Simple Tomato soup

This is very easy and simple soup with clean flavors also known as Tomato Shorba. This is my favorite.Pair it with a nice spicy rice or a Sandwich and you have a handsome dinner in hand. Yumm!

Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients :

Tomato - 5 medium (chopped)
Carrot - 1 chopped
Red Onion - 1 small
Garlic - 2 cloves
Ginger - 1/2 piece
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Cilantro for garnish

Method :

In a vessel take around 2 cups water and add the whole tomatoes, carrots and let it cook well. In another pan sauté the onions, garlic and ginger well. Peel the tomatoes and put it in a mixer grinder along with the sautéed onions, garlic, ginger and make a fine paste by adding water.

Strain this paste adding a cup of water. Pour it in a vessel and heat again on gas until the soup boils. Add salt, pepper and garnish with cilantro and serve hot.

Enjoy :)

Zebra Cake

This is a beautiful looking cake...without any icing or decoration. When u cut into this cake the alternate paterrns of black and white look so beautiful and it is tasty too. Now,  I think u all know now why this is called a Zebra cake. This recipe  was lying in my draft for a long time. I wanted to post this a long time back, but someow missed it. I have followed this recipe from the AZ Cook book blog. This is one super interesting blog for bakers. They have some amazing baking recipes... do Check it out. This is the recipe I followed. I will be anyways I will write it down again here as I always do..:) I didn't make any changes to the actual recipe. I just use 1/4 tsp vanilla essence instead of the powder...:)

These measurements are for a 9" Round cake pan.

Ingredients :

Eggs - 4 (Large)
Sugar - 1 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Vegetable / Canola Oil - 1 cup
All Purpose flour - 2 cups
Vanilla Essence - 1/4 Tsp
Baking Powder - 1 Tbsp
Dark Cocoa Powder - 2 Tbsp

Things needed :

Electric Hand mixer / OR stand mixer
Few mixing bowls
A wire whisk
9"  Cake pan
Cake release / or butter/ oil to grease the pan

Method :

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C).

Lightly grease your cake pan with cake release or plain butter and flour method. You can even line your pan with a parchment sheet. I vouch by Cake release by wilton. It works like a wonder.

Start with taking 2 separate mixing bowls. One for the dry and one for the wet mixture. Let us start with the wet mixture first.

In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, vanilla essence and sugar. Beat the mixture until it turns creamy and light in color

Now, add the milk and oil to it and continue beating until its well blended.

 

In a separate bowl, combine all the dry items. Sieve the flour and baking powder together into the bowl. I normally sieve my flour n other dry ingredients so that they mix in properly and also there r no lumps of any sort in the mixture. Now using a whisk mix the dry mix so that the baking powder is mixed in well into the flour.

 

Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients mixing in between every addition of dry mixture to wet...and beat just until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.  (DO NOT OVERBEAT to prevent air pockets from forming in the batter.

The consistency of the batter should neither be too thick nor too loose. If the mixture is too thin, add a little more flour and mix well.

Divide the mixture into 2 equal portions. Keep one portion plain. Add cocoa powder to the other and mix well.

The most important part is assembling the cake batter in a baking pan. Start with the plain batter first. Use 2 big ladles. One for the plain batter and other for the chocolate one. First pour 1 big ladle of plain batter in the center of the greased cake pan. Now immediately take a ladle full or if the chocolate batter and pour in the center of the plain batter. Keep alternating between the plain and chocolate batter until both your batter r over. U can play with how many chocolate n plain rings you want in your cake.

Some tips from the actual recipe :  IMPORTANT! Do not stop and wait until the previous batter spreads - KEEP GOING! Do not spread the batter or tilt the pan to distribute the mixture. It will spread by itself and fill the pan gradually. Continue alternating the batters until you finish them. The pictures below will guide you through

Bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes. Do not open the oven door at least the first 20 minutes or the cake will shrink and will not rise.
To check your cake for doneness insert a toothpick into the center of your cake. It should come out clean when ready.

Remove from the oven. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 mins. Now run a small thin knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake, then invert the cake onto a cooking rack. Turn the cake back over and let cool. You can sprinkle the top of the cake with some powdered sugar or just leave it plain and Enjoy !!

Hope you Enjoy making and eating this cake. I don't have step by step pictures of this cake... But you can check the actual recipe for the assembly pictures. Enjoy !