Eggless Princess Cupcakes

The birthday girl was turning one and her mom wanted to make her birthday special in every way!! So we had chosen to bake these princess cupcakes..which were eggless too!! They are frosted with whipped cream but instead of going the usual way of putting a swirl on the top of each cupcake and decorating it with sprinkles, I just decorated each cupcake using star-tip to give them a floral appearance and decorated it with M&Ms and a princess crown pick..They really looked adorable just like the birthday girl did..For the recipe of eggless cupcakes please visit the post Eggless Pound Cake 

Banana-Apple Bread

INGREDIENTS:
2 large ripe bananas
2 peeled and grated apples
1 cup sugar
1 egg
4 tbsp Crisco shortening (you can use 4 tbsp unsalted butter, taste will be slightly different)
1 1/2 tsp water
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
Sliced almonds for topping

BAKING PROCEDURE:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. In a bowl mash bananas. Beat in sugar, egg and crisco. Add flour and baking soda to the mixture and blend at medium speed just until all flour is moistened. Add apples; stir just until well mixed. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle sliced almonds evenly over batter. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean. The bread tastes warm better..

Barney Cake

This was a half-sheet strawberry cake for a 2-yr-old's  birthday party. It was a two layered cake with fresh strawberry and whipped cream filling in between. I needed about 3 packs of strawberry cake mix, 4 cups of whipped cream and around 1 lb fresh strawberries for this one. The birthday girl is a great fan of Barney so I wrapped a color printout of "barney and friends" in a clear plastic and placed it on the topping as we didn't have time for edible image printing. I frosted it with green and purple to go with the barney theme with two pink candles in mid of the cake!! 

Elmo Cake

This was my cake order for first birthday party of my friend's son who was turning one this year. The theme was elmo and so was the cake topped by elmo and cookie monster. It was a two-layered half-sheet vanilla cake filled with chocolate pudding. The white and red combination was a but obvious choice as red is the color of "elmo".  I used 4 yellow cake mix boxes for the two layers of cake and filled them with the chocolate pudding and iced the cake with whipped cream frosting. To make the cake more colorful as the one-year-old will be more interested in these things rather than eating it, I placed some balloons and colored stars and dots around the elmo and cookie monster. I had got the "sesame place" pole along with the two toys and I just inserted it with a toothpick into the cake....I was extremely happy that all the guests at the party liked the cake very much and kids loved it...

Banana-nut muffins

Start your day with these delicious banana-nut muffins for the breakfast with a cup of juice or milk...

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. chopped walnuts, almonds, raisins
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 c. mashed ripe bananas (about 2)
1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted or 1/2 c canola oil
1 egg
2 1/2 tbsp. milk

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups. Mix together flour, sugar, chopped nuts, baking soda in large bowl. Combine bananas, butter/oil, egg and milk in another bowl. Add  dry ingredients to the banana mixture mixing until just combined. Divide batter among prepared cups filling about 1/2 cup in each. Bake for 202-25 mins or toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Mango-almond Delite

INGREDIENTS:
For cake:
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup mango pulp (about 2 big mangoes)
3/4 cup veg oil
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence

For mango cream filling:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup mango pulp (about 1 medium mango)

Topping:
1 cup mango sliced in cubes
1/2 cup almonds (sliced)

DIRECTIONS:
Bake the cake in about two 9 inches pan. For preparing the cake batter, beat the eggs at medium speed till they turn pale yellow. Then add sugar and vanilla essence to this and mix it with the hand mixer. Then add the flour and baking powder and beat again. Add the oil and mango pulp and beat the batter till it is smooth and creamy. Grease the cake pans with nonstick spray and pour the batter in the pans and bake for 30-35 mins at 350 degrees F or till the toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the filling, beat the whipped cream in a glass bowl till soft peaks are formed. Then add sugar and the mango pulp and beat until stiff peaks are formed. Refrigerate until use.

ASSEMBLING THE CAKE:
Level both the cakes by trimming the domes of the cake and brushing all the cake crumbs. Keep one cake on the cake board and spread the mango cream on it. Put the other cake on top of it. Cover the whole cake with the remaining cream. Cover the sides of the cake with the sliced almonds and top of the cake with the mango cubes. If you are going to decorate the top of the cake then do that first and then fill the inside with the mango cubes.

Soft Oatmeal Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup oat bran
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg powder
1 tsp cardamom powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
4 egg whites
1/4 cup milk
1 cup raisins+chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Beat the egg whites till they are frothy. In another bowl, cream the sugar and shortening and add the eggs to it. Then add the milk and mix. Mix all the dry ingredients to this and add the raisins and walnuts. The mixture will be sticky. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Make round cookies of about 1 tbsp mixture and 1/8 inch thickness. Place it on nonstick cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Makes around 3 dozen cookies

Source of recipe is from http://www.cooks.com/