Holiday Fruit N Nut Cake - Tis the Season!

The holidays are my favorite time of the year. Even though the days are shorter, I am eagerly waiting for the dark evenings so I can see the beautifully decorated lights everywhere. From Santa Claus, reindeer, snowflakes,  icicles to multi-colored string lights, you get to see lights of every kind. This time of the year also brings fond memories of childhood. Cakes were a must during Christmas and New Year. Since, initially I did not grow up in the city, it was a ritual to bake cakes at home and it used to be a daylong affair. A look at my mom's kitchen and state of mind, you could tell something was baking that day :) But once the aroma of the freshly baked cake filled the house, all stress would go away and we would indulge in the goodies for the next few days to come.

On moving to the city, cakes were readily available at the various bakeries.  To this day, the smell of a freshly baked cake brings a certain nostalgia to my mind. Every year around this time, I want to follow the same tradition at home. And while there is an abundant of good bakeries in the country where I reside, there is a different kind of fun in baking at home. In addition, these become great family/couple projects (hint, hint) :-)

Ingredients:

Pillsbury classic white cake mix - approx. 2/3 packet (approx. 280-300g)
Eggs - 3 (4 if using only egg whites)
Butter(molten)/white oil) - 3 tbsp
Dates pitted & chopped: 15
Dried cranberry: 1/2 cup
Walnuts (cut into small bits): 1/3 cup


The first step was to preheat the oven to 350F. In a blender, I added all the ingredients and mixed all them under the 'whip/puree' setting. If the batter is too thick to be removed from the blender, some water/milk can be added. Note that the batter should not be runny at all. I used a 9" round non-stick baking pan and placed a sheet of non-stick parchment paper on top. Then, I poured the cake mixture from the the blender onto the parchment sheet. This was baked for roughly 45-50 minutes, checking twice in between by poking the cake with a thin skewer to see if the middle portion of the cake was cooked. If the skewer comes out clean (without any batter sticking to it), it is ready to be taken out of the oven and cooled to room temperature. The next morning, coffee tasted blissful with this accompaniment.

Chips n dips for the summer

For one of our summer gatherings, I was wondering what appetizers to make. While the hubby would be grilling all the entrees (there is a reason why women love barbecue), I needed to provide everyone with something to munch on. During grocery shopping at a local store, I saw some hummus and guacamole on the shelves. I was about to almost pick them up when I realized I could make them easily at home. So instead of buying the dips, I decided to buy just the ingredients and the chips. These dips always taste great when freshly made and inspired by those available in some of my favorite restaurants, I decided to give them a try.

Hummus (makes a good enough amount for  7-8 guests)

Chickpeas - one 15.5 oz can
Tahini - half cup
1 large garlic clove (crushed)
Lemon juice - from one lemon
Kosher salt - to taste
Paprika - to taste
Cumin - 1 tsp
Olive oil - 2 TBS for mixing and more for garnish

Added everything in a food processor and blended until smooth. Stored in air-tight container and refrigerated for later use. We got some whole-grain baked pita chips to go with this. Needless to say, I tasted this numerous times thought the making and my kindergartener confirmed the goodness of this dip when she asked for more irrespective of the spice level. "I can handle the jhaal (spicy in Bengali)" is her way of letting me know to what extent she will go if the food is good enough :)

Guacamole (makes a good enough amount for  10-15 guests)

Avocados (ripe, pitted) - 4
Lime juice - from one lime
Green chillies chopped (I used along with jalapeños for some extra kick) - 2
Kosher salt - to taste
Black Pepper - to taste
Olive oil - 1 TBS
Cilantro (you can also use parsley) - 0.25 cup (chopped)
Red onions/shallots - 0.25 cup (chopped)

Mashed them with a fork to have a good consistency. Stored in a container so that it mostly fills up and then covered the guacamole with thick tomato slices to avoid it from turning black. I learnt this trick from the kitchens of a local grocery store. Make sure the container  is airtight and store in a refrigerator. They go great with any tortilla chips -- we bought some blue corn organic chips to go with these and had no regrets :)

Hope to be back with some more writing soon...till then, happy grilling!