Raspberry Banana Upside down cake

I woke up this morning to pretty roses on my door step, a warm hug from my 2 beautiful kids and a bunch of gifts my 5 year old made in school. She made 2 beautiful cards, a bright colored jewelry box, nicely wrapped in pink tissue paper and before I could unwrap the tissue she was jumping around saying open it mama, open it. There was a bracelet in the box that she had made, orange, purple and candy cane striped beads. She described how she made it and was as thrilled as I was. I wore the bracelet all day.




To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother's day!

My neighbor invited us over for lunch and I decided to take dessert. I had no time to shop and my pantry was running low on chocolate. My plan for making something chocolatey wouldn't be possible. So plan B - I found 2 ripe bananas and a packet of frozen raspberries in the freezer. I used the raspberries for a layer in the cake and thought upside down cake would be perfect. This is how the cake was born, with things that were screaming in the fridge and freezer to use. The cake came out beautifully. The raspberries gave a lovely tartness and the banana added a lot of flavor to the cake. I served it with a sprinkle of icing/confectioners sugar.


Ingredients:

1 stick butter(113gms)
100 gms sugar
2 eggs
150 gms self raising flour
2 over ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp milk
1tbsp sugar
1tbsp confectioners/icing sugar(optional)
120z Frozen raspberries

Method:

Preheat the oven 350F. Butter a springform cake tin. Sprinkle and coat the tin with the confectioners/icing sugar. Top it with frozen raspberries and keep aside.

Beat the butter and sugar till pale in color. Add eggs one at a time beating well. Add the mashed banana's and vanilla extract. Beat it for a few more minutes and add the flour in batches. Add one table spoon of milk and beat for a few more minutes.

Pour the cake batter on top of the raspberries. Level the batter with the spatula and bake it for 45 minutes - an hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely before turning it on a platter. Serve with confectioners/icing sugar.

Note: The cake is more like a tart. If you prefer, you could double the amount of self raising flour, sugar and butter to get more of a cake. Also, the cake is quite tart from the raspberries. You could try substituting raspberries with other berries, like blueberries, blackberries or even cranberries.

Tip: To ease up on cleaning put the springform cake tin on a cookie sheet wrapped with aluminum foil while baking. The juices from the berries does leak out.

Chocolate raspberry trifle

I was thinking of participating for RCI:Rajasthan. I made the panchameel dal, from Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. But we didn't like the taste of it as much, my husband and I thought that the recipe lacked something, I will try the dal again and also consult my Rajasthani friend for her advice to make it worth posting. She suggested to make gatte ki sabji which is a very popular dish in Rajasthan. By the time I got the recipe from her the deadline was way gone.
So I wanted to make it on time for AFAM:Raspberry. Raspberry is almost always there in our fridge or freezer. My 4 year old loves it. Since I had the main ingredient at home all I needed was an easy recipe to use the raspberries. This recipe is adapted from the latest BBC GoodFood magazine. The recipe mixes chocolate, raspberry yogurt and custard into one creamy layer. I have mixed the chocolate and yogurt into one layer and kept the custard separately. So it looks like a trifle. The only thing that you need to make in this recipe is the custard (people living in Europe don't even have to make the custard, as it is readily available in tetra paks in super markets there), rest is just mixing and assembling the dish.

Ingredients:

• 300g/10oz fresh/frozen raspberries (no need to thaw them)
• 1tbsp brandy(optional) - I didn't use
• 3 tbsp raspberry jam
• 175g/6oz dark chocolate - I used semi sweet chocolate
• 2 x 150g thick, creamy raspberry yogurt - I used light raspberry yogurt.
• 300ml vanilla custard (cook the custard according to the packet instructions)
  

Method:

Mix the raspberries with the brandy, if using, and raspberry jam, then spoon into 6 glasses.

Break the chocolate and melt it in a microwave on high for 1-2 mintues, or place it over a pan of simmering water and stir until melted.

Stir the yogurt and custard into melted chocolate, then spoon on top of berries. ( I mixed the yogurt and chocolate to make one creamy layer. Then spooned the custard over the berries, then spooned the chocolate/yogurt mixture. )

Cover and chill until ready to serve, then top with grated chocolate ( I used white chocolate) and serve.