250th recipe post : Moist Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and some Scottish Pictures.

 

Hope you all had a great Diwali time. I really liked the hype of Diwali celebrations on the social network and the blogs. For me, Diwali is associated with nothing but the Indian sweets and my feeds and updates have been overflowing with bloggers posting Diwali sweets! The amount of sweets that were being cooked by fellow bloggers did tickle my sweet tooth. But I had to succumb myself to a little cake to satiate my sweet craving. During Diwali my dad used to bring home some desi mithais and that is what I missed the most.

This is my 250^th recipe post and I would like to thank all my dedicated readers and friends for the constant support and to reach this milestone. Without you this would have been just impossible. Even though my posts come erratically, you supported me and checked on me on regular basis. Thanks to one and all for the continuous support and love. Thank you for making me feel that I have a world of friends who love me unconditionally. Thank you for everything.

Before I get on to my recipe, let me share you few photographs of few wonderful places that we’ve been to – The Oban, Isle of Mull and Isle of Iona. These are places in the North Western part of the UK, The Mighty Scotland. It is naturally very beautiful place, with stunning landscape and sceneries and lot of history to speak. 

The place is adorned with lakes, castles, mountains, fields etc. It’s just few hours from where we live, the north East. So we tend to drive to Scotland around our anniversary in April. We have covered almost all of Scotland now, visiting all important spots and I am still looking forward to going there again and again. It is just couple of hours drive from our place and a piece of heaven on earth. This time I am going to share some pictures from our last trip, Oban and couple of surrounding islands. I shall cover rest of Scotland in some post later.

We try to take off from our regular routine and travel across the country ones or twice a year. Last year we drove to Oban which is situated in the west coast of Scotland. It’s is about four and a half hours drive from Newcastle and the drive is splendid  with scenic beauty, spectacular landscapes, lakes and mountains. There is much more to discover than just the dramatic landscape for which the Scotland is known for.

Castles, towns, distilleries, islands, villages, sea safari are some of the things you would want to keep in mind when you visit Oban. There is lot to see in and around Oban and two days is too short to go through all of them. But you may choose what you want to do once you reach there. Every hotels and b&b will have many booklets and leaflets of interesting things that could be done around the area, but a detailed search on the net would save you much time. You may also go through the guides and booklets or the official Scottish tourist site for more information.

Oban is known as the ‘gateway of isles’ as the car ferries head for eight islands near Oban. Oban’s largest Ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne or Calmac do an extensive service in and around Oban. We stayed in a hotel in Corran esplanade in Oban bay overlooking the Kerrera Island which is visible directly from the Oban bay. Although kerrera being a large island, it is less populated and it is quite compared to the busy Oban. As the unofficial capital of the western Highlands Oban has plenty to occupy the visitor.

The 200 year old Oban distillery is right in the town centre. There are two cathedrals though neither is particularly old. St. Johns Cathedral in the town’s main street hosts regular music recitals. As Oban is located with shoreline and hills nearby, it lends itself to plenty of outdoor activities. Charter companies offer boat trips around nearby islands and one could also signup for a kayak outing from the bay. There are also interesting walks in and around the town.  Oban has always been a fishing village and nowadays it is dubbed seafood capital of Scotland and there are plenty of places to enjoy excellent fresh seafood. We spent our first day roaming in oban and the next day we set off to Isle of Mull and Isle of Iona, two very beautiful islands near Oban.

Isle of Mull is 40 minutes ferry crossing from Oban and is worth exploring two impressive castles nearby. Torosay is a Victorian mansion with extensive gardens and Duart castle, guarding the Sound of Mull. Mull’s western side is dotted with white beaches. You also get to see white tailed sea eagles and otters and it is a good place for a whale-watching trip. Once we got off the ferry, we drove around the Island covering not all, but most of the area. We could not cover the Northern part of the Island, Tobermory which is famous for its brightly coloured buildings. The kids television series Balamory was shot in Tobermory. We took another ferry to Isle of Iona, which is one of the smallest islands, but beautiful in all its sense.

Isle of Iona is an idyllic and enchanting island situated just a short ferry ride from Isle of Mull. It takes a bit of planning reaching Iona, as it involved a ferry ride from Oban to Isle of Mull and then a road trip to the Fionnphort where we take another ferry to Iona which takes just about 10 minutes.

Looking from the Mull’s southern corner, the tower of St. Margarates Cathedral. part of Iona Abbey dominates the skyline.  The Abbey is the main tourist attraction in Iona. Cars are not allowed in the Island and the abbey is just fifteen minutes walk from the port. 

The island is less populated with just about one hundred and twenty people. So, I guess everyone in the island would know each other! It is one of the most serene, tranquil places I have ever been to and we all left with a feeling of tranquillity. There is also a heritage centre on the island that reveals more about the historic past and culture. You can take ferries or boats to other islands nearby from there.

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Coming to the recipe, this gorgeous recipe was baked to take over to our friends place when lot of friends were meeting up. I always wanted to bake this cake, but the amount of fat and sugar that went into the cake put me to a halt. I thought I will wait for the right occasion to bake, usually when the friends get together for dinner.

The dinner that day was planned late, so the cake also was baked at the last minute. And I blast cooled the cake by leaving it at the window sill, leaving the window open! I dint have time for the cake to cool down completely, so I frosted whilst the cake was still warm. As I started taking pictures, I noticed the frosting dribbling down slowly as the frosting started melting! I had to hurry taking pictures, but I think that oozing frosting added an extra chic to the cake that was simply great.

I had been rushing through out that day as we were running late for the dinner unlike usual and it was just halfway through our journey, that I remembered I had forgotten the cake at home! Aargh! After all the rushing, chaos and stress I left the mighty cake at home. It was a total disappointment as I knew I would be nibbling on the cake all day which I did and the whole point of splitting the calories between friends failed miserably. However, the husband and son enjoyed it much. Although, they had only reasonable amount of them, the rest being all eaten up by the sweet tooth monster, me.

The cake is really soft, flavourful and the cream cheese frosting makes the cake absolutely scrumptious. This is a massive cake, so you would too want to bake it for a time when you have a big gang coming over to your place. Or else if you have a sweet tooth family, make it for them. Enjoy.

 

Moist Carrot Cake with Cream cheese Frosting

Recipe : Allrecipes

Prep: 30 mins

Cook: 1 hour

Serves: 18 

Ingredients:

4 medium eggs

300ml vegetable oil

400g, 2 cups caster sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

250g, 1 ½ cups plain flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

350g, 2 large carrots, grated very fine

125g, 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

1 tbsp grated zest of an orange

Cream Cheese Frosting:

125g butter, softened

250g  cream cheese, softened

250g  icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 ºC, 160 ºC for Fan assisted oven. Grease and flour a 23cm/9 inch baking tin.

2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, caster sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla for couple of minutes using a wire whisk or a wooden spoon

3. In another bowl, sift in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Add this to the wet mixture and fold well.

4. Stir in carrots, orange zest and fold in pecans. Pour into the prepared tin.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 45- 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

To Make the Cream cheese frosting: :

In a medium bowl, beat together butter and  icing sugar until creamy. Gradually add in cream cheese and vanilla essence and beat until the mixture is creamy. Set aside until ready to frost. Once frosted, refrigerate the cake.

Spread evenly on the cake once the cake is completely cool. This is quite a stiff, spreadable frosting.

*Mine started melting as I frosted it on slightly warm cake.

Notes:

1. While making frosting, butter should be silky soft and smooth. If not, the frosting will be grainy. Here, the butter is not soft even at room temperature, so I microwave for few seconds or until it is really soft. If at all your frosting goes lumpy from cold butter, heat it for a brief amount of time in microwave making sure  it does not melt. Mix well.

2. I also place the cream cheese in few layers of kitchen towel to drain extra moisture in the cheese to make stiff frosting

Meen Porichathu (Crispy Fish Fry) and a Tour around the Fish Quays

Fish in UK is not cheap; I am talking about the ones that we get in the monster supermarket chains. They are really pricey and who lives in UK would nod head on that. So, during my exploration I ended up on this beach in Fish Quays which I mentioned in my previous post and also stumbled upon so many fisheries which sell fresh daily fish that is very cheap. Incomparably cheap! A box of 3-3.5 kilos of fish cost just 5 bucks, that’s how cheap it can get, which otherwise, less than a kilo cost more than that.

The fisheries have loads of fresh fish caught on daily basis, contains loads of varities and  they even have fresh lobsters swimming in the aquarium! I love that place. I was told many a times that we get real cheap fish from the Fish Quays, but we never bothered to go there for a very long time until very recently.

We live quite close to the North sea, and so is blessed with lots of beautiful beaches. The one that I regularly go to is the Fish Quays for the reason it is close to my son’s school, loads of fisheries around, nice to walk and you have these series of steep stairs that I along with my friend now started climbing as part of our exercise regime; our free local gym. I love to spend time there, may it be just for a walk or just to spend some time at the beach myself or with my family.

Fish Quays is a fishing port close to the Tyne river in North Shields, Tyne and Wear, England. It has lot of history to speak. Many old 18^th century houses, courts, piers etc can be seen in and around the fish quays. During the 18^th Century when the banks started getting over crowded, buildings began to erect on the plateau, which is sixty feet above the old town otherwise called Low town. The new town built above is called High Town. The Upper and lower parts of the town are linked by a series of steep stairs. These stairs still remain. If you remember Laurel and Hardy, the Comedians, Stan Laurel lived in this High Town during 1897-1902. His statue stands in the middle to commemorate his stay there. It is beautiful, especially if you want to walk around, on a beautiful sunny day. 

This place also has a fair that is open every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 8-4. They sell many old, rustic antique goods, furniture, vintage crockery, crafts, and other bric-a-bracs.  I pick up few odd things from there every now and then that could be used as a prop for the blog. 

Today’s recipe is something that I prepared using a fish we get locally called the sea bream.  You can adapt the recipe using any fish available. It’s a simple Kerala style fish fry, but to add crispiness, I gave it a thin coating of sooji/semolina. You can also use rice powder or even plain flour instead. 

Kerala Style Crispy Fish Fry

Serves 3-4

Preparation: under 10 minutes

Cooking time: Less than 10 minutes

Ingredients:

350g, 1 large sea bream/tilapia or any other fish cleaned

3 teaspoon kashmiri chilli powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 ½ tsp lime/lemon juice

½ - ¾ tsp salt or as required

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp semolina/rice flour

1-2 twigs of curry leaves

4-5 tbsp of coconut oil

Preparations:

1. Make 6-7 shallow gashes on the cleaned and washed fish. Make a semi - thick paste of chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt, lemon juice and water. Smear it all over the fish and let it sit in the fridge for a minimum of an hour.

2. Just before frying, sprinkle the semolina or rice powder on both sides of the fish. Gently press it down. Alternatively, you can place the semolina or rice pwer and press the fish on them.

3. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan. When hot, throw in curry leaves. Immediately place the fish and cook on both sides until crispy and cooked through, about 6-7 minutes on medium heat, depending on the size of fish.

4. Drain on kitchen towel and serve hot.

Notes:

1.To get rid of the foul fish smell, wash the rub the fish all over with salt and lemon and leave it for few minutes and wash it off.

2. Given here is the simplest of fish fries. You can also add 1 teaspoon each of minced ginger and garlic along with the paste for a different flavour.

3. Using sooji or rice or even flour also prevents the fish from breaking off while frying or sticking to the pan. So if you are using any soft fish, it is always better to give it a thin coat of sooji/rice powder etc to prevent it from breaking off.

This post of mine also goes to the Kerala Kitchen Event created by Magpiesrecipes, being hosted by Jehanne of the cookingdoctor.