Orange cashew cake with chopped nuts inside and chocolate Icing

Special cake for the special one :D

On my husband's birthday I was thinking about which cake to bake. This time also didnt want to go by any recipe and wanted to try something by my own and finally we both (me and my son) decided to bake this super yummilicious cake for papa.

Ingredients required:

All purpose flour (Maida)- 1 cup
Wheat flour (Atta) -1/2 cup
Baking powder -1/4 tspn
Baking soda -1/4 tspn

Sieve the above ingredients through a narrow meshed sieve. And repeat the process twice as it helps in giving better aeration to the flour and thus making the cake softer.

Chopped nuts - 1/4 cup
Mix well the nuts with the flour. Keep it aside.

Other ingredients required are

Orange juice fresh -1 cup ( of one big orange). I have used the fresh one to get better taste
Sugar -1 & 1/2 cup powdered
Egg -3 numbers (separate the yellow and white)
Curd -1/2 cup + milk 1/2 cup (Total 1 cup)
Butter -100 gms
Cheese -50 gms
Orange food colour -less than 1/4 tspn
Orange essence - less than 1/4 tspn .

For icing :
The ingredients required are Icing sugar, butter, fresh cream and chocolate bar. Melt the chocolate bar in milk and make it thicker and can use. the quantity you can use as required.

Mix butter + cheese and powdered sugar and beat well till fluffy.  Add egg yellow and beat it again. Add curd + milk and again beat. Add the food essence and beat again. Finally add the food colour and egg white. beat again till light . fold in the sieved batter and mix till no lumps are there.

Grease the pan , dust with  flour and pour the batter and bake in a preheated oven at 200 degree for 30 minutes or till done.

Veg Kheema stuffed in snakegourd

Sounds different ? Generally kheema is minced meat of mutton or beef or chicken . But here I have given a twist for the vegetarians. Have used soya granules as kheema. It tasted good. And all soya lovers you have one more item to try with the granules.

Tasted this recipe with kheema from a friend's home and her mom had cooked it so tasty that I cudnt resist myself from trying this out of my own imaginations.

Recipe:
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soya granules -2 cups

Boil the soya in excess of water adding required amount of salt and when it is cooled squeeze of the water. Wash in cold water again and squeeze. Continue this process till the water coming out is clear and white.

snake gourd - (thin ones are better) -2-3 cut into cyndrical shapes.
Onion -3 medium
Garlic and ginger -minced to fresh paste -2 tbspn
keep 2-3 garlic pods and 1/4 inch ginger chopped extra for seasoning
shallots-5 to 6 nos
curry leaves -few, dhaniya leaves- few chopped

Make a masala of soya granules. For that heat some oil add chopped onions (2 nos) , freshly ground ginger garlic paste, few curry leaves, saute till nice aroma comes. Add the masala one by one
Turmeric power -1/2 tspn
Red chilli powder -1/2 tspn
Coriander powder-1 tspn
Gharam masala -1/4 tspn
Mix well and add the soya granules now . Mix everything together till the flavour gets into the granules.can add salt if required. Once done allow it to cool.

Fill this mix in the cylindrical shapes of snake gourd and press it hard to make a tight pack. (or else it will disperse off into the gravy).

For the gravy

Heat oil in a kadai. Crack some mustard seeds, saunf, small onions chopped, garlic pods and ginger chopped. Saute well and add curry leaves. Now add the following masala

turmeric powder-1/2 tspn
Red chilli powder -1/2 tspn
Coriander powder -3 tspn
Mix on low flame till the raw smell is gone. Now add enough water to cook the snake gourd pieces. Allow it to boil. Now add freshly ground gharam masala.
Once start boiling slowly drop in the stuffed snake gourds and cook on low flame Adjust the amount of salt required. In between turn the stuffed pieces so that the upper side also gets cooked. Cook covered. dont saute in between or else the stuffing will come outside.

All the non-veg lovers please try this with minced meat as the taste is awesome with meat. Veg lovers can try this recipe using soya granules. Serve with Rice or Roti. If can take a little effort this is really worth trying.