Strawberry Gateau | A double celebration

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I know that I am late in posting the kid's monthly bake. But the week has been pretty hectic and emotional too. Baby munchkins turned another month older which means that he is running 11 now, which means that his head needs to be tonsured as per our family custom. Its a big emotional step for us as this ritual of the first tonsure is celebrated in the family and held close to the heart. The custom as laid by the elders said that the baby's head needs to be tonsured in his 11th month else the ritual needs to be postponed for 3 years. And so we decided to go for the first tonsure this week.

The weekend was spent on shopping and so the monthly bake had to be postponed. Infact I even thought of not baking it. But I just couldn't give it up that easily and so I set to bake as early as Sunday morning juggling between whipping up the breakfast, the cake and keeping an eye on the kid. I mixed the dry ingredients and whisked together the wet. Just as I was set to pre-heat the oven, I gazed at the clock... 45 mins to go to the 2-hours power shutdown.

Damn it... but thank god that I didn't mix the dry and the wet. So I put them aside and went out for another round of shopping. When I was back, I was totally exhausted and nothing could make me pull myself to bake the cake. It was only after dinner that the mood set in and so putting the kid to sleep, I set about to work. Having the whole kitchen to myself with no-one to disturb me gave me happy feet and I just danced about, happily doing one thing that I love in the whole world ~ 'bake'.

This cake is for his 11th month and for the first big celebration of my man kid.

The cake recipe, I adapted from Joy Of Baking with my own changes. I chose this cake because it does not use softened butter 'stead uses melted butter and is egg-free. So no need to fuss over bringing everything to room temperature and comes in handy on days when you missed taking your tub of butter and egg out from the fridge. Also the original recipe suggests this to be done in the same cake pan that you are gonna bake the cake ~ in short 'a no-bowl cake recipe'. How cool is that!!! But I was totally not into that concept (what if the cake stuck to the pan) and I didn't want to ruin my cake as I was not into baking another cake. And so I grabbed two bowls but you could try her way too and if you do, do tell me how it turned out.

P.S: I know that the cake layers are uneven. You know that I am clumsy and you also know that I suck at icing.
P.S.S: I am hoping to improve sometime in the near future, until then this is all I have got ;)

Recipe for cake-here ~*What U Need*~ For the chocolate cake: All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups Brown sugar - 1/2 cup Egg - 1 Granulated white sugar - 1/2 cup Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup Baking powder - 1 tsp Baking soda - 3/4 tsp Butter - 1/3 cup, melted Warm water - 1 cup Vinegar/lemon juice - 1 tbsp Vanilla extract - 1 tsp For the Strawberry preserve: Strawberry -1 cup, chopped Sugar - 1/4 cup Water - 1/4 cup For the whipped cream: Cream - 1 cup Icing sugar - 1/4 cup

How I Made it:
Preheat oven to 175 C. Grease desired cake pan. Whisk flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda. Mix egg, warm water, butter, vinegar and vanilla extract. Add this to the flour mixture and mix well with a whisk.

Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 mins. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

For the strawberry preserve, toss the strawberries with 2 tbsp sugar and set aside for 30mins. The berries will start shedding water. Add the strawberries, remaining sugar and 2 tbsp water to a saucepan and cook till soft and done. It should come to a jam like consistency. Allow to cool.

Whip the cream with the sugar to get stiff peaks, cool for 15 mins. Slice the cake into two. Spread a dollop of strawberry preserve and even out. Top with the whipped cream and smoothen out. Sandwich with the other cake half. Coat with remaining cream and decorate as desired with slice strawberries.

Slice and serve!!!

** My Notes:
** I used half brown sugar and half normal sugar but you could go with white sugar only. Also I gave it a whiz in the blender to powder it.
** The original recipe is eggless but I used an egg as I had actually taken one to bring it to room temperature and I didn't want to return it back to the fridge. You could make this eggless too.
** I used vinegar.
** I was out of whipped cream and so I made do with the crumb coat.
** You could make this cake with a plain sponge too.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,

Signs off!!!

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