Chocolate Covered Strawberries, an easy to make sweet treat with just 2 ingredients. If you love chocolate and strawberries then you must try this to know how delicious they are !

To be honest, it's not a recipe, just a simple DIY treat. Even kids can make these treats on their own. But they are a few things that you should take care of ! So that' what i'm going to explain in this post.

Strawberries 

First thing first ! Let's talk about the strawberries. Make sure the strawberries are fresh, brightly colored and sweet.  

Make sure to wash and pat dry them well before melting the chocolate. Also don't trim the green part of the strawberries because that will be helpful to hold the strawberries while dipping in the melted chocolate. 

Chocolate

You can  make this with any type of chocolates like milk chocolate, semi-sweet or dark chocolate. I had tried this before with milk chocolate and i felt it was too sweet. So my personal favorite is dark chocolate. It nicely compliment the sweetness and the freshness of the strawberries.

In today's post, i have used the double boiler method to melt the chocolate but you can melt the chocolate in the microwave too.

Finally let's answer the FAQ while making this Chocolate Covered Strawberries

How do you get chocolate to stick to strawberries?

• Water and chocolate don't work together. So make sure that the strawberries are dry. After washing the strawberries, dry them well with the paper towel to absorb all the excess moisture
• Let the melted chocolate cool a bit so that it sticks to the strawberries well.

Now let's check out on how to make chocolate covered strawberries.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 5 mins | Serves : 4 
Recipe Category: Dessert | Recipe Cuisine: American
Chocolate Covered Strawberries,Valentine day Dessert, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, an easy to make sweet treat with just a 2 ingredients.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

Strawberries - 1 lb

Dark Chocolate - 1 bar

Procedure

First wash the strawberries and pat them dry well. Then break the chocolate into chunks and put it in the glass bowl/stainless steel bowl. 

Fill half of the sauce pan with water and bring into boil, place the chocolate bowl on the sauce pan. Stir it now and then until the chocolate melts completely. 

Remove from the heat and then start coating the strawberries with the melted chocolate. Arrange it on the parchment lined baking tray. Let it cool completely till the chocolate sets.

Delicious chocolate covered strawberries are ready to enjoy!

Related: How to make Strawberries Sorbet

Notes:

• Chocolate Covered Strawberries tastes best when they are fresh. 
• Once the chocolate are hardened, you can store them in the refrigerator and try to finish off with a day.  

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Chocolate Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting | Simple Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Cake , a delicious, soft and sponge cake with wonderful chocolate flavor. Chocolate has been one of the popular cakes for years and people still go crazy over chocolate flavor than any other flavor. 

It's one of my recent favorite cakes that i have baked so far. The cake is so spongy and moist with the right amount of sweetness. This cake is so good on its own without any frosting. Often i bake this cake at home without any frosting and have it as a snack. 

However, frostings  like chocolate or whipped cream really go well with this cake. Last week, it was ST's birthday so i made this cake with whipped cream frosting. Honestly, it was the best and it tastes so much better than store-bought cakes without any preservatives. Additionally, the little one also enjoyed the cake so much. Overall ,I was so happy with the output.  

Chocolate Cake

There are few things that i would like share for baking the best chocolate cake. 

• Make sure to use the good quality of cocoa powder. The flavor and the color of the cake totally depends on the cocoa powder. I have been using Hershey Cocoa powder for all my baking and i really like it.
• In this chocolate cake, instead of butter, we're using oil. That gives the moist texture to the cake and also the cake doesn't firm up in the refrigerator like other butter cakes.
• To make this cake batter, just whisk and bowl is enough. No need of a hand blender or stand mixer. It's such an easy batter, all you need to do is measure the ingredients, dump it and mix it. Tada, your cake batter is ready!

Whipped Cream Frosting

Whipped cream frosting is one of the easiest frosting that you can make in minutes provided that you have a hand blender/stand mixer. I simply love this frosting because of its simpleness and lightness. 

This frosting needs to be refrigerated for better taste and the chocolate cake that we're making today doesn't firm up in the refrigerator so both are just match made in heaven and compliments each other well.  

Decorating the cake 

I'm not a professional baker so honestly i'm not good at decorating the cake. What i did here was slice the cake into half using dental floss (you can check out my Gulab jamun cake where i showed how to cut the cake using floss) and then filled and covered the cake  with the whipped cream frosting. 

Next smooth out the surface of the frosting with the dinner knife and piped some frosting on the top edge of the cake. Then I shaved some chocolate and pressed that chocolate shavings on the sides of the cake and sprinkled on the center of the cake too. Finally placed some chocolate chunks on the piped frosting. Voila, Chocolate cake is ready :-)

Ok, let see how to make this chocolate cake. 

Chocolate Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 30 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Curry | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Chocolate Cake, Easy Chocolate Cake,Simple Chocolate Cake,Whipped Cream Frosting, Chocolate Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting , a delicious, soft and sponge chocolate cake layered and covered with mildly sweetened whipped cream froting.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

For the Cake

All purpose flour - 3/4 cup

Cocoa Powder - 1/3 cup

Sugar - 1 cup *

Baking Powder - 3/4 tsp

Baking Soda - 3/4 tsp

Salt - 1/4 tsp 

Milk - 1/2 cup

Warm Water - 1/2 cup

Instant Coffee Powder - 1 tsp

Oil - 1/4 cup

Egg - 1

Vanilla extract - 3/4 tsp

For Frosting

Whipping Cream - 1 & 1/2 cup 

Powdered Sugar - 2 tsp

Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

* I have used 1 cup minus 2 tbsp of sugar.

 

Procedure

First preheat your oven @ 350 F and then prepare your baking tin. Butter the pan and lined it with parchment paper at the bottom. In a large bowl, add the all purpose flour.

Next add the cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a sieve and sieve it all together into the flour. Then add the sugar into the flour.

Mix all together well and keep it aside. 

Now for the wet ingredients, crack open a egg in a bowl/measuring cup and then add the vanilla extract, mix it all together well.

Next add the milk, warm water mixed with coffee powder and the oil. 

Mix it all well together and the pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix it well. 

Immediately pour the cake batter into the baking tin and bake it in the preheated oven for 30 - 35 mins. Once the cake is out of the oven, let the cake cool completely.

For the frosting, add all the ingredients listed under frosting into a bowl and whisk it with a electric beater till it reaches soft peak.

When the cake is cooled down completely , cut the cake into half(you can check out my Gulab jamun cake where i showed how to cut the cake using floss)  and frost the cake with the whipped cream as you wish.

After frosting the whole cake with whipped cream and i used some chocolate shavings and chocolate chunks for decorating the cake as you see here. 

That's it, Delicious Chocolate Cake is ready to serve.

Related : How to make Hot milk cake 

Notes:

• As everyone says, every oven is little different so keep an eye on the cake after 30 mins to avoid the over baking and dryness. 
• This cake stays well for days at refrigerator. 
• If you split the cake batter and bake it in two tins, then the baking time would be roughly 20 mins.
• We don't like too much sweetness so i have used 1 cup minus 2 tbsp of sugar and it's perfect if you're preferring mild sweetness.
• I have used whipping cream with 30% fat content.
  
  
  
  

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Eggless Blueberry Lemon Scones | Blueberry Scones

Blueberry Lemon Scones, a buttery and melt in your mouth delicious scones with a hint of lemon flavor. 

Scones are one of my favorite baking dishes and i absolutely love the texture of the scones and also its mild sweetness. It's  perfect for mid-morning snacking as well as tea time snacks.

While blueberries are in season, a local store in our area carries blueberry scones in their baked goodies section and we like those scones so used to buy it often. Though i make scones at home very rarely, i absolutely love the warm scones. Hence i was determined to make these blueberry scones at home and was waiting for the blueberry season :-)

As it was a new recipe to me, as usually I browsed for the recipes and tried a few and finally satisfied with this recipe. I love the addition of buttermilk and lemon zest in this recipe, it gives a nice flavor and mild tangy taste to the scone which elevates the taste of the scones to a whole new level.

Blueberries 

In this recipe , i have used the fresh blueberries which are really sweet. But you can also use the frozen blueberries and make these scones at any time of the year :-)

Butter 

I have used unsalted cultured butter for great flavor. If you're using salted butter, leave the salt in the recipe and also you can use sweet butter too. 

Make sure that the butter is really cold. If your kitchen is warm or you're baking these on a hot sunny day, then cut the butter into cubes and freeze it . Then take it out only at the time of making the dough.

Making the dough

Unlike any other dough, you don't need to knead the dough for scones, just mix it all together and when it all comes together, stop mixing. 

More kneading would form the gluten in the dough which will affect the texture of the scones and make it chewy like bread. The scones should be soft yet crumbly not chewing.

Ok, now let's check out how to make blueberry scones.

Eggless Blueberry Lemon Scones

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Desserts | Recipe Cuisine: Western
Eggless Blueberry Scones,Blueberry scones, Blueberry Lemon Scones,Eggless Blueberry Lemon Scones Blueberry Scones, a buttery and melt in your mouth delicious scones with a hint of lemon flavor.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Blue berries  - 1/2 cup

Cold Butter - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1/3 cup

Sugar - 3 tbsp 

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Baking powder - 1/2 tsp

Lemon zest - 1/2 tbsp

Lemon juice  - 1tbsp

Procedure

Preheat the oven @420F.

First take the milk in a cup and add the lemon juice in it, it will slightly curdle and become a buttermilk in a 10 mins. If you have butter milk, then skip this step and use the buttermilk directly in the dough.

In an another wide bowl, take the flour and then add the small cube size butter into it. With your fingers, gently incorporate the butter into the flour.

Next add the sugar, salt, lemon zest,  baking powder and blue berries into the flour. Mix them well.

Finally add the buttermilk and gather together as a dough. Don't knead the dough.

Use the cookie cutter, cut them in to rounds and place it on the parchment lined baking tray.

Brush the top of the scone with the milk and bake the scones in the preheated oven for 15-20 mins @ 420 F or until the bottom is slightly brown.

Delicious Blueberry Scones are ready.

Related : How to make Apple Turnovers

Notes:

• If you like more sweetness, sprinkle a little bit of granulated sugar on top before baking.

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Hot Milk Cake , an easy to make pillowy soft delicious cake. This cake can be served as a tea time snack or can be used as a basic cake for any type of frosting. 

It's one of my favourite cakes to bake at home. The recipe is so simple and gives a perfect texture to the cake every SINGLE time. 

The technique of using hot milk to the cake batter is an old-fashioned method. Adding hot milk to the cake batter gives a head start to the baking before putting the batter into the oven, so it gives a huge rise and super spongy texture to the cake. 

In our home, we're not fond of frosting on the cake, so I stick to either the fruit based cakes that don't need any frosting or this hot milk cake. Just a little bit of sprinkled sugar and fresh fruits on top of this cake makes such an attractive cake for any occasion.

While baking this cake for evening snacks,  i usually use my loaf pan and it gives a beautiful risen dome at the centre. But in today's recipe, i have used the round pan and also used cake stripes around the cake to prevent the rising on the top because we used this for a cake cutting ceremony at home for little celebration.

If you're a beginner and would love to try some cake recipes at home, i highly recommend this cake to you because it's such a fool proof cake recipe.  

 

Before moving on to the recipe, let me answer some FAQ about the hot milk cake.

How hot should the milk be?

Add the milk and frozen butter to the pan and heat it. Once. the butter melts completely, then the milk is ready to add into the cake batter. At that time, the milk starts to bubble from the sides too. No need to wait for the milk to boil. 

How long does it stay well ?

It stays well for up to 5 days in the refrigerator. For more days, you can freeze them. 

Any pro tips for beginners ?

Add the vanilla essence at the end  after adding the hot milk into the batter. It helps to have great flavor in the cake.  

Now let's move to the recipe.

Hot Milk Cake | Basic Cake Recipe

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 40 mins | Serves : 6 
Recipe Category: Cake | Recipe Cuisine: American
Hot milk cake, Basic Cake recipe, Hot Milk Cake , an easy to make pillowy soft delicious cake. This cake can be served as a tea time snack or can use as basic cake for any type of frosting.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

All purpose flour - 1 cup

Sugar -1/2 cup*

Egg -  2

Oil - 1/4 cup

Salt - 1/8 tsp

Baking powder - 3/4 tsp

Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Milk - 1/2 cup

Butter - 1 tbsp

* I have used 2 tbsp less of 1/2 cup.

Procedure

Preheat the oven @ 350 F. 

Crack open the eggs in a bowl, whisk it well until it's pale yellow, then add the sugar and salt.

Whisk it until it's foamy and  then add the oil and whisk it well. 

Next add the flour and baking powder in a sieve and sieve it into egg & sugar mixture.

In the side, heat the milk and butter. Gently mix the flour with the egg mixture.

Once the butter melts completely and the milk starts to bubble at the corner, remove from the heat and add that into the cake batter and mix it well. 

Finally add the vanilla essence and give a quick mix. Butter the cake pan and  lined with parchment paper. Pour the cake batter and tap it a couple of times to remove any air bubbles.

This step is totally optional. Wet a couple of paper towels and place it on the foil paper and fold it in a way that the paper towels are completely inside the foil paper. Wrap that foil paper around the cake pan. I have learned that these stripes are help to get flat cakes or else you can use the  commercial cake stripes available in the make if you prefer flat cake top.

Put the cake pan in the oven and bake it for around 35-40 mins. Once the tooth pick inserted into the centre comes out clean, remove from the oven, place it on the cooling rack. Once it cooled down a bit, invert the pan, cake will slide off easily and then remove the parchment paper.

Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top and put on some cherries or strawberries. Delicious hot milk cake is ready to serve.

Related: How to make spinach muffin 

It's time to dig in ! Plain cake itself tastes amazing ! 

Notes:

• Make sure to add the vanilla essence at the last for great flavor.
• You can bake this cake in loaf pan also. It makes a perfect slice for tea or coffee! 
• The leftovers can stay well in refrigerator for up to 5 days.

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