ROSE MILK CAKE

ROSE MILK CAKE:

If you're looking for any special recipe to satiate your palate and to surprise your brothers with some yumzie recipe and to garner compliments without fishing for it then why not try baking an eggless Rose milk cake?

Here we go:-

Baking time: 30-40 minutes

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Garnishing/Decoration: 5 minutes

FOR BATTER

Ingredients required:

Curd - 1 Cup

Baking Soda - 1/2 Tea spoon

Vegetable Oil - 1/2 Cup

Powdered/Castor Sugar - 3/4 Cup 

Rooh Afza - 1 Table spoon

Rose essence - 1/2 Tea spoon (optional either essence or Rooh Afza is needed)

Method: 

Take a big bowl. Add 1 cup full of curd and add half tea spoon of baking soda to it. Mix it well and leave it aside for 5 minutes. 

After 5 minutes, stir curd with a spoon and you can see tiny bubbles forming in your soda mixed curd. That's when we have to add 1/2 a cup of vegetable oil,  3/4th cup of super fine sugar and 1 table spoon of Rooh Afza (I've used 1/2 teaspoon of Rose essence instead of Rooh Afza). Mix all the ingredients well. Now sieve 1+1/2 cup of all purpose flour(Maida) and 1 tea spoon of baking powder in that Rooh Afza curd bowl. Mix all the ingredients well and make sure your batter gets a runny consistency. Do not overheat over overmix the batter.

Now grease your baking cake pan with oil and dust some all purpose flour over and pour batter into it. 

Here if you have an oven then preheat it for ten minutes and then slide in your baking cake pan to bake your cake at 180° for 25-30 minutes.

If you don't have an oven u can make Rose milk cake using a cooker or a kadhai by placing baking cake pan inside that vessel/utensil and put it on gas on a low flame for good 35-40 minutes as you usually do. I prefer making cakes in baati ka dabba(:p, yeah that's what we call it...the dabba(vessel) which is used to make Indian Rajasthani Baati) as it takes almost same time and is a hassle free way to bake yummy spongy evenly baked cakes.

ROOH AFZA MIXTURE FOR ROSE MILK CAKE

Ingredients required:

Milk - 1+1/2 Cup

Condensed milk - 1/2 Cup (you can make it at home too)

Cream - 1/2 Cup

Rooh Afza - 4 tablespoon

Method: 

Take a bowl, pour 1+1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup condensed milk, 1/2 cup of fresh cream and 4 table spoons of Rooh Afza(I used 1 teaspoon of rose essence instead of Rooh Afza here). Stir well to mix them all.

Method for making condensed milk at home:

Add 1 cup of milk and half cup of sugar in a pan on low flame and keep stirring it continuously for 20 minutes till you can see the texture of milk getting thicker as of condensed milk(stir continuously to avoid burning it). Once it thickens a little turn your gas off and add just a pinch of baking soda and keep stirring it for 60-90 seconds as adding baking soda gives it caramelised effect. Cool it down. This recipe will give you half cup of condensed milk.

Baked Cake:

Insert a toothpick in the middle of the cake to check if the toothpick comes out clean. If it does then your cake is perfectly baked if not bake for 5-6 more minutes depending on how underbaked it is.

Once your cake is perfectly baked and is spongy and fluffy; and once it comes to the room temperature, demould it(take it out of cake mould) on a plate and even it's surfaces using a knife.

[Two way rose milk cake hack: At this point you can cut your cake sponge into two vertical halves and avoid adding rose milk mixture on one half and directly frost it and serve it like a regular cake and serve the second half of your along with the rose milk just the way I did!]

Now, with the help of a spoon make your cake sponge soak Rooh Afza mixture (pour very little (around 1/4th of mixture) with the help of a spoon on your cake just to make it slightly moist and rich in flavour also we don't want our cake to loose it's density here so pour tiny amount of mixture over your cake) and now you can either frost it now itself or you can even refrigerate it for 30 minutes if it gets accidentally slightly over-moist and then proceed with decorating it. 

FOR FROSTING

Ingredients required:

Cream - One Cup

Powdered/Castor Sugar - 4-6 teaspoons

Nuts of your choice - as per your liking

Dried rose petals - 3-4 petals

Saffron - 8/10 strands

Method: 

Take a bowl of fresh cream. Whisk it well using a hand whisker(10-15 minutes) or an electric beater(2-4 minutes). Once you observe hard peaks forming, add two teaspoons of powdered sugar and mix it well with a whisker/beater then add 2 more spoons and mix it again and at this point you can taste it and add sugar if needed according to your taste and whip it well. (Note: Do not all sugar at once while whipping, add it in batches one after the other.)

Now spread this whipped cream on your pretty pink rosemilk cake and spread it evenly using a spatula or a slightly wider flat knife or even any clear transparent scale(life hack uk :p). Make surfaces even and once that's done, add crushed dry fruits of your choice like almond/pistachio/raisins/cashewnut/walnut/hazelnut. You can add Saffron(Kesar) and crushed dried rose petals as well. After this step, you can either refrigerate it for cooling or have it fresh as it is.

SERVING

Now, put your frosted cake on a flat plate and add leftover Rooh Afza mixture on the sides of the Rose milk cake and garnish on Roof Afza mixture with nuts, dried and crushed rose petals and saffron (Kesar).

Viola!!!! We are done and you are already winning guts and hearts of your loved ones!

Try it out and you can share with us your Rakhi's special moments and smiles that you've put on your dearest ones' face with this yummy Rose milk cake.

-----HARSHITHA JAIN

      VOGUE ROG.