Mango Cake with Mango White Choc frosting

Hello Sweeties!!!! Today is Mr. Ash's Birthday!! A grand celebration day was planned by kiddos and we set to work. Daddy's Birthday is special as it usually falls on Memorial day weekend or a day or so after. 

We are still very much in the holiday mood and now that Donut is older, he is eager to help me in planning or baking the cake.

For this year's cake, Donut deiced he wanted something desi yet in a cake. So we settled for Mango milkshake cake. I had stashed some concentrated Alphonso mango pulp from my trip back home in my fridge, so put that to work. The deep yellow color is from the home grown and homemade concentrated mango pulp.

The frosting was also new to me, this is a white chocolate, mango infused frosting. The taste is bit sweeter for our taste buds, but overall I am please with the cake and this recipe is a keeper for the coming summer birthdays.

Recipe source with tweaks from my side

You will need;
1/2 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 and 1/2 cup flour
1 tspn ENO -Fruit Salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup Milk
2 tbspn Concentrated mango pulp
1 tspn cardamom-elaichi

In a bowl take the milk and mix in the mango pulp. If you cannot find the pulp, use mango juice( tinned or freshly squeezed out of a mango) and mix into a smoothie, add the elaichi and keep aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degree F.

In the stand mixer bowl, beat the butter and the sugar, add in the eggs and cream the mixture, then add the mango milk, and beat for 2 mins. Slowly add the flour, and stir well. Lastly add the ENO and stir once.

In a well greased bowl, pour the mixture shake the pan and bake at 40-45 mins, till the knife comes out clean.

Frosting
You will need;
2 cups heavy whipping cream
50 pieces of white chocolate wafers
( I use wilton chocolate wafers)
2 tbspn conf sugar
2 tbspn concentrated mango pulp 
1/2 tspn cardamom/elaichi powder

In a bowl, mix in the concentrated pulp with 1/2 cup cream, add the elaichi powder and set aside.

In anr glass bowl, take the chocolate wafers, add in 1/2 cup cream and  melt in a microwave for 30 seconds, stirring once in between at 15 seconds. The melting time will depend on how powerful your microwave is. Use  your judgement and  melt the chocolate wafers.

Whip the rest of the cream with the sugar, and store in the fridge till further use.

In the same mixing bowl, cream the chocolate mixture and the mango pulp mixture, frost the cake with this mixture. Use the stored whipped icing for the borders on the cake.

In the sampling, we realized that the frosting was a tad too sweet for us, so we added some mango cubes on the cake. The mangoes need some time to ripen and are a bit sour, making it perfect for the cake.


Donut prepared this parfait bowl for Mr. Ash for breakfast and Munchkin is making a card for him as well. So Here's wishing Mr. Ash a wonderful Birthday!!!!

For the parfait, Donut chopped some bananas, and added some granola for the crunch, used the leftover icing and topped with a cherry. Easy and filled with so much love for our daddy!!!

Avocado Poori- Avocade puffed bread-Kids Lunch box

Hello Dearies!!! Are you guys set with plans of summer outings for the warm months ahead!!!

With summer comes travel and the quest of kid friendly finger foods begins. Indian moms have been carrying various kinds of flat breads, pooris and theplas for such travels as travel in India is never friendly and without incidents. The train run late for  untold hours, the food available on streets is not at time of edible quality and the issues go on. 

Only thing you can vouch with confidence is the  never ending supply of tea and coffee, so taking such home made snacks that can be mini meals save the day when incidents delay the travels. 

In the US, we get a decent supply of Avocado. Back home, we never heard of such fruit, but after coming here and  settling in  anew home, we adapted some new foods.  

But trick with avocado is to get it at the right time, too raw and too ripe  is equal to wastage. I am still learning the trick to getting the perfect avocado. Sometimes I  fall prey to wholesale club prices and get more than I would need.

This recipe is perfect for those times. My kids enjoyed this lunch box and demanded an egg frankie with the same dough for the next day. I would give that a A+Grade.

You will need; 1 over ripe Avocado -Pitted and Mashed ** Mash and break the Avocado cubes as fine as possible 2 cups Wheat Flour 

1 tbspn fine sooji or semolina

1 tspn red chili powder

1 tspn turmeric powder

1 tspn cumin and coriander powder

1 tbspn Kasuri/dry methi

1/2 tspn Ajwain powder/Carrom seeds powder 

1 tsp salt or as per taste

2 cups Oil for deep frying--Approx

water to knead the dough

**this dough is slightly hard and not like chapati so use less water to knead the dough, only if needed as the avocado mash will also be wet enough.

In a bowl, take the flour and semolina and add the dry powders, salt and sugar, add the mashed avocado and knead into a hard dough . Keep aside for 10 mins.

In a wok, take oil for frying, take only as much as the pooris will immerse, I would say about 2-3 cups of oil, and heat it till it smokes once and then reduce the heat to medium.

Make small round balls of the dough and roll each one out (try rolling like thin cookies). 

 

Fry each one of them in the hot oil, one at a time. DO not rush and be extremely careful when frying. The ideal way to fry poori's is to slide the poori from one side of the wok. DO Not throw the poori's in the hot oil, the oil will splutter and splash and burn your hands.

Once you slide in the poori in the hot oil, let it puff up from one side, once it puffs up, turn it and let the other side puff up.. once both sides are puffed , drain them on some paper towels to remove excess oil and enjoyy them hot or cold, either ways they are delish.

 
Alternatively, if frying scares you, make them into theplas/parathas. 

Roll out the parathas like you would make roti's( make small balls  of the dough and roll out thin round tortillas dusting flour if the tortillas stick to the surface). Heat a griddle or tawa on medium heat and cook the partahas on one side. Flip the parathas and spray oil and cook the other side. Repeat on side one and cook both sides. Serve hot with some ketchup. or green chutney or any curry of your choice.

Optional: If making it for kids lunch, I usually scramble an egg with milk and make a small frankie of the egg with the paratha, in this way.

  

These make for a quick kids lunch box or picnic food item along the way.