Yummy Home Made Chocolate Truffle Cake

Treat yourself with a luscious chocolate truffle cake !! Its soooo yummmmm ...
I enjoyed every bit of it.. and i hope you do too :)

INGREDIENTS:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1 tbsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tbsp
Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup
Powdered sugar - 1 cup
salt - 1/2 tbsp
Butter - 1 stick
Eggs - 2 large or 3 medium
milk - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - few drops

FILLING:
Butter - 6 tbsp

Semi sweet chocolate, chopped - 4 ounce

Confectioners' sugar - 2 cups

Heavy whipping cream - 1/2 cup

GANACHE:

Semisweet chocolate - 10 ounce

Heavy whipping cream - 2/3 cup

METHOD :
You can either use an electric mixer or a hand mixer. I use a hand mixer.
Add butter to a bowl and mix nicely till creamy. Then add the Powdered sugar and mix well.
Let it rest
Meanwhile, beat the eggs separately till fluffy.
Mix the flour, baking powder and baking soda together and sieve to make sure here are no lumps.
To the butter and sugar mix, add the flour and eggs alternatively and slowly to make sure no lumps are formed.
Add cocoa powder and mix.
Once everything is mixed , add 1/2 cup milk and vanilla essence and mix well.
Let the oven preheat at 350degrees
Meanwhile, add the parchment paper to two baking trays.
Add the batter to your trays and bake for 25 to 30 mins. or , pierce the center of the cake to see if the stick comes out clean.

Let it cool for 10 mins before it remove it from the tray. Once removed, let it cool completely before adding the filling and ganache.

For filling:
In a small saucepan, melt butter and chocolate. Stir in confectioners sugar and cream until smooth.

For ganache: 

Place chocolate in a small bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream just to a boil.
Pour over chocolate; whisk until smooth.

Cool, stirring occasionally, until ganache reaches a spreading consistency.

LAYERING:

Place one cake layer on a serving plate; spread with required filling.

Top with second cake layer. Spread ganache over top and sides of cake. Decorate with reserved filling.

TIPS:

• You can also use semi sweet chocolate instead of cocoa powder. For that, in a saucepan, heat milk , butter and chocolate till its all in a flowing consistency and let it cool before you add it will the remaining cake mixture.
• The fluffier the eggs the softer the cake ..so do make sure.
• Always use butter and eggs at room temperature for any cake.
• Frosting , layering , etc to be done only when cake and filling is in room temperature or cool.

Yummy Chocolate Chip Cookies...

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 2 1/4 cups
Baking soda - 1/2 tbsp

Baking Powder - 1 tbsp
Salt - 1 tbsp
Butter, softened - 1 cup (150 grams)

Granulated sugar - 3/4 cup
Packed brown sugar - 3/4 cup
Vanilla essence- 1 tbsp
Eggs - 2
Semi Sweetened Chocolate chips / Broken Chocolate pieces - 2 cups

Chopped nuts- 1 cup(optional)

For Chocolate Chip Cookies:

• First, preheat your oven to 375 degrees F .
• Lets mix the wet ingredients first.
• To a large mixing bowl, add the flour, granulated and brown sugar, vanilla essence and eggs and beat till creamy.
• Now add the dry ingredients to the bowl - add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt - and blend till all ingredients are mixed well. Don't over mix. That will give a hard texture to your cookies. So just mix till all the ingredients are just combined together.
• Now, add the nuts and chocolate chips/ chocolate pieces and just fold the mixture. Don't blend or mix any further. Just fold the mixture using a spatula.
• To the baking tray, place a baking sheet so that the cookies don't stick to the tray, and place one scoop of cookie dough (Size off a golf ball) to baking sheet. Do not spread it flat. It will flatten in the baking process. Also while placing the rest of the cookie dough, make sure to have 2 inch space around the cookies. coz, it will expand in the baking process.
• Place all the cookies in tray, bake for 10 - 12 minutes.
• Once baked, let it cool for 5 mins.

Tips:

1. If you don't have brown sugar , just add granulated sugar instead. Plus add 2 tbsp honey for extra flavour. It tastes great !!!

Will be gone in no time ...
Enjoy your cookies ... :)

Pizza....Mama Mia

Hello Everybody. Ive been craving to bake fresh out of the oven pizza for quite some time. So today i did try to bake a Pizza for the "First Time" ...and it did turn out well. hurray .. So i wanted to put it in my cookbook so that all of you can make your own fresh pizza's at home ...:)
So lets get started..

Here's what you ll need:
To make Pizza Dough:
All Purpose Flour - 4 Cups
Luke warm water - ( as required) ~ about 110ºF ( not hot)
Instant yeast ~ about 2 1/4 tbsp
Olive oil (and more for hands) - 2 tbsp
Salt - 2 tbsp

To make Pizza Sauce:
Diced Tomato - 1 can or Whole tomatoes, pureed in a Food Processor or
Olive Oil - 2 tbsp
Garlic cloves - 4 ( minced )
Pressed salt and pepper
Italian herb mix - a few pinches
Fresh basil leaves - 1/2 cup ( chopped )

For Toppings:
You can add any kind of fruits, veggies or meat of your choice. Anything....Ive heard, in italy, people just beat an egg and add it as toppings for their pizza... Its absolutely your choice. You can add any thing you would like to eat ..:)

I added Onions, Bell Pepper, Mushroom and Pineapple for topping in the pizza that i made today.

Plus - Lots and Lots of Mozzarella Cheese... mmm

For the Dough:

• Add the yeast to 1/2 cup luke warm water and let it remain for 15 mins. By the end of 15 mins, you will see form like substance rising up to the top. Its now ready to be used and we can start working on the dough.
• Place the flour in a mixing bowl, add the salt, olive oil and the yeast and start mixing n kneeding to make a nice dough. Kneed it well for around 5 to 10 mins, till you get a nice soft and elastic ball of dough. If it is sticky, add for flour and make your dough soft.
• You can add a pinch of Italian herbs (seasoning) to get some flavor in the crust/ pizza base.
• Now let the dough remain for atleast 1 1/2 to 2 hrs in an air tight container.
• Gently turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. The dough should have raised in size and volume bcoz of the yeast. Oil your hands in order to avoid from sticking and plus the olive oil gives in a crispy crust.
• Press and kneed the dough well to release all the air bubbles formed for another 5 to 10 mins.
• Pizza Dough is all done.
• You can cut the dough into portions and use when ever you want to. So cut it into either 2 or 4 portions. Refregirate the unused piece.
• So now, flatten the dough and using your hands strech it nicely to make it a thin layer. Not too thick and not too thin. you can also use a roller to do it ..but better results are when you strech it with your hands.
• now that your base is ready, let get started with adding the sauce and toppings...

For the Sauce:

• In a Pan, Add 2 tbsp olive Oil, and once hot, add chopped garlic and fry to 10 secs
• Add diced tomatoes or puree and let it cook.
• Add Italian Seasoning ( for flavor) and the fresh Basil leaves.
• If you dont get it fresh, used bottled basil leaves.
• Let the mixture get cooked nicely till the raw smell has gone.
• Add salt and pepper
• Pizza Sauce is ready. Let it cool down before you spread it on your base. Or else, your pizza will become very coggy and watery...

Preheat the oven at 450ºF.

In the meantime, Lets get the raw pizza ready,

For the Final Finish:

• To the Pizza Base, Spread the Pizza sauce (cooled) , Add the onions first topped by a layer of mozzarella cheese in order to avoid the oinions from getting burnt. On top of the cheese layer add the rest of the topping so that they get roasted in the oven. Add shredded mozzarella cheese all over the pizza. ( Dont add toooo mch of topping, It might ruin your pizza...)
• Bake until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is spotty and melted. Keep an eye on it and remove it when you think it looks good.
• This might take anytime between 20 to 30 mins depending on the size of your pizza.

Tips:

1. Your pizza might not be round the first time... however you make it ..it's going to be edible so give it a shot.
2. To get bright red color sauce, use, Wine or Roma Tomatoes. Some people add color powder( but i dont recommend that).
3. If you d like to add non veg, first get it cooked or half cooked seperately before adding it to the pizza pan..this is just to maintain even cooking time for the pizza.
4. Use Only Olive Oil while making your pizza's, coz that gives your pizza a good flavor...

Enjoy your freshly baked home made pizza....
Godetevi la vostra pizza!!! ( means in italian Enjoy your pizza !!!) Adding a lil Italian touch while enjoying your pizza....ciao ...buongiorno!