Red velvet cake

Ingredients

All-purpose flour - 2 cups
Cocoa powder - 1 tablespoon (unsweetened)
Baking soda(bi-carb soda)-1 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
Sieve all the dry ingredients at least 3 times

Wet Ingredients (at room temperature)

Unsalted butter - 1 1/2 cup (150g)
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup (powdered)
Eggs - 4nos
Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
Buttermilk - 1cup
vanilla essence - 2teaspoon
Red food colour - 2-3 teaspoons

For Frosting
Cream cheese - 1 packet(226g at room temperature)
Whipping cream - 1 pack (450ml)
Sugar powdered - 1/2 cup

Sugar syrup - 1 cup (I made sugar syrup adding strawberries to get a tangy taste)

Prepare two 8 inch cake pans with butter or nonstick oil spray.

In a bowl beat sugar and butter until creamy. Slowly add the eggs one by one to this and mix well. Now combine buttermilk, vegetable oil, essence and colour to the egg mix. You have to mix well until you get a creamy texture.

To this add dry ingredients in small qty and mix thoroughly folding it into the wet mix. If the batter is too thick you can loosen it by adding milk(room temperature)


Divide batter into equal measure among the 2 prepared pans and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, in 350 F/180 C. Let the cake cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

(Cream cheese at room temperature)

Beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth lighter in colour (about 3-4 minutes). In another bowl beat whipping cream separately until it turns fluffy. Now combine both and beat well till you get a thick creamy consistency.
Now the cake assembling and decorating part.

Transfer 1 cake onto a serving dish/plate, flat side down, trim the top off to create a flat bottom later.  Spread the strawberry sugar syrup evenly on the layer which makes the cakes juicy and flavourful.  Scoop about 1 1/2 - 2 cups of frosting onto the cake and spread evenly over the top.

Place second cake layer on top and do the same. Once done, use remaining frosting to cover the top and sides of the cake.
Crumble the trimmed cake pieces and sprinkle on top and sides. Decorate the cake according to your choice/idea.

NOTE - This is a very very soft and moist cake kinda melts-in-your mouth cake, so you need to be extra careful while assembling/frosting.

Pongala Payasam - Sweet rice pudding

Its basic ingredients are rice, jaggery and ghee. This has an unique taste as we add grated coconut, some chopped bananas, and finally for flavour cardamom powder.

Ingredients

Kerala matta rice(brown rice) or raw rice - 1 cup
Jaggery - 3 balls (grated)
Ghee - 1 cup(be generous adding ghee)
Grated coconut - 1 cup ( i used coconut flakes)
Banana - 3-4 sliced into small rounds
Cardamom pods/powder
Water to cook rice.

Soak rice , boil water in a big pot/pan, add rice. When rice is almost cooked add jaggery , mix well and cook for 5 minutes. Keep stirring and add ghee spoon after  spoon until the payasam  gets thickened. Lastly add sliced bananas, coconut and cardamom pods or powder mix well. Sweet rice pudding(Pongala payasam) is ready.

This is very similar to Chakkara Pongal/Sweet Pongal!

Banana Split Ice cream

Ingredients

Ice cream - Vanilla/chocolate/strawberry. Any ice cream of your choice(I used home made vanilla and chocolate ice creams)

Banana - as required
Some chocolate chips,chopped nuts

Strawberry jam - To prepare jam, take 1 cup chopped strawberries,  mix chopped strawberries with 2 tbsp sugar, keep it aside for half an hour. This will help strawberries to release its juice, now transfer to a pan and cook for 15-20 minutes stirring continuously until the juice is reduced and forms a thick sticky consistency.let  this cool

Melted chocolate

Take a long serving bowl, scoop ice creams in the middle, put slit bananas on either side, spoon strawberry jam/melted chocolate on top of the ice cream,decorate it with some nuts and choco  chips. Tasty banana split ice cream is ready to serve :)

Ice cream

Recipe

Milk 1 cup, condensed milk(milkmaid) 1 cup, Heavy cream 2 cups, vanilla essence 2 tspn, food color -green color and for strawberry flavour  i used nesquik. This is optional, you can prepare without adding food color. I didn't add sugar, if you need more sweetness add powdered sugar.

In a bowl put all the ingredients , except food color. Using a hand mixer beat it for 1 minute, divide the mix into two. To one bowl i added nesquik strawberry flavour, and to the other one added green food color.
Now beat them until it becomes double, atleast for 2-3 minutes. Pour this mix to air tight containers and keep in freezer for min 5 hrs.
Once set, you can serve with toppings of your choice. I added chocolate chips and some strawberry jam as topping.

This came out perfect, exactly like store bought, not at all flaky. Enjoy!