Soccer Game and Naadan Cake

Last week, we had our St Jude soccer tournament. Along with esteemed teams i.e  Avial United, SRA quotation, Herndon Heroes and Ashlee Kidilans, we had a wonderful refreshment stall full of culinary delights.

Here is the recipe for the Naadan cake that was part of the stall. This cake is also known as Christmas cake, Caramel cake and perhaps by several other names. Hope you enjoy baking this one. They say in baking you must follow exact instructions. However , I feel it is okay to experiment around until you reach the best recipe that suits your own taste.

This recipe has a lot of rogue ingredients.. butter, eggs etc. However, this is still considered "healthy" as opposed to store bought cakes which have artificial ingredients. Children and adults who can afford more calories, can enjoy the goodness of natural home made cake. Adults who can't afford more calories are advised to eat with restraint :-) ... OR perhaps skip your next meal or work out to burn the calories.

Naadan Cake
Ingredients
2.5 cups sugar (regular, not confectioners as it has corn starch)
2.5 cups regular all purpose flour (you can pick organic/ unbleached depending on choice)
5-6 eggs (organic if you wish, also skip the yolks if you wish ,but add a couple of extra whites)
Butter 2.25 cups ( can substitute partly with veg oil, or experiment by reducing the quantity)
Vanilla essence 2 tsp
Baking Soda 2.5 tsp
Nutmeg -per taste
Salt per taste - ONLY if the butter is unsalted butter.
Powdered cardamom (optional)


Steps

1) Keep the butter out of the refrigerator so it is a little soft when you start preparing the cake. Melting in the microwave does not have the same effect.

2) Sieve the flour and baking soda, cover it & keep it aside . Sieving is not necessary in the U.S but it helps the flour mix well with the baking soda.

3) Prepare the caramel for the cake. Take 4-5 spoons of sugar and melt it in a saucepan.

4) Keep stirring the sugar as it further melts.

5) Once the sugar has fully melted and is golden brown in color, add half a glass of hot water. Keep stirring so no lumps are formed. This can be challenging.  The final liquid should look like the picture below. Keep it aside to cool.

6) Powder the sugar in a mixie. Do not use confectioners sugar instead as it contains corn starch.

7) Mix the butter with this powdered sugar really well. Electric mixers are the best choice. You can spend some extra time mixing these 2 ingredients.

8) Separate the egg yolks and whites and beat the whites really well. Having a stand-up electric mixer really helps. It does seems like a big investment but it has helped me make Pizza doughs and is generally very handy.

9) When the egg white foams lift it off from the remaining egg whites and add it to the butter/sugar combination. Then beat the rest of the whites .

10) Along with the butter/sugar combination add the egg white foam, then add part of the flour/baking soda combination and mix.

11) Repeat the steps of combining the ingredients until they are well combined.  Also add the yolks if you wish to do so. Add nutmeg and optional powdered cardamom. Also add a pinch of salt -if the butter was unsalted.

12) Add the vanilla essence and the caramel to the cake and mix it at medium to low speed for a couple of minutes.  At this point it may seem like the dough has curdled which is normal.

13) Grease the pan and lightly flour it. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees and bake for about 30-40 minutes until a fork comes out clean from the centre.

14) If you are baking a larger cake, you can reduce the temperature to about 325 degrees towards the end and add additional minutes.

15) I do not have a picture of the big cake above once it was baked, but here is a picture of another cake that was made with the same recipe. Hope you enjoyed this tour :-)

      Please leave your comments or like the facebook page  YayLearner-Facebook  if you liked this recipe.

Can I eat that Piece of Art? ~ A treat for the eye, a delight for the appetite.

  Can you eat the decorations? Absolutely !!

Is cake decoration a skill that you have experimented with?   Have you wondered how easy cake decoration could be? If you have a genuine interest in cake decoration and are ready to put a little bit of effort, it can be fairly easy.

What do you need first? Well to begin with you need a smooth surface cake. Your cake can be from a recipe or a cake mix. I am sure you all grease the cake pan first before pouring in the batter, but did you know you must lightly flour the pan after you grease the bottom? Also, do you know an easy trick to get it out smoothly? When the cake is done, let it remain in the pan for 10 minutes. Any time sooner, the cake is going to be too hot.  More importantly, if you leave it for longer, a condensation effect takes place, which means the cake sticks to the pan. Then it could be a struggle to get out. If that does happen, warm the cake slightly again and then try to get it out. A smooth surface means half your work is done.

Are you ready to start icing now?  Butter Cream icing is fairly popular and is made with butter and confectioners’ sugar. In hot temperatures the icing can melt fairly quickly. Commercial cakes use regular shortening with sugar to make the icing, but that doesn’t taste very good. A good compromise is to make your icing with half butter and half butter flavored shortening. Don’t forget to add a tiny pinch of salt to balance the sugary taste. This icing can be for the base on the cake. For decorations you can make it from this icing by adding your own colors or buy some tubes from the store for specific colors.

Icing for covering the cake is usually thinner than that used for decorations. Ice the cake using a spatula. Does it look smudgy? There is an easy solution to that as well. Clean your spatula once you are done and warm the metal edge. Then run it across the surface of the cake. The heat causes the butter icing to melt slightly creating a very smooth flat surface ready for you to decorate.

Let us assume you are not a great artist and fear having to draw free-hand on the cake.  Transferring a complicated design to a cake isn’t as hard as you think it is. Pick any picture you would like to draw on your cake. Lay a roll of parchment paper on it. Buy some Piping Gel which is available in the cake aisle of craft stores. Fill some gel in a bottom corner of a Ziploc and fold it like a cone. Then cut a tiny hole on the corner bottom to make your own gel dispenser.  Trace the outlines of your picture on the parchment paper using piping gel.  Once you are done, lay the paper on top of the smoothly iced cake, with the gel side down. Press lightly and gently peel off. The entire traced outline in piping gel will superimpose onto the cake. Now, feel free to trace over the piping gel using colored icing.

Finally, the easy tip to an awesome look is Accessorize, Accessorize, and Accessorize. Put on your thinking caps and come up with innovative ideas. M & M’s can be eyes, buttons. Licorice, Sprinkles, Shredded coconut, Candies, Nuts, and Fruits are all great for decoration if they are used creatively. With a great deal of enthusiasm, a moderate amount of patience and a dash of creativity, you can create a treat for the eye and a delight for the appetite.