method.

Mini Chocolate Cake in Microwave oven Recipe   

Ingredients

All purpose flour (maida) : 3/4 cup

Sugar : 1/2 cup

Cocoa powder : 2 tablespoons

Egg : 1

Milk : 1/3 cup (5 tablespoons)

Butter : 65g (5 tablespoons)

Baking soda : 1/4 teaspoon

Baking powder : 1/4 teaspoon

Vinegar : 1/4 teaspoon

Vanilla essence (optional) : 1/4 teaspoon  
Salt : a pinch

Method

Step 1 : Grease a microwave safe bowl  in which you like to bake the cake using oil or butter and keep it aside.

Step 2 : In a mixing bowl add flour, sugar, salt, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder. Mix well.

Step 3 : To the above mixture add egg, milk, butter, vinegar and vanilla essence. Combine them well so that there are no lumps. (You can use a hand mixer if available.)

Step 4 : Pour the batter to the greased microwave safe bowl and put it in the microwave at medium setting for about 6 minutes (time depends on your microwave oven).

Step 5 : Take out the cake when it is done. Touch the cake and if its firm and bounces back, its done. Or you can insert a tooth pick in the center of the cake and if it comes out clean, your cake is done.

Easy Chocolate Frosting using cocoa powder (about 1 cup frosting)

Ingredients 

Cocoa powder : 1/3 cup

Sugar : 1/2 cup

Butter : 1/4 cup

Milk : 3 tablespoons
Vanilla essence : 1/2 teaspoon

Instant coffee powder (optional) : 1/4 teaspoon 

Method

Step 1 : Melt the butter in microwave.

Step 2 : Stir in Cocoa powder while the butter is hot.

Step 3 : Add sugar, vanilla, instant coffee powder and milk. Mix well. (Add more milk if needed, to thin the consistency.)

                 That is it friends. Now you can enjoy a yummy chocolate cake even in the middle of the night. Don't suppress the thought of a chocolatey cake but get baking! 

Creamy custard without custard powder

                                                                                   Isaiah 43:1

                                  Hello friends, have you ever wondered what are the ingredients in the custard powder that you buy from store? If not, now you do. I had always thought that the only way of making custard was using custard powder and I never bothered to read the ingredient list printed on the side of the packet until I visited one of my friends. I was there for lunch and she served fruit salad for dessert . It was so creamy and smooth and delicious, I couldn't resist asking for one more cup. I asked her which brand she used for the custard powder and to my surprise she said she never buys custard powder but she has her own way of making custard, which she explained. Thereafter custard powder has never been on my grocery list. Homemade custard recipe uses only ingredients that you always have at home. Below I have written how to easily make custard without custard powder.


Homemade Custard Recipe

Ingredients:

1.Milk :  2 cups (500ml)
2.Corn flour :  2 tablespoons (20g)
3.All purpose flour (maida) :  1 tablespoon (8g)
4.Vanilla extract : 1 teaspoon
5.Sugar :  8 tablespoons (100g)
6.Egg : 1
7.Egg yolk :  2      (How to separate egg yolk from egg white)

(yes, that's it!)

Method:

Step 1. In a bowl add corn flour, all purpose flour, 1/4 cup of milk, egg and egg yolks. Mix them well so that there are no lumps.

Step 2. In a milk pan add sugar and the remaining milk. Combine it well.  On a medium heat, bring it to boil.

Step 3. When the milk just begins to boil, turn the flame to low and add the flour-egg-milk mixture by constantly stirring.

Step 4. Keep stirring until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble.

Step 5.  Add vanilla extract and stir. 

Step 6. Turn off the heat.

Step 7. Strain the mixture to a container and refrigerate it for 2 hours. Your custard is ready to be served.


 TIPS:

•     You can completely avoid flour. But make sure that the temperature of the mixture does not exceed 185 degrees otherwise you will have scrambled egg in milk. You can cook over a double boiler to maintain a low temperature.

•     Make the custard more creamy by increasing the count of egg yolks to 3 or 4 and also by melting two tablespoons of unsalted butter into the hot custard.