Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Caramel and Cinnamon are wicked combinations. It entices you and you cannot stop at one. This is a wonderful autumn cake when the best apples are in season. The crisp weather ensures that we enjoy this warm cake for tea.

Ingredients

For the sauce and topping
•       3-4 Granny Smith apples very thinly sliced apples
•       115g salted butter
•       135g brown sugar
•       1 teaspoon cinnamon
•       ½ teaspoon nutmeg
•       ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
•       ¼ teaspoon dry ginger powder (optional)
•       1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•       ¼ cup toasted and chopped walnuts/ pecan nuts  

For the cake
•       115g unsalted butter
•       200g brown sugar
•       2 large eggs
•       ¼ cup milk
•       185g plain flour
•       1 teaspoon baking powder
•       ½ teaspoon cinnamon


Method
 
1. Generously grease a square 8-inch cake pan and line with baking paper at the bottom.
2. Sauce: Melt butter and brown sugar in a medium saucepan until smooth and thickened slightly. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger powder and vanilla. Pour the caramel into the greased cake pan and top with the apple slices while the sauce is still hot. Top with chopped nuts.
3. Cake: Preheat the oven to 160 degree C fan-forced oven. Beat butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add eggs and milk and beat until incorporated. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. Pour the batter on top of the caramel and apple layer in the cake pan.
4. Bake for 45 minutes to 60 minutes (until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean). Let cool for 10 minutes. Invert onto a plate and tap the top until the cake comes out onto the plate.

Serve hot !

Orange and Almond Cake

You look high and low for recipes when you fall in love with a food. And sometimes it is hard to satisfy your palate with what you make because your hand creations cannot match the great taste that you enjoyed for that food the first time. The Orange and Almond Cake is one such recipe for me. It was a sweet yet refreshing and light dessert. I've been working to perfect this recipe for a long time and I stroke it rich when I landed on the Food Safari show in SBS one day where they presented this exhilarating dessert as a classic Passover confection from the Mediterranean, Morocco and the Middle East.

Pastel de Tres Leches with Dulce de Leche

Another Mexican favourite today and it is a dessert cake; Pastel de Tres Leches ( pronounced pahstayl de tray laychays ) means Cake in Three Milks.

Black Sticky Rice Pudding

This Black Sticky Rice pudding comes from Thailand, the land of smiles. Black rice is a glutinous sticky rice is naturally sweet and nutty and has a dark purple colour to it. It has fibre and lots of antioxidants which makes this a healthy dessert. The rice has a bite to it, even after hours of cooking and when paired with coconut milk, toasted coconut, fresh fruit and ice-cream makes a complete nutty dessert with lots of freshness to it. For the people in Kerala, it will surely remind you of the Aravana Payasam.  

Fruit Salad Sundae

2012 just flew by. 2013 is here to stay. Wish you all a very Happy and Blessed New Year - a year with joy, peace, love, hope, share and care.

Coffee Liqueur Mousse Mocha Cake

I am all about coffee and coffee flavoured treats nowadays. I recently read that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop Alzheimer's, colon cancer and diabetes, compared to non-drinkers. And consuming caffeinated coffee an hour before vigorous exercise helps prevent the ache you feel when you work out. However, these are not the reasons why I love coffee.

Sticky Ginger Pudding

My friends and family have been asking me if I am really happy with my new found interest - taking photographs of food I prepare and then blogging about them. And without a second thought, I could answer with a 'yes'. While I started blogging to log my treasured recipes that could be easily accessed from any part of the world, what I didn't expect was that I would make some friends here too. Where Serah of The Captain's Kitchenette was my friend long before both of us got into blogging, Roha of Hydrebad Cuisine, Julie of Erivum Puliyum, Ambreen of Sweet and Savoury, Siri of Siri's Food Flavours and Kitchen Queen of Home Cook Food are my internet friends, who I feel have the same passion for food as I have and are constant visitors to my blog and keep encouraging me through my posts and are always loading me with some fantastic recipes and ideas that I love to read and try out at home too. Yes! For the introvert I am, who takes months before I become friends with people I meet, these ladies, their blogs and food have become an integral part of my life.

Warm Sticky Date Pudding with Almond Praline

Some fresh Medjool dates have been beckoning me from the pantry for over a month now to use them in my baking. For some reason I've just got bored with it. In fact, I've not baked even once this winter. So last week, when my little ones complained that I've not been baking as I used to, I was filled with guilt and remorse. I gave in and asked them for their choice. JK didn't have to think twice before he shouted, "Sticky Date Pudding"!

Almond Praline

Almond Praline is a perfect accompaniment to plain, soft chocolate or caramel, cakes or puddings. The crunch of almonds together with caramelised sugar, imparts a wonderful texture to desserts. It can also be served on its own, as a scrumptious crunchy after-meal sweet. (recipe source: Super Food Ideas Magazine)

Chocolate Molten Lava Cake - My 50th Post

You like sweets. You love cakes. And you die for chocolates! Then, these decadent little cakes with a warm, gooey chocolate centre is for you - a chocoholics dream dessert.

Sweet Boli

This post is part of Onam and Sadya. The recipe below will be enough to serve 6 - 8 people for Sadya. Measurements are only approximate.

Boli is a flat bread stuffed with mashed lentils that has been sweetened with sugar. Boli, as it is known in Kerala, have different names in different parts of India; Holige in Karnataka, Bobatlu in Andhra Pradesh,

Ada Pradaman

This post is part of Onam and Sadya. The recipe below will make enough to serve 6 - 8 people for a Sadya. Measurements are only approximate.

Those who know me are well aware that I do not make payasam or pradhaman. GC, my husband, is the King of payasam/ pradhaman at home. So if ever I am alloted a payasam or pradhaman for a potluck, GC is

Palada Pradaman

This post is part of Onam and Sadya. The recipe below will make enough to serve 6 - 8 people for a Sadya. Measurements are only approximate.

Palada Pradaman was indeed a great challenge for me this year. This is only the third time that I ever made it and it is the first time I succeeded in getting a light rose colour to the pradaman; thanks to LG and RI for their

White Chocolate Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta is a classic Italian dessert which means cooked cream. It is velvety smooth and decadent and has a very close resemblance to the Indian Phirni or the Arabic Mahlabi. While Phirni uses rice flour and Mahlabi uses cornstarch to thicken boiled milk, Panna Cotta uses gelatin to a mixture of boiled milk and cream. And then there are also differences in the flavouring agents used and the way these desserts are served. I am hoping to post recipes for Phirni and Mahlabi very soon; so more later.

The recipe here is a change to the traditional one since it uses white chocolate (source: Woolworth's Australian Good Taste magazine). The original recipe serves Panna Cotta with coffee syrup but here I have used orange marmalade sauce (source: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/orange_marmalade_sauce.html). The first time I made this, the sauce turned out more bitter, since the marmalade I bought was more on the bitter side. The next time I tried it with a different brand of marmalade which was more sweet and the sauce turned out better. You can also serve it up with a berry coulis or a berry sauce. The choice is yours.

Toffee Drops

I made these toffee drops to serve with cheesecakes. I boiled my first batch of sugar and water for too long that my toffees burnt and tasted bitter. I was more careful with my second batch. Happy with the result but there is definitely more room improvement.

                                                    Toffee drops served with cheesecake

If you are making toffees for the first time you may want to read through this.

Ingredients
110g caster sugar
60 ml water

Method
1. Stir sugar and water in a medium, heavy-based saucepan until sugar dissolves. Heat mixture over medium heat and bring to boil. Continue to boil, without stirring, until golden. Remove from heat. Drizzle tablespoons of toffee, length ways, onto tray and allow to set. Use as required.

Cinnamon Mini Cheesecake with Roasted Strawberry Coulis

I am not a fan for cheesecakes. It is just too cheesy (wouldn't expect more, would you?). Nevertheless, I had to try my hands at Cheesecake; simply because my husband and kids love it.

This recipe is adapted from The Cookbook - My Kitchen Rules, made by Kelly and Ash, who were my favourites and hopefuls on My Kitchen Rules show (Aus 2011). A husband and wife, who simply made food that they loved to prepare and serve. Unfortunately, they had to leave half way through the show since Ash's eyesight suddenly started to deteriorate. I wonder where and how she is now. Hope that she is back in the kitchen with her eyesight fully restored, cooking and serving her lovely food to her family and friends.