Boozy rum and raisin cake

Yesterday was one of the happiest days of my life - I discovered Modern Bazaar on Arjun Marg :) I'm ecstatic - its covers everything from chocolate to cheese! I mean, I'm literally dancing in my chair! I've been longing to go to Flanders Dairy on Lodhi Road - but its just SO far away from here (or so it seems). Until I discovered Modern Bazaar - they keep a decent stock of Flanders cheese - I picked up some yummy smoked scamorza (which made a delicious Lebanese pizza). Yes, it is also a grocery store - it has all the regular khana peena stuff - was pleasantly surprised to find zatar and sumac as well. It is literally almost all that I was missing about Mumbai - except dear Arife, ofcourse.

This was followed by a trip to Le Marche - heaven knows why - but I think we ended up going there as part of the loitering in MGF Mall program. Le Marche has a patisserie/bakery section called Sugar & Spice. The stuff looks quite neat - doesn't taste all that great. The husband, always on an impulse purchase spree, was found caught staring at a rum and raisin pastry. No way was I going to let him buy it for.. 75 bucks a piece! I had to make it had home - making a mental note to avoid so much frosting - wanting to keep it simple. Having a basic sketch in mind, googling the recipe was a must - though surprisingly not too many turned up. Broadly, followed one I found on Allrecipes but here goes. It turned out quite lovely moist and boozy - a few hours in the fridge made it even better - dense rich rum chocolate cake.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup dark rum
• 2/3 cup black raisins soaked for a few hours in rum (amount of raisins can be increased)
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 Egg at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 2/3 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/3 cup cocoa Powder

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C degrees. Prepare a 9 inch round baking tin.
• Boil one cup water and transfer into a mixing bowl.
• Add soaked raisins followed by melt butter and beaten egg and sugar.
• Sift flour, cocoa and soda.
• Add to wet mixture taking care not to overdo the mixing
• Bake for 35-40 mins - making sure the cake passes the clean toothpick test.

The cake looked rather plain was toying on idea of a rum ganache frosting or a simple glaze icing. As you can see from the pics, the cake had been cut and by popular demand was left as is. Such a simple recipe - what I would do differently next time would be up the quantity of fruit. I did contemplate on adding spices - then thought it would remind one, too much, of a Christmas cake! But will try it anyways.

Ok, I need to make a trip to Modern Bazaar, I'm totally in love with the place, for now!

Broken hearted

Pineapple season is supposedly from July to September. In Mumbai however I've seen it available almost through out the year. We've suddenly rediscovered it yumminess and have been buying it almost everyday. I love the way the fruit vendors deftly peel and chop fruit, resulting in packet full of starry discs. Did you know pineapple is a good source of vitamin A and B and fairly rich in vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium and iron?

Of late there's been a lot of chocolate baking at home, be it cookies, brownies, cupcakes - ALL chocolate! We love chocolate, but at the same time change was most welcome.

Another of Nigella Lawson's recipes. The only ingredient I omitted was candied cherries. Add if you have access to them, will definitely add colour to the cake.

Pineapple upside down cake

Ingredients
2 tablespoons sugar
6 slices pineapple (fresh or from the can - I used fresh, but ofcourse!)
3 tablespoons pineapple juice (Tropicana)
100g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon soda bicarbonate
100g soft butter
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
butter for greasing

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Butter a tin

2. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of sugar on top of the buttered base, and then arrange the pineapple slices to fill up the base
3. Mix flour, baking powder, soda bicarb, butter, caster sugar and eggs

4. Pour in the 3 tablespoons of pineapple juice to thin it a little
5. Pour this mixture carefully over the pineapple; it will only just cover it, so spread it out gently
6. Bake for 30 minutes, then ease a knife around the edge of the tin, place a plate on top and, with move, turn it upside-down

It turned out just lovely, light and fluffy, super moist, with a subtle flavour of the pineapple, with a juicy slice of pineapple to top it off. It looked so so tempting, a piece was cut off even before I could take a picture, and as I write this blog most of it has been eaten by the husband and just the husband alone!