Polka Dots Cake For The BC Fighters

To cheer the two fighters V Aunty and P Aunty. One fighting for last 8 months and other for last 2 months. Women who have the attitude to beat the Bad C, this one is for you!

This Sunday evening was planned to be a counseling session for P aunty by V aunty. I had promised to pick up V aunty from her home. So I decided to bake something to cheer them up. Something high protien and with a Wow factor.

These two women have pampered me many times. One rushing to feed me breakfast at 7 am with hot Jackfruit leaf idlis and packing special treats in her hand bag and handing them out to me in unexpected places. The other has cooked hot meals many a times for me when I have visited her on a whim. I would do anything to make them gleeful. Both have been mentioned many times on this blog.

I had seen many of the bloggers create beautiful upside down cakes

Nupur's Ginger-Pear-Saffron Cake

Sailu's Pineapple Upside down Cake 

and Saee's Sunny side up that I keep dreaming about !

OK so I fell for the upside down thing. I am a little scared of using fresh fruits when I am presenting a cake to someone lest it is not consumed when fresh. Dried Anjeer/ Figs in my pantry sounded purffecto!

I designed my cake in my mind like a true genious! It will be Polka dots when upside down. On cutting it will show the marble effect of chocolate and out will fall the richness of dryfruits...

So I went and pulled out all my dryfruits stock. The figs were submerged into the water while I did other things. The butter was kept out to be in semi molten state since last night so that I could rub it into the flour. 

Oops let me tell you what you should keep ready before we proceed coz I know you are baking with me after drooling at the pictures.

Ingredients

14 roundels of dried figs/ Anjeer

1 cup all purpose flour/ maida

1 cup of almond flour (homemade)

1/8 cup of coarse ground pista

1/4 cup Cadbury's cocoa powder

5 black date chopped fine

handful of golden raisins

50gms of Amul butter

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup milk approximately

1 inches of cinnamon bark

2-3 cloves

2 cardamoms

3/4 cup sugar 

First grind sugar along with the spices, cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms to a fine powder. Keep aside. 

Then prepare the tin. I used 5 inch hexagon. Grease with butter and dust with flour. Tap the upside down lightly over your mixing bowl to remove excess flour. Set aside.

Before starting to mix the batter. Switch on th oven and preheat it at 180 degree celcius. You will need 15 mins to mix the two batters. Meawhile the oven will be ready to take the cake in its womb.

Now take 2 mixing bowls. One for chocolate batter the other for white batter. 

First in the Chocolate batter bowl put the almond flour, coarse pista powder, chopped dates, cocoa powder, raisins. Add 1 teaspoon baking powder. Now scrape out about 10 gms of butter into it. Rub the butter into the mix. Finally add 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup above sugar n spice powder. Mix well and swiftly. To get a slighty frothy choco dryfruit mix. Keep aside.

In a different mixing bowl add the flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 3/4 cup sugar n spice powder. Rub in 40 gms of butter. This will make the cake really light and fluffy. Mix swiftly while you add the milk. You may use up 3/4 cup of milk and need a little more. Since this is flour batter you will need to make sure the consistency of the batter is foldable. That means the batter must fall in folds when dropped from slight height into the mixing bowl.

Remember we had soaked the figs in water only till your batters get ready. Remove them from water and line the up at the bottom of the pan. Now pour the white batter first. spread it evenly with a spatula. Then pour the chocolate batter over it. Swirl a knife in the batter to give it a marble effect when baked.

Now is the time for the cake to go into the oven. In about 10 mins time I just checked the cake and saw that it had already formed a crust but was jiggly inside. I inserted a knife and it came out with powdery white tip and gooey chocolate. From my experience in baking I thought it smart to cover the cake tin loosely with aluminium foil. Then it took almost 25 mins to bake till inserted knife came out clean.

After cooling it for 5 mins I turned the cake out onto a colorful tray. Let it cool and then covered with the same foil tightly and draped a nice little napkin over it and carried it over like a buttler to V aunty's home. This one went to V aunty and P aunty got one shapped like a loaf as there are more people in her home.

After delivering the cake at V aunty's and picking her up we drove to P aunty's. After the intial akward talks and seriousness we were enjoying ourselves. While I had baked the cakes Dad had made our famous Rolled and sliced Kothimbir Vadi. He had steamed the rolls which we carried over and shallow fried at P aunty's  to serve hot of the tava.

I felt happy both women felt a little lighter sharing their experiences with each other. My heart was smiling inside to see the tensions diffused for just a while.

Request to all Ladies: 

Get the Mamogram done the moment you find an unusual lump in the breast, even if it is not painful or if you find any of these symptons. Irrespective of your age. Early diagnosis will give better control over Breast Cancer. It has more chances of cure than internal cancers. Be prepared if you have to fight it than being ignorant about it because it is very common.

Request to the Men:

Remind the ladies in your life, wife, mother, sister, sister-in-law to check periodically. Educate them if they are not aware. You are the Men of today, show you are sensitive to the ladies in your life.