Mango-Coconut Pound Cake with Mango Cream sauce, Bell Pepper-Carrot soup

First let me say how sorry I am for all the lives lost in recent Jaipur, Rajasthan bombings. My heartfelt condolences to all the victims' families.
We all did wonderful posts on Rajasthan this month, appreciating their culture and the cuisine. It is really sad that some people are so evil, they just don't care about human lives, beautiful palaces and the rich history of that state. But Indians are very resilient, I am sure they will be up again soon and survive like we always do and don't ever let the evil win.
On the homefront here, we almost got hit by a Tornado last Friday. It came rushing, missed our town by few miles and hit the next city in the North, caused lot of property damage, power outages and moved away. Fortunately, nobody was fatally injured around here. I have never been in any natural disaster of any kind so far, I was a bit concerned watching minute by minute forecast. Glad we survived that thing!
Okay, on a frivolous note, here is how I enjoyed Mother's day. We went out for lunch and Dinner, kids gave me a gift card from Blockbuster video store so I can watch more scary movies! :D
Menu today:
I made a Pound Cake on Saturday, day before Mother's day, since I was forbidden to cook at all on Sunday. We had a slice of cake with Mango cream sauce on Sunday morning for breakfast to begin the "special" day! Pound cake was delcious and moist, thought I will post this for you. Hope you like it too, give it try for any special celebratory breakfast or just for a yummy dessert!:)

Vanilla-Coconut Pound cake with Mango sauce:
The basic recipe for this Pound Cake comes from one of the Betty Crocker's Baking book. I gave this Pound cake a slight Mango twist, added lot less sugar (original recipe says to add 2 3/4 cup of sugar!) and sweetened coconut flakes, added just 2 tbsp of Mango pulp to the batter which made it moist and fragrant and topped with some more tangy, creamy Mango sauce. Enjoy!:)




My Pound Cake with Mango Cream sauce goes to Arundati of "Escapades" blog, who is guest hosting WBB#22 ie "Weekend Breakfast Blogging", an event initiated by Nandita of Saffron trail. Arundati has chosen Mangoes which is in season now for her breakfast. Here is mine for you, thanks for hosting A!:)



Pound cake with a coconut-Mango twist!


For the Pound cake:
You need:
Dry ingredients;
3 cups all purpose flour or Cake flour, 1 tsp Baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt.
Wet ingredients;
1 3/4 cups of Sugar, 1 1/4 cup Butter,softened, 1 tsp Vanilla essence, 2 tbsp sweet Mango pulp, 4 Eggs.
Lastly add;
1 cup fat-free Evaporated milk, 1 cup Sweetened coconut.
How to bake:
First;
Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray a large Bundt cake or tube pan with no-stick oil or butter and flour it. Set aside.
Then;
1. Mix dry ingredients well. In a mixer, add all the wet ingredients, beat well for 5 minutes until light in color and fluffy.
2. On low speed, add flour and milk 1/3rd at a time alternately until well mixed.
3. Scrape well, add coconut and mix well. Pour into the prepared cake pan, tap gently to release the bubbles in the cak batter.
4. Bake in the oven for 50-60 mins or until the skewer inserted in the middle comes clean. Cool in the cake pan for 10 mins and gently loosen the edges of the cake around the tube with a knife.
5. Shake the pan to loosen the bottom of the cake. Invert on the cooling rack and cool. Store in a air tight box or glass cake dome. Serve a thick slice with Mango cream sauce on top and hot Coffee!

Mango Cream Sauce:
Here is a simple but delicious Mango Cream sauce which is great to eat as it is or to top on any dessert or fruits. It's slightly tangy with added lemon juice and naturally sweet when you use Alfonso canned Mango puree you get in Indian stores, try it!:)

How to make it:
1. Take 1 cup of sweet Mango pulp or puree the Mango pulp if you are using fresh Mangoes in a blender until no solid pieces left. Take out in a bowl.
2. Whisk the pulp with 2 tbsp/more or less powdered sugar depending on the sweet or tanginess of the pulp, 1 tsp lemon juice, 3 tbsp fat-free Heavy cream,a pinch of salt until you get a smooth sauce.
3. If it's too thick, add more cream or milk to thin out to desired consistency. Pour it in a sauce boat and serve chilled.

That's it, have a luxurious and exotic breakfast on a very special day! :)

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Mr and Mrs Pepper soup!
I made a refreshing Summery soup yesterday with all the fresh ingredients, absolutely no cooking involved at all. Doesn't that sound good? All you have to do get some fresh veggies and blend them and serve with some garnish!


Bell Pepper and Carrot soup goes to Pooja from "My creative Ideas" blog for her two in one VOW-JFI event. Pooja is guest hosting JFI this month with her choice of Bell Peppers. JFI event is created by Indira of Mahanandi. Thanks for taking up both of them Pooja, enjoy!:)


Bell Peppers: Brightly colored green, red, Orange, yellow bell peppers are rich sources of some of the best nutrients available. Bell peppers are naturally sweet, excellent sources of vitamin C and vitamin A, which are very helpful when you have cold or Flu and are a natural pain killers! Here is soup which packs all the goodness of peppers, Tomatoes, Orange and Carrots with a kick of a Jalapeño!

To make the soup:
1. Wash and chop 1 Orange, 1 red and 1 yellow bell peppers, 1 large cleaned Carrot, 2 red ripe tomatoes, 1/4 of a Jalapeño, 1/4" fresh ginger, a small piece of sweet onion (optional), 1 garlic, half peeled and seeded cucumber, few mint leaves finely and add to a blender.
2. Add 1/2 cup Orange juice, 1-2 tsp sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tbsp tangy bottled hot dog relish (Optional) to the blender and blend it all until smooth.
3. Adjust the seasoning, it should sweet, tangy and little spicy. Chill in the fridge.
4. Serve in a bowl, garnished with fresh mint. Excellent for lunch on a very hot day.!:)

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Daughters of Kerala:
This book is translated from Malayalam to English by Achamma Chandersekaran, her first solo book so far. She has co-translated 3 Malayalam books to English before this along with Dr.R.E.Asher. She is also a political activist for Indo-Asian American community in US and worked for the establishment of "Mahatma Gandhi Memorial" in Washington, D.C.
I took a long time to read these 25 beautiful short stories of Kerala, originally written in Malayalam by award winning Kerala authors mainly about womenfolk of Kerala and their diverse lives lead in the span of 70 yrs, beautifully captured in words by early writers who were born in 1920s to modern day English lecturer like Asha Krishnan!
For me who is not very familiar with Kerala culture (other than their yummy food!:D), this book was a fascinating read, took me to this World of Appachan, Chechi, Kochamma, Sanjayanam, Manakkal, Ikka, Kuttan, Kutty, Thampuran, Achayan, Ovara, Muthachhan, Cheriamma, Namputhiri, Illam, Apfan, Oathuchollal, Kudummy, Kunjathal, Devaswam, Umma, Kafir, Iblis, Badarulmunir, Malaks etc. (Click on the title link above to see the book)
The extent of abuse and suppression of women in some stories shocks me and some stories have women characters with such a strong and independent streak, it reminds me of some of our own Kerala bloggers! :)
I think every Keralite should have this book in their collection. I am really impressed by one particular author called "Gracy", who writes VERY VERY short stories which are literally just one page from beginning to the end and the endings scares the pants out of ME and let me tell ya, that's not an easy task to do for a woman who LOVES scary movies like "SAW"! Hahaha!
I salute each one you "daughters of Kerala!" :)

Dishes I tried from other blogs last week:


Vegetable dal curry from Prajusha's blog.
Chicken Chalna from Kamala's blog.
Temple style Pulihora from Sagari's blog.
Paratha stuffed with spicy rice flour from Anjali's blog.
Beetroot Dosai from Indo's blog.
Oil free chicken from Sunita's blog.
Sev and Tomato Shaak from Saju's blog.
Dinner Rolls from Dhivya's blog.
Andhra chicken curry from Sri's blog.

Last but not least;

Thank you Deeba , Purnima, Swati , EC, Cham, Sukanya, Trupti for your sweetest "You make my day" award. I appreciate it! :)
I would like pass this on to:
Bee, Richa, Dhivya Vikram, Maya, Meera to mention a few! Frankly you all 100+ bloggers make my day everyday, so each one of you deserve this award. Thanks to all of you, have a great weekend!:)