Caramel Nutty Cake

A warm, simple & tasty preparation to spread Christmas cheer...Caramel Nutty Cake

Ingredients for Caramel Nutty Cake:

All-purpose flour – 500g

Sugar – 600g

Butter – 500g (Unsalted/white butter)

Eggs – 500g (The number which equals to 500g)

Vanilla essence – 2 Tbsp

Almonds – 250g (Finely grated)

Cashew – 250g (Finely grated)

Salt – 1 Tsp

How to make Caramel Nutty Cake:

For best results, let all the ingredients be at room temperature before you start baking.

Caramel prep:

Take 100g sugar in a thick bottom sauce pan on low heat. Continuous stirring is a must. Once the sugar starts melting and frothing up, pour little water. As soon as you do it, it turns into a dark lump. But do not stop stirring! Give it few seconds and it will come down to liquid state again. Take it off heat.

Cake mix:

In a blender on medium high speed, put in the butter, eggs and sugar. Once the sugar is completely melted, pour in the vanilla & salt. Put in the flour in small batches and pour the caramel. Let all the ingredients get incorporate well before you turn off the blender.

Now take 3/4^th of the grated nuts and fold them into the batter. Avoid mixing the batter too much as it results in dense cakes and not light fluffy ones.

Pre-heat the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

I’ve used cup-cake baking material (Silicon moulds). You can go ahead and use any baking tray or a glass tray available.

Fill the batter to 3/4th of the tray height and sprinkle few nuts on top.

Now set the oven temperature at 180°C and put in the tray. Average baking time ranges between 30-40 minutes. However, it differs from oven to oven. I used an OTG. So, the best way to check if the cake is done is to use a toothpick/any sharp instrument and poke at the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean...Perfect!!! If not, let it stay in there for few minutes and check again.

Once the cake is out of oven, let it rest for 2-5 minutes before you take it off the tray/baking cups.

Hope you’ll enjoy the taste just the way you would enjoy preparing the Caramel Nutty Cake. I am sure U would J

Chilly Chicken

Yet another Chinese dish and an all time favourite – Chilly Chicken

Ingredients for Chilly Chicken:

Chicken – 1 Kg (Boneless)

Ginger-Garlic Paste – 2 Tbsp

Parsley – 4 Tbsp

Vinegar – 1 Tsp

Soya sauce – 2 Tbsp

Tomato Ketchup – 1 Tbsp

Red-Chilly Sweet Sauce – 2-3 Tbsp

Tabasco Sauce – 1 Tbsp

Capsicum – 1 Big (Medium sized cubes)

Onion – 1 Big (Medium sized cubes)

Green Chillies – 4-5 (slit along the length)

Spring onion – 4-5 (Jus the green part, finely chopped)

Ginger – 1-2 Tbsp (Finely chopped)

Garlic - 1-2 Tbsp (Finely chopped)

Salt and Ajinomoto to taste

Oil (olive oil preferably)

Procedure - Chilly Chicken:

Dice chicken into desirable chunks. Marinate it with ginger-garlic paste, 2 Tbsp parsley & vinegar and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Now shallow fry the chicken pieces. Do not over fry the pieces as they tend to get hard and chewy when cooled down. Take them off the oil, the moment you see the meat is cooked tender. Keep it aside.

Take a shallow pan on low heat, put 2 Tbsp oil. Now drop in the ginger and garlic pieces, and then the veggies including chillies & spring onion. Sauté them for a minute and drop the chicken pieces as well. Let the heat be on low and put in all the sauces. The measurements of the sauces are in accordance to my liking. Please do feel free to adjust them to yours. Sprinkle salt, ajinomoto and the remaining parsley and give it a good stir. Let all the sauces glaze the chicken and veggies well. Once you get the aroma of the same, it’s time to turn off the heat, serve and relish the pipping hot Chilly Chicken.