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My sister is a chocolate cake monster. I make a chocolate cake ever so often and every time I make it, she refuses to share. She finishes the entire cake herself in less than a day. And it pains to think about how ridiculously unhealthy it must be for her gut.

So this time, for her endless chocolate cake cravings, I decided to take the “skinny” (healthy) way out, without compromising on taste. A few days back, I mentally created a chocolate cake recipe with whole wheat flour, oil and carrots. This weekend, I set that mental creation to action. Result — a super moist chocolate cake with the hidden goodness of carrots, and whole wheat flour of course. Next time, I plan to replace some of the wheat flour with ground oats, the oil with applesauce, and the sugar with agave nectar. I’m certain to make this “skinny” cake again. You should too! 🙂

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups – whole wheat flour
3 tbsp – unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp – baking soda
1/2 tsp – salt
1 cup – caster sugar

Wet Ingredients:
1/3 cup – oil
1 tbsp – white vinegar
1 tsp – pure vanilla extract
1 cup – diet coke

3 medium – carrots, finely shredded
Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

1) Sift all the dry ingredients.
2) Mix together all the wet ingredients.
3) Pour the wet into the dry and mix until combined well.
4) Fold in the shredded carrots.
5) Pour into a greased 8″ baking pan and bake for 25-30 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 C/350 F.
6) Cool completely, dust with the confectioner’s sugar and slice.

I love vanilla cake over any other type of cake. Love it to the extent that I once asked my sister to get me three loaves of plain vanilla pound cake as my birthday present. A perfect vanilla cake is one that is slightly dense in texture, buttery in taste and has an evenly browned crust.

I’ve made numerous attempts at making the “perfect vanilla cake” in the past which have yielded both failures and successes. However, the one I made last weekend was the best one I’ve ever made. I would like to call this a pound cake but am a little hesitant because real pound cakes are made of butter and this recipe uses oil. Although the cake didn’t taste buttery, it was still moist and perfectly dense. The original recipe called for 1 cup of oil (to 1 cup of flour) which I thought was too much. So I tweaked the recipe a bit by adding only 1/2 cup oil and replacing the other half with buttermilk, hence making it less fattening.

1 cup – plain flour
1 tbsp – cornstarch
1 cup – caster sugar
1/2 tsp – salt
1 tsp – baking powder
4 – eggs
1/2 cup – oil
1 tbsp – pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup – buttermilk

1) Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.
2) Sift the plain flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3) Break the eggs in a blender along with the oil and vanilla. Blitz for 1 minute.
4) Pour the egg-oil mixture into a bowl and gently fold in the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk.
5) Pour the batter into a generously greased 7″ baking pan.
6) Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool completely before slicing.

Wintry Baltimore is finally starting to get warm and this weekend my mum and I are going to New Jersey to visit friends from Abu Dhabi. I love to bake, they love to eat and we love how perfectly this always works out! 🙂

As per usual, I was having trouble figuring out what to make. I knew I had a feel for making muffins as they would be easy to pack and take, but didn’t know what kind. A few days back, I came across this recipe for a chocolate chip rosemary cake and I had had that on my mind since then. The combination sounded way too interesting (and maybe a little weird?)

The recipe of this cake batter rightly resembled a muffin batter recipe and so I thought of making chocolate chip rosemary muffins. Although this recipe had great reviews, I was still anxious about the combination of flavors. Yet, nothing stopped me from giving this a try.

I made the muffins, took them out of the pan and stared at them for minutes. They looked scrumptious. Regardless of how pretty they looked, I was afraid to taste them. But my sister and mum taste-tested them with quite a lot of incitement. They loved the flavors and went ahead to take a second bite. My mum said her favorite part about the muffin was the crunchy top.

I made two batches of these muffins — in the first one, we felt that the rosemary sharply overpowered the bitterly sweetness of the chocolate and so I decided to reduce the amount in the second batch. Apart from that, these muffins were perfectly dense in texture with tender crumbs, chunks of dark chocolate, peppery rosemary and fruity olive oil all held together.

Chocolate Chunk, Rosemary & Olive Oil Muffins
adapted from Oeufs Mayonnaise who got the recipe from 101 Cookbooks

Olive oil for the pan

Dry ingredients:
3/4 cup – spelt flour (can use ground oats instead)
1 1/2 cups – plain flour
3/4 cup – sugar
1 1/2 tsp – baking powder
3/4 tsp – kosher salt

Wet ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup – olive oil
3/4 cup – whole milk

1 1/2 tbsp – fresh rosemary, finely chopped (I used 1 tbsp)
5 oz – bittersweet chocolate (70% cacao), chopped
2 tablespoons sugar for top crunch

1) Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease a muffin pan with olive oil.
2) Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl, pouring any bits of grain or other ingredients left in the sifter back into the bowl. Set aside.
3) In another bowl, whisk the eggs thoroughly. Add the olive oil, milk and rosemary and whisk again. Using a spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the dry, gently mixing just until combined. Stir in 2/3 of the chocolate. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, smoothing the top. Sprinkle with the remaining chocolate and 2 tbsp of sugar on the top.
4) Bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until the top is domed, golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
5) Serve warm or cold.

My cousin recently got engaged and we are visiting her in-laws (to-be) in North Carolina this weekend. The last time she visited, her mom-in-law gifted her a cookie press and asked her to make some cookies using it and send her pictures. Well, that never happened, and being the biggest baking freak, I couldn’t resist using her cookie press. So I decided to make my favorite butter cookies and take with us to NC.

I love this recipe because it uses very few ingredients, there is no hassle of using any machine, they are just mildly sweet and so buttery that they magically melt in your mouth. Since I was in the mood for making something cutesy looking, I made little flower shaped cookies with 100’s & 1000’s.

3/4 cup – plain flour
1/4 cup – cornstarch
1/4 cup – confectioner’s sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) – unsalted butter (softened but not melted)
1/2 tsp – pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp – salt

1) Combine the flour, cornstarch and salt together.
2) In a separate bowl, whisk the butter, sugar and vanilla using a wooden spoon until it’s smooth.
3) Add in the flour mixture and combine. You’ll have a soft dough ready.
4) Spoon this dough into your cookie press and press out the cookies on an ungreased and unlined baking sheet. If you’re not using a cookie press, simply roll the dough into small balls and flatten them slightly. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and proceed.
5) Decorate with cherries, chocolate chips or anything of your choice and bake for 12 – 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 350F/180C. The cookies are done when the edges turn slightly brown.
6) Remove from the oven and allow cookies to stand for 3-5 minutes and then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.