Battenberg Cake - No Eggs In the Cake

 I seem to have fallen into a pattern of neglecting this space and giving excuses for that. However, my husband and daughter do not agree and push me hard enough to post here once in a few months or so. They try hard to coax me to make an attempt to keep this going.
 My daughter, especially, goes that extra step to persuade me by sharing her cooking and baking. This is one such post that was 100% hers. She baked this cake a few days ago for their weekend snack and shared her photographs. They were so eye catching that I asked her to make a blog to be put up here.
 She said that when they moved to the new city and she was still getting her home in some order, she wanted to do something enough to break the boredom. While she was looking through recipes to bake, the Battenberg cake caught her fancy. Since they both like chocolate and the flavour of coffee, she alternated for the traditional bright colour layer with the brown checkers.
 Known by many names, like church or chapel window cake, chequerboard cake and domino cake, the Battenberg cake is said to have been named in honour of the marriage of Princess Victoria, grand daughter of Queen Victoria to prince Louis of Battenberg in 1884. However, there are some early examples of this that go by a variety of names. The Neapolitan roll, a similar cake contains more squares than four.
 The American version of the battenberg cake is the checkerboard cake that gets the name because while sliced it resembles the board of the game. a typical one alternates vanilla sponge and a chocolate cake and is covered with rich chocolate buttercream icing.
 My daughter made the cake as well as the marzipan without eggs. For the cake, she followed this recipe posted here sometime ago. she used the recipe for one cake but divided it in two half cakes to make the layers. She had used parchment to separate the cake batters and baked them in one cake tin. She said she was not able to take pictures of the process.
I found Traditional Battenberg in Mandi Mortimer's Blog very descriptive, with pictures of how to bake, layer and roll in the marzipan, the post is very helpful.

Battenberg Cake - No Eggs Recipe

The following is my daughter's mail that I have copied verbatim

This recipe is a twist on the traditional Battenberg cake, which is usually made with an almond white cake, and the pairing sponge is a pink one made with a couple of drops of red food color in the white cake batter. I didn't want to be using artificial food coloring, hence the dark chocolate cake. 

You can use any cake recipe you'd like - as long as you can get the size of the cakes right.

Ingredients: 

For the cakes:

All purpose flour - 200 grams.

Cocoa powder - 2 tablespoons. heaped

Sweetened condensed milk - 1 tin (13.6 oz)

Butter - 100 grams

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Baking soda - 1 teaspoon

Aerated soda - 150 ml (reserve an extra splash to slacken the chocolate batter if needed)

Almond extract - 1/2 teaspoon

For the marzipan:

Almond flour/meal - 2 cups

Granulated sugar - 1 cup

Icing sugar - 1 cup 

Splash of milk (approx. 1/8 cup) to bind

To assemble:

A jam of your preferred flavor 

Method: 

- To start, make the marzipan. Sift into a big bowl, the almond flour and icing sugar, to get rid of lumps. 

- Add the granulated sugar and mix well 

- Add the milk and knead till the dough comes together

(The marzipan may be quite sticky - if so, add a little more almond flour as you knead) 

- Store in an airtight container in the fridge until you are ready to use

Making the cakes: 

- Preheat the oven to 350F and grease an 8in square tin. Fold a long piece of parchment paper in half along its width, and form a pleat the same height as your tin, to partition your square tin into two equal rectangles. You will be able to bake both cakes side by side.

- In a big mixing bowl, beat together the condensed milk and the butter. 

- Add the almond extract 

- Sift together the flour, baking powder and the baking soda 

- Add the flour mixture and soda alternatively to the beaten butter and condensed milk, beating well after each addition 

- Separate the mixture into two equal parts - use a weighing scale to do this accurately, so that your cakes are even when baked 

- Fill one half of your prepared tin with the white cake mix 

- To the remaining half, fold in the cocoa powder. If your mixture feels a bit stiff, add a little splash of the remaining soda to slacken (you could also add a tbsp. or two of espresso instead, if you'd like - dissolve instant coffee in hot water and add it once it is cool)

- Fill the second half of your tin with the chocolate mixture 

- Bake the cakes for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean 

- Cool the cake slightly in the tin, and transfer on to a wire rack to cool completely 

To assemble the Battenberg:

- Trim the cakes, and stack them one on top of the other. 

- Using a serrated knife, slice the cakes along their lengths into batons. Depending on the size of your tin, each cake can be sliced into 2 or 3 pieces 

- Line up the batons, alternating the colors to form a checkerboard, and stick them together with a slathering of the jam 

- To roll out the marzipan, sprinkle your work surface generously with icing sugar, and roll into an approximate rectangle. It needs to be wide enough to cover the length of the cake, and long enough to wrap completely around. 

- To ensure the outside of the marzipan is clean and free of icing sugar, once rolled, I flipped it over so the sugar dusted side is on the inside of the cake 

- Place the cake in the center, and slather on more jam, to help the marzipan to stick 

- Bring the marzipan up from both ends, to meet at the top of the cake, and join the ends. 

- Trim off any overhangs, and flip the cake so that the seam is at the bottom. 

- And you have a beautiful checkered cake with a mildly sweet marzipan icing.

- The cake is best stored in the fridge, and will keep well for about a week in an airtight container.

Enjoy the cake with your favourite cup of tea.

Barmbrack - Irish Halloween Fruit Bread - We Knead to bake -32

Barmbrack or Báirín Breac which means Speckled Bread, is an Irish fruit added bread. Interestingly the candied, dry fruits are soaked in hot tea. this imparts the flavour to the bread. This is October, when people celebrate Halloween, this bread was chosen by Aparna, so we, the members of the We Knead to Bake group can try to bake in our kitchens.

The raisins in the bread give it the speckled look and “báirín”is for loaf in Irish and “breac” means speckled. It is shaped either as loaf or roll bun, cut in thick slices and eaten with rather a generous lather of butter.

Aparna shares the following information:

The origin of Halloween goes back to the Celtic festival of "Samhain" which is derived from Old Irish and supposedly roughly translates to "Summer's End." The Barmbrack is very much a part of a traditional Irish Halloween custom that involved baking various objects or “fortunes” into the fruit bread. When the bread was cut and served, if you found one of the objects in your portion then that would tell your fortune.

There are yeasted versions of this recipe as well those that use baking powder to leaven it.  We are baking the yeasted barmbrack this month. The given recipe will make two loaves, i had to halve that to bake just one for the two of us.

Barmbrack (Báirín Breac) – Irish Halloween Fruit Bread/ Cake

Makes 2 loaves 8"X5"
Ingredients:

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup sultanas

1/8 chopped dried apricots

1/8 cup dried cranberries

1&1/2 cup hot, strong black tea to soak the above fruits

3&1/2 - 4 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons instant yeast

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon all spice

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspon salt

30 grams unsalted butter softened, at room temperature

1 lightly beaten egg (I topped the liquid to substitute)

1/2 to 3/4 cup warm milk for making 1 cup of milk+tea (drained after soaking process is complete)

(The milk should be warm enough that the tea is warm to help the yeast to proof)

1 tablespoon caster sugar mixed in 1 tablespoon hot water for the glaze.

Method:

Place the dried fruits in a bowl. 

Make strong black tea and pout on the fruits while hot.

Let them stay soaked overnight or if that is not possible, for a minimum of 3 to 4 hours.

Drain the liquid tea after the fruits have swollen. Reserve the drained liquid.

kneading the dough can be done either by hand or by machine. 

Place the flour,instant yeast,sugar, spices, and salt in a large bowl, or in that of the machine.

Whisk them to mix well.

Add the egg if you are using and the butter. Mix them well.

Now pour the reserved liquid into a 1 cup measure, top it with hot milk to make 1 cup tea. Let this be just as warm to proof the yeast in the flour mix. 

I added extra milk to this to substitute for the egg (it could have done without also, this made the dough a bit loose that needed more kneading and used up all the given measure of flour).

Knead to a dough that is smooth and elastic and is just about sticky to touch.
Turn the dough on to a counter, make a rough rectangle and spread the swollen fruits over the surface.

Fold the dough in half once and fold that again in half. Knead gently to incorporate the fruits evenly.

Roll the dough in a ball, place in a lightly oiled bowl, turning it to coat all over with oil.

Cover and keep it away to double in volume for 1&1/2 to 2 hours.

Gently knead the risen dough, divide in two portions. Shape them to fit in two 8"X5" loaf tin, or in rounded buns.
Cover and allow them to rise for another 45 minutes. They would puff up and rise slightly.
Bake them in a pre-heated 180 degrees C/350 degrees F oven for 35 - 45 minutes.
If you are giving it the sugar glaze, prepare the glace by mixing sugar and warm water. Just befor five minutes to complete baking time, take the bread out, give it the glaze and put it back in the oven to complete baking.
The tops should be golden brown and the bread should sound hollow when tapped.

Cool them on wire racks.
Cut thick slices and serve with butter.
Aparna's post here has links to posts by other members. Do check them out too.

We Knead to Bake 25 - Black Forest Buns

Through the last year and the year the year before that, I have been baking along with the We Knead to Bake bread baking group. But my attention to the baking along suffers long intervals. Just as I am catching up with other members who have baked almost all the breads, I have a set back and I race again to catch up. This time I am four behind, having taken a break since November. I had intended to bake all the four of those and post in the order of the group, which again became a task that I did not adhere to. This month's bread caught my husband's attention when Aparna posted it and he printed it out for me. He fancied the black forest cake crumble in the buns and insisted that i try it out soonest, other breads could wait. Thus, here i am posting the bread for February 2015.
Aparna wanted to have this recipe for this month in line with the Valentine's Day. I have no idea how this day is different from other days as love can be shared and expressed any day. However, it was a good idea to bake a special kind of bread, for the other half.
I kept reading the recipe and putting it off for another day. with the Cricket World Cup matches starting, I was sure I may never get around to doing anything constructive over these two months. However, team India gave us a reason to celebrate defeating their arch rivals Pakistan in the opening match. It was a good start having not won a match for over few months. While we can enjoy great friendship with our neighbours, Pakistan, when it comes to cricket, we are rivals and fans tend to treat this rivalry very seriously. Thus, it is a joy to watch your team beat their opponents.I thought it would be good to bake a cake,celebrating the victory and a cake that will go into the buns that my husband was looking forward to. I baked the eggless cake adding cocoa to the batter and baked the chocolate sponge cake.The left overs of this cake was crumbled and added to the buns.
I hope to bake the three other breads soon too and shall be posting even though they do not appear in the order of baking as in the group. bear with me if there be too many breads following one another.
Black forest buns use chocolate cake and cherry compote. The cherry compote could be flavoured with a little amount of kirsch - the cherry brandy if you like them for flavour.
While egg adds to the texture to the dough and hence buns, I did not find them different even if I omitted the egg. I had cherry jam on hand, but you could always opt for the strawberry jam.
The kneading, rolling out the dough and the shaping are all similar to the cinnamon rolls. Adding toasted and chopped nuts or mini chocolate chips is also an option.

Black Forest Buns

Makes 12 buns

Ingredients:
For the Dough:
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
50 grams butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg at room temperature (I have substituted the egg with 1/4 cup more water)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
3 to 31/4 cup all purpose flour

For the filling:
3/4 cup cherry compote/ jam or strawberry jam
21/2 to 3 cups crumbled chocolate sponge cake

For Drizzling:
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate (not used in my buns)

Method:
Prepare the chocolate cake adding 20 grams of cocoa powder to this recipe posted earlier in this blog.
You may make any chocolate sponge cake recipe with or omitting eggs.

The dough:
Pour milk and water in a pan and heat it until hot but not boiling. Take off the heat and drop in the butter. Stir and melt the butter in this hot liquid. Add the sugar and dissolve it. Allow the mixture to become lukewarm. Hot liquid will kill the yeast and also curdle the egg if using one.
Transfer the liquid to the kneading bowl. Add the yeast and mix it in. If you are adding egg, add it to the mixture now and whisk together.I added some extra water to the mixture at this point.
Add one cup of the flour to the above and mix. Then add the salt and the rest of the flour and knead well to obtain a soft, elastic dough that is not sticky. Add flour to adjust the consistency of the dough, but do not add too much.
When done, roll the dough and place it a lightly oil coated bowl, turning it in the oil to thinly coat over the dough. cover loosely and keep aside allowing it to double in volume. This may take about an hour to an hour and a half.
Meanwhile crumble the cake and keep the jam ready.

Shaping the buns:
Remove the risen dough and transfer to a flat working surface.
Roll the dough into a rectangle 18"by 12".
Spread the jam over the surface leaving just about 1/2 an inch towards the edges.
Sprinkle the crumbled cake on the jam.

Roll the dough as snugly as possible away from you along the length of the rectangle. This will be like the Swiss roll with the jam, cake and dough contained within.
Pinch to seal well, if needed dampen the edge to ensure that it seals.
Using a sharp knife or the dough scraper into 1&1/2 inch rolls.
Arrange these rolls on paper moulds or making collars around them in a pan, leaving just enough space. If they are too spaced out, the dough might rise in the wider angle while we need it to rise in height.
Make sure that the roll has been done as tightly as possible because these buns swell quite a bit
Cover and leave aside for an hour until almost double.

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Bake the buns for about 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool them on wire racks.
if you choose to drizzle the chocolate, do it after the buns are completely cooled.
Like every other bread, these are best enjoyed fresh. However, keeping them for an extra day does not alter the taste and texture.
I have halved the above recipe to make six buns, though I had one extra bun as I may have cut the rolls smaller. I baked them in a 10" round cake tin.They swelled enough to fill the tin. placing the collars helps as otherwise they tend to stick to each other on the sides, making them pull-apart buns.

For more of these buns please visit Aparna's post and find at the bottom links to other members' buns.

Eggless Chocolaty Chocolate Cake

It was my son-in-law's birthday few days ago. My daughter had been planning to bake his cake for him.She looked up different recipes, on the internet, in books and kept talking about that whenever we spoke to her. She wanted to be confident about baking the cake while she also wanted it to be a decorated one. I was of no help and only pointed to more blogs that sported nice looking cakes. I bake cake once in a blue moon and even those are nothing to boast about.
The one cake we are both very confident about showing as a decent one is this eggless cake with condensed milk. Then finally, she decided that she would use this recipe as her basic cake recipe, and work small alterations and bake the cake. Again, I could only, keep my fingers crossed that the cake will not fail. My fears were unwarranted; she baked it fine and did her glazing too pretty good. She was very excited with her cake that though she was aware of the time difference, she kept posting the pictures for us to see through the telephone. The next day, when we called to wish for the birthday, she promised to take pictures and send them to me with the recipe, which she told, I might want to blog. She did so promptly and I have been otherwise caught up in the festivities of Navarathri that I could not devote time to write about it. I would let it until too late, if I did not push myself to write that now.
It is her interest to try new things that is impressive. Her cooking experiments are well received and she sounds very happy that she can put good food on the table even when they have guests. I am thankful for all the blogs that she takes help from.
I am sharing here the mail that my daughter sent to me and the pictures are hers.

Eggless Chocolaty Chocolate Cake
Basic recipe can be read here:

Eggless chocolate cake  

 Mukund’s Birthday cake baked by Niki

Here's the cake! It's the same recipe as our eggless cake with a few additions. I'm typing it out here, if you want to blog it.

Makes one 9" round cake

Ingredients:

All purpose flour - 200 grams

Unsweetened cocoa - 50 grams

Baking powder - 1 teaspoon

Baking soda - 1 teaspoon

Soda  pop - 200 millelitres

Butter - 100 grams

Condensed milk - 1 tin (approx. 14 oz)

Vanilla essence - 2 teaspoons

Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda - set aside

In a big mixing bowl, add butter, vanilla essence and condensed milk, and beat till well mixed.

Add to this mixture, soda pop and sifted dry mixture alternatively, beating well after each addition.

Pour into a greased 9" round baking tin and bake for about 45 - 50 minutes (till skewer comes out clean)

For the glaze: (this is a Martha Stewart recipe)

4 oz of semi dark chocolate, chopped/broken to shards) - I just used Dairy Milk Royal Dark chocolate

3 tbsp butter cut into small pieces

1 tbsp whole milk

2 tsp honey (instead of the originally given light corn syrup)

Put chocolate and butter in a bowl and heat over a pan of simmering water, mixing gently until it is melted.

Once melted, add milk and honey and mix well

Use immediately, to glaze the completely cooled cake.

Decorate with maraschino cherries.

Enjoy the extra chocolaty chocolate cake with your loved ones.