Apple Pistachio Cake with Brown sugar Icing – Akshara’s First Month completion

           My sister and Co- author of this blog anuvarshini delivered a cute angel on June 25^{th, 2014}. We named her as Akshara. This post has to be posted on July 25 th , i was posting late because of my studies......... 



     Today was her naming cermony and first food feeding ( Giving Rice ) in Guruvayur.   So this will a perfect day to post the cake for her .

    
    This was the cake which I made for her first month completion. Even though little angel didn't taste the cake. We want to keep it as a memory as she will see this post in future…………..

  
    I selected this cake as the first letter of it ‘A’ and her name are same.

 I choose to use pistachio in this cake to give it a vibrant rich look. The icing was a simple butter icing with brown sugar , which gives light brown color to the icing along with the chopped pistachios it looked nice…………

Ingredients:

 All purpose flour – 2 cups

Corn flour – 2 tbs

Apple – 3

Pistachios – ½ cup

Butter – ¼ cup

Milk – ¼ cup
Vegetable Oil - 4 tbs

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Sugar ( powdered ) – 1 ½ cup

Lemon juice – 2 – 3 drops

Butterscotch Essence – 1 tsp

For Icing :

Butter – ½ cup

Brown Sugar / Nattu Sakkarai – 1 cup

Butterscotch Essence – ¼ tsp (optional)

Chopped pistachios

Method:

 Sift the flour along with the baking powder for thrice.

Grate the apples; I grated without removing the skin.

Mix the butter and sugar together until it was fluffy.

Add in the milk and mix well.
Then add the vegetable oil and mix well.

To this add the grated apple, chopped pistachios and mix once.

Add the flour in three parts and mix in the same direction.

Now , add the lemon juice and essence , mix once.

Grease the baking tray and pour the batter in till half the mould. I used round mould.

Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 30 – 40 minutes @ 200* C .

Insert a toothpick , inside the cake , if it comes out clean , the cake is baked well.

Let it cool and refrigerate before icing.

For icing mix , the butter and brown sugar together.

 I didn’t add any essence as the flavor from brown sugar was so aromatic.

 Keep the icing in the fridge for 10 minutes.

 Apply the icing on top of the cake; give a impression of uneven surface.

Sprinkle the chopped pistachios on the top.

Apple pistachios cake with brown sugar icing is ready.
My mom  cut the cake for Akshara...........