A few quirky things signify a new year to me, foremost of them being writing a different date. It used to be really relevant during school, when we would put the date on the top left corner of the page before starting a homework. It also meant another birthday to look forward to. New year also meant new calendar. Which meant i could cut out the pictures from the old one.
In my mind a year if pictorially drawn out, with January on the top and December at the bottom. It like an excel format with all the years being different columns. May be it is not just me and everybody thinks that way..but since I never thought of asking to others how their mental view of year is..i don’t know if I am different. New Year eves were usually spent watching the ‘variety’ entertainment on Doordarshan. They were good and brought the family together. But slowly that dwindled away with the satellite channels coming in. One thing though stayed constant through all this. Food :-). When at home we always had a takeaway Butter Chicken and Gulab jamuns. Still do whenever we spend New Year at home.
Though it was not new year eve, I felt like cooking new things. The cake came out of the need to clear off the fridge off the once shiny apples.
Apple cinnamon Cake
2 medium sized apple peeled and chopped up
2 tsp of cinnamon powder
2 tbsp sugar
1 ½ cup self raising flour
1 ½ cup castor sugar( you can mix Movado sugar as well to give the dark colour)
2 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp of cinnamon powder
1 ½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
Put the apple pieces with cinnamon and sugar in the microwave for 2 mins.
Sieve and mix the flour with sugar. Add the salt. After mixing this in thoroughly add the vegetable oil. Add one egg at a time. Keep folding in the mixture. No need to separate the egg whites and yolk. Add the vanilla essence and the baking powder.
In the end mix the apple pieces into it. Be sure to drain off the excess water that comes out after heating up the pieces.
Heat the oven at gas mark 6 for 15 mins (I generally start the oven when I start mixing the ingredients. But time-wise may be 15-20 mins)
Line a baking tray with grease (I prefer using a baking parchment) and pour the mixture and set it into the oven for about 30-40 mins.
It should not take more than the time indicated above to bake the cake. To be sure however Just poke in the middle with a skewer. If it comes out clean, you are a winner. If not, have some patience :-)
Once done, dust it with castor sugar to make it look inviting.
P.S- Making cake is a matter of practice. Only trick I have learnt is, you need to oven to be quite warm before you put the cake in. That is what gives it a desirable crust.
