Sunday, April 27, 2008

Vanilla, Cream Cheese and Date Cake



My daughter had an end- of-term party coming up at school (I don't think we ever had such things...for that matter I don't remember going to play school, I think it was straightaway Kindergarten at 3 years) and every child was required to bring one item for the party.

Mine was to bring a snack while her friend was to bring a cake - her mother asked me whether I would bake a cake so that she didn't have to give store bought cake with all that sugar and icing. So we swapped and I came up with a delicious cake adapting this recipe from the Joy of Cooking site.

The kids enjoyed this simple fluffy cake with the childhood favourite Vanilla - the cream cheese made it that much more flavourful and soft.

I am sending this to Masterbaker's April theme - Vanilla Each month Nikki picks one ingredient and we get to bake whatever we want, then she bakes up a bunch of the entries and picks a winner - simple and fun!


Vanilla, Cream Cheese and Date Cake


Ingredients:

Refined flour (maida) - 2 cups
Butter - 1 cup
Cream Cheese - 3/4 cup (I used cream cheese spread and cut out the 1/4 tsp salt in the recipe, you can also use fresh thick hung curd)
Eggs - 3
Sugar - 1 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking soda - 1 /4 tsp
Vanilla scrapings from one pod or 3/4 tbsp vanilla essence
Pitted and chopped dates - 1 cup

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C and lightly grease a cake pan and keep aside.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. into a bowl. Soak chopped dates in 1/4 cup of warm milk and keep aside.

3 Beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar a little at a time and beat until creamy and smooth.

4. Beat in the eggs, one at time and mix well. Add vanilla bean extract or vanilla essence and beat well.

5. Fold in the flour mixture gently until just mixed, drain and add the dates and pour the cake batter into the greased pan.

6. Bake for 1 hour at 180C or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 15 -20 minutes, before removing out of the pan and cooling again.


14 comments:

Cham said...

Beautiful ring cake, should have tasted yum:)

Sagari said...

lovely cake Miri

Saw your comment on vada in my blog miri ,just try to grind batter with out adding water
(may be use 3to4 tbs ) thats it ,
if batter is thick then u can easily make hole in the middle

Anonymous said...

OOOH! This recipe looks perfect for kids (I have an 8yr old boy & 5 ys old daughter) AND it looks perfect for friend who "just" had a baby. We have a friend who is expecting to deliver ANY MINUTE & this looks like it's sweet enough to sate our sweet tooth without all the extra icing AND the cream cheese adds the calcium our bodies need after having a baby.

Thank you for sharing!

xoxox Amy

zlamushka said...

Miri, this looks delish. I would put it over my head and munch on it on my way to work :-)

Miri said...

Thanks a lot for that tip Sagari - I have tried that but will try it again!

You are most welcome Amy - Hope your friends and kids like it as much as we did! :)

Zlamushka - thats a funny picture! :)

Thanks Cham, it was yummy!

Raaga said...

you got cream cheese and a vanilla pod in Delhi?? Where... I can go get some too. Your cake looks delish!!

Miri said...

Raaga,
I got Kraft cream cheese spread in Delhi, but the vanilla pod I got from the Auroville store in Chennai on a visit in December (have been hoarding it since then!) But am sure you can get it somewhere here too...

Mansi said...

cream cheese is always a great addition to cakes as it gives them a smooth buttery texture...the cake looks very nice Miri!:)

Unknown said...

Love the shape of the cake..Nice entry..

sunita said...

Miri, the cake looks great...lucky kids :-)

Anonymous said...

Very nice cake.Nice recipe.

Miri said...

Thanks Mansi, Divya, Sunita and Shriya!

Deepa Kuber said...

Thats a beautiful cake Recipe.. loved the picture.

remya said...

love the cute cake...i had date cake before...cream cheese in it sounds delish...gud recipe