German Chocolate Cake With Coconut-Pecan Cajeta Frosting

German Chocolate Cake With Coconut-Pecan Cajeta Frosting
Recipe source : Foodnetwork.com

Before I start with the cake a fair warning to all. This cake is not for the faint hearted. It is not quick and easy. It is not simple. Period!
This cake has many layers and has lots of elements. You will have to multi task. Keep an eye on the oven, whip the caramel, chop the chocolate, everything goes on simultaneously. So make sure the house is empty and you do not have kids or dog or husband demanding your attention. Even with all your concentration something will start to go wrong. 

Also it will take a lot of your time. Since there are two cakes involved you will spend 1 and half hours baking the cakes. The Cajeta takes about an hour to make. Then cooling the Cajeta to room temperature. Even after the cake is assembled and ready it is advisable to keep it overnight. 

So why make it? Coz you love to bake. And coz you love a challenge. And coz this cake is so gonna be worth all the pain.

So first of all make a meticulous list of ingredients and make sure you have everything handy before starting the cake. 
I have basically followed the recipe except in a few places where I felt it was not working out for me. So feel free to make any changes you want because that is how we learn and evolve. 

I was initially stumped with the Cajeta bit in the title. Google baba ki jai! I found out what it actually means. Cajeta is a sweet, Mexican caramel sauce made by reducing goat’s milk and sugar. Interesting!! 

Ingredients

For the cake
180 gms unsalted butter
2 ¼ cup flour
3 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
1 cup+2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 ½ cup light muscovado sugar
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 ½ cups strongly brewed black coffee
1 ½ cups buttermilk
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven at 160 degrees Celsius. Grease and line two 9” cake tins.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Melt the butter in a pan. Whisk in the cocoa powder, mix well and cook for a minute. Add the two sugars, black coffee and vanilla essence. Whisk till the sugars dissolve. Take off the heat and cool. Add the buttermilk and eggs, one at a time. Whisk till smooth. Now add the dry ingredients and mix well. Divide the batter into the two pans. Bake at 160 degrees for about 55-60 minutes. Cool the cakes completely. 


For the Cajeta frosting

1 ¾ cup whole milk
1 ¾ cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup goat’s milk ( I used normal milk)
¾ cup+1 tsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp corn syrup
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cold
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 ¼ cups chopped pecans ( I used walnuts)
1 ¼ cups shredded sweetened coconut

Combine milk, coconut milk and goat’s milk and warm it. 
Combine sugar and ¼ cup water and keep on high heat till it turns amber brown. This will take about 10 minutes. Now gently add the milk. Be very careful as the milk will froth and can scald you. Add the vanilla essence and corn syrup and mix well. Keep on medium flame and reduce it to half till it becomes caramel like. This will take about an hour. Remove from heat and stir in the butter. Add the walnuts/pecans and shredded coconut. Let it sit till it reaches room temperature. 


For the ganache

250 gms chocolate, chopped
1 small packet Amul cream
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Take off the heat. Whisk it well and add the cream. whisk till smooth and glossy. 


Assembling the cake

Slice both the cakes in half. Now you have 4 layers of cake. Sandwich the cakes with the Cajeta frosting. pour ganache on top and sides of the cake and smoothen it out. Sprinkle some desiccated coconut on top. Keep the cake overnight before cutting it. 

Eggless Caramel Cake

Eggless Caramel Cake

I have, since long, wanted to bake a caramel cake. I had many recipes handy. I would drool over the beautiful pictures of the cake. However the idea of making caramel was a little daunting. 
Turns out I was wrong. Making caramel was a cakewalk. What was difficult was stopping myself from licking the bowl clean. The flavour reminded me of certain toffees I used to have in childhood and I simply couldn’t stop myself from licking my fingers. 
The second most difficult thing was cutting the cake. I know I am not a professional baker but this cake turned out so beautiful, at least by my standards, that I had a hard time allowing anyone to eat it. 
The eggless cake turned out all soft and fluffy. Overall this was one baking experiment I was totally happy with. 

Ingredients

For the cake
2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
¼ cup cornstarch
2 tsp baking powder
1 ¼ cup powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
½ cup butter
½ cup oil
½ cup curd+ ½ tsp baking soda
½ tin milkmaid
1 cup milk
5 tbsp caramel sauce 9 ( the recipe for caramel sauce is also given below)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat the sugar, butter, oil and vanilla essence well. It should become light and frothy. 
Add the curd to which ½ tsp baking soda has been mixed. Mix well. Add the milkmaid and caramel sauce and beat well. 
Sift together flour, cornstarch and baking powder. Now mix the flour and milk alternately, starting with flour and ending with the flour. The flour will be added in three batches and the milk in two batches.

Grease a 8” cake tin. Pour the batter in the cake tin and bake 30-50 minutes. 

For the caramel sauce
1 cup granulated white sugar
5 tbsp butter
½ cup cream

Put the sugar in a pan and put it on medium heat. Once the sugar starts caramelizing then add the butter. Keep on low flame and cook till the sugar melts. Do not stir. Take off the heat and add the cream and mix well till no lumps remain. 
Do not worry if you are still left with lumps. Put it back on low heat and cook. Keep stirring all the while and soon any lumps remaining will dissolve and the sauce will thicken. 


For the caramel frosting
1 cup whiling cream
½ cup caramel sauce

Whip the cream till soft peaks form. Add the caramel sauce and whip more. 

Your caramel frosting is ready. 

To assemble the cake

Once the cake is cool slice it in half. 

Spread a generous amount of icing on one half and put the other half on top. 

Cover the top and sides of the cake with frosting. 

Drizzle a bit of caramel sauce on the cake for decoration. 

Mango Custard Flan

Mango Custard Flan

I wanted to make some basic caramel custard flan when I spied the overripe mangoes sitting on my table. So after making shreekhand, cheesecake, pudding, shake etc I thought why not some mango Custard Flan?

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tbsp water

1 cup mango puree

½ can milkmaid/condensed milk

2 tbsp cornflour

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk

First step: Open the can of evaporated milk and have a tablespoon..Ahhhh that is bliss!!!!

Well that not being an actual step in the recipe we can now move on!!:)

First make the caramel. Put the sugar and water in a pan on high heat. Stir a little and let the sugar melt and start to brown. Once it caramelizes pour the caramel into 4 individual moulds. This recipe is good enough for four flans. Swirl the caramel around a bit and then set aside.

Mix together milkmaid, milk, beaten egg, cornflour and mango puree. Beat well with a hand mixer. I had some caramel left over and I added it to the batter. 

Now scoop the batter equally into the four moulds.

Preheat the oven at 170 degrees Celsius.

Take a large shallow pan and fill it halfway with water. Put it in the oven while it is being preheated.

Now place the four moulds in the pan with the warm water. This is a water bath. The water will provide moisture while baking ensuring that the flan does not become dry.

Bake for about 40 minutes.