mother's day Archives - The White Ramekins

Orange Blossom Pistachio Chocolate Cookies

May 10, 2015 by TheWhiteRamekins

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful loving mothers! Not that just this one single day is Mother’s Day but I feel every other day should be this much special for this symbol of selfless love and care. Because when I look up to mommy, she hasn’t changed a slight bit in all those years raising, feeding and taking care of us. …

Espresso Walnut Cake, Happy Mother’s Day!

May 11, 2014 by TheWhiteRamekins

Can anything be more satisfying than a cup of hot espresso and a bar of dark chocolate. Deep dark flavors can satiate all your cravings than anything else. That’s the sensuality of these two bitter yet satisfying treats. I love anything coffee. If I have a choice of having a dessert after dinner, I would look for options with coffee in it. Fruity and chocolate dessert would definitely be second on my list without any doubt. I have made coffee ice cream too, and that is my most favorite flavor after vanilla. Now when summer is upon us, I’ll soon be making it again this year. I am just waiting for my family to be with me next month.

But for now, I baked an espresso cake for them while I visited them this weekend. And it was special being the Mother’s Day! The alarm rang pretty early in the morning. I was still asleep when I walked into my kitchen and put my little espresso maker on the stove. Oh my! The aroma of freshly brewed coffee was good enough to bring me to action. And I knew that it would going to be something amazing today, even before I had started whipping the batter. And it’s true that good ingredients speak for themselves. This espresso walnut cake is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s, a legend himself. It couldn’t go wrong. Additionally I layered the cake with some white chocolate buttercream, instead of plain vanilla buttercream, as suggested in the recipe. Drizzled it with espresso glaze to add more coffee kick to the cake {though I kept the sugar low in the glaze, which is why the glaze looks quite runny}. More coffee, more happiness!

Ingredients

Cake

150 gm unsalted butter
75 walnuts, plus extra for topping
175 gm sugar
3 eggs
150 gm plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
50 ml cold espresso

Filling

25 gm unsalted butter
50 gm white chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp icing sugar
1/4 cup cold heavy cream

Espresso glaze

50 gm icing sugar
20 ml strong espresso

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 degree C and grease an 8 inch springform pan and keep aside.
Sift the flour, salt, baking powder together and keep aside.
Pulse the walnuts in a food processor until coarsely crumbed. You can do this with a knife as well.
Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Gently fold the flour and walnuts along with espresso.
Pour the batter into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the cake in pan for 10 minutes and then invert onto a wire rack to let it cool completely.
For the filling, melt the chocolate in microwave or on a double boiler and let it cool. Once, chocolate is completely cooled, beat the butter with sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Fold in the melted chocolate.
For the glaze, beat the sugar and espresso together, until sugar is dissolved.
To assemble, cut the cake horizontally into two halves. Spread the filling on lower half with a spatula and layer with top half. Drizzle over the espresso glaze and top with chopped walnuts.

Eggfree Peach Coffee Cake…To my mother

May 23, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

I know, it’s a little too late for this, and I have lost the opportunity to wish you all happy mother’s day. I wanted to bake something special for my mother, on this Mother’s day. But because of work and all, I couldn’t visit her. And following next week, when I visited her, I took home this egg-free peach coffee cake, especially baked for her. An egg-free recipe to make her feel special, because she doesn’t eat eggs.

Mother’s have unconditional love for their children. They have that warmth in their love and affection, which can heal all your sorrows and pains. It’s been almost 8 years, I have stayed away from home and her tender love, because of work. And all these years, when she rings me up, her goodbyes after the calls have always been the same words…”Take Care“.

“Who’s a boy gonna talk to, if not his mother?”
Donald E. Westlake

These two words have always had some magical power attached to them, to make me feel stronger and believe that she’s always by my side.

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.”
Barbara Kingsolver

I wanted to make her feel special, the way she’s been doing this to me. And the least I could do was to bake her an egg-free cake. I know my dabbling in the kitchen can never match up to the world’s yummiest food, she’s been cooking for us, with loads and loads of love and affection added to it.

I baked this wonderful stone fruit coffee cake and made it more special by taking out the eggs from it. Added sweet and juicy peaches to the cake, and that made it super moist. Instead of topping the cake with a regular flour struesel topping, I sprinkled the top with some chopped walnuts and cinnamon sugar. Aroma of cinnamon accentuated the peach-y-ness of the stone fruit chunks resting inside the cake.

Recipe minimally adapted from Dolcedente

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar, divided
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large, ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced
½ cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius and butter and line a 8 x 8 inch square pan with parchment paper, with some of the extra paper hanging off the two opposite walls of the pan.
In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and 1 cup of sugar. Add the butter cut into chunks to the flour mixture and whisk until it resembles coarse bread crumbs.
Add the buttermilk and vanilla to the flour mixture and whisk to combine well.
Pour 2/3 of the batter into the pan. Layer the batter in pan with peach slices. Pour remaining 1/3 of the batter over peach and spread evenly to cover the peaches. Top with walnuts.
Mix remaining 1/4 cup sugar with cinnamon powder and sprinkle over the cake and bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely in pan over a wire rack.
When cold, cut into 12 squares.