Cauldron Cakes for Eggless Baking

WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

My daughters are Harry Potter Crazy! There is no word for it.

So I was not too surprised when my elder daughter suggested a HP themed party for her younger sister who was to be 11 this year. In preparation she had surfed the net for all the dishes mentioned in the books. (this was a surprise to the b’day gal boy was she bugged because we did “khusr phusr” without her!!

So I had the recipes for treacle tart, pumpkin juice, stew and this Cauldron Cake. The highlight!!

Around the same time Gayatri asked us to suggest recipes for egg less baking in a crazy moment I suggested this Cauldron Cake. I need to mention here I did not expect her to choose this recipe I was insecure of making this recipe with eggs and egg less?

As you know eggless cakes are very delicate. Handling them needs you to be deft. To exemplify I had 24 cup cakes or muffins and still I got only 2 finalists the rest were all runners up.

Did I have complaints about the cake? No sir not a pip from anyone! 

Thanks Gayatri if it had not been for this challenge I would have ordered the cake from the bakery. Of course these were not on the menu for the party! (I made another cake with eggs for that.)

Almond Meal & Banana Muffins~ Eggless Baking

I have in an effort to get rid of my lethargy joined new groups where I will be challenged to push my limits and try new recipes.

One of them happens to be Eggless baking by Gayatri.   This is my first time here and I am already behind schedule. Sorry Gayatri!  Will try to toe the line next time... mind you will try... : D! 

We are to try out banana muffins this time. There are 3 issues in my place one the kids should not know there are bananas in the muffins two there has to be chocolate in it and three has to be healthy read no maida or all purpose flour in it.

Well in an effort to experiment I surfed the web and found a delicious recipe here. To be honest I have not checked out the whole fare here but that I plan to rectify shortly.

Beet Root Cake.

That I am known my family as someone who experiments with food is not new.

 In fact hubby’s aunt once commented that I cannot eat the same amti, bhaji, poli and bhat everyday and I have taught the same to my family. How do you expect variety in food every day?


 At that moment I felt very bad and tried to confirm to the norm but now I realize there are so many ways of making the veggie in question that I cannot eat the same thing everyday also I am not the only one who wants variety she should look at my friends here.

So we do have  problem veggies in our house one of them  is beet root. I just cannot get them to eat it! I have waxed eloquently about the nutrients in beets, the lovely colour that it has etc. but all is like pouring water over the ducks back!!

Yorkshire Parkin(?)/Cake

Why the question mark after the Parkin you may ask?

 Well I did not know what Parkin is till this moment and what I have baked is definitely not parkin.  Parkins are North English form of ginger bread. I left out the most important ingredient ginger not because I don’t have it my people do not like ginger much. So it is more of a cake than a parkin.

The whole story began When Susan of a The Well-Seasoned Cook put up this beautiful picture of Yorkshire Parkin I flipped.

 I had to make it!

Egg less Apple sauce Chocolate Cake

What is left of the cake

There were 2 things that came into play when I baked this cake.

When my friend Vidya told me there was a sponge cake competition in the local mall.  I was eager to join it for I would meet a lot of other better bakers.

There were apples that were about to say bye bye to this world if not attended too. So I made apple sauce from here.

 The problem was I did not have the Cameo apples as needed and I had just discovered that the apples lying around are gala apples. But I made the sauce anyway using the apples I had and the sauce was delicious. 

The yield was 1 ½ cup.

The cake just out of the oven the night before

Black & White Wednesday & Molten Lava Cake ~A Blog Hop #7

F or Blog Hop Wednesday I am paired with Vidhya of Sugar ‘N Spice.

As I hopped around my daughter was next to me and that was the end for almost immediately I landed on  her cake Molten Lava Cake which my daughter calls as Choco Lava Cake and insists on visiting Dominoes Pizza for just that.

I am sorry Vidhya but my hop was a bit too short lived for my liking she was adamant that I see no more recipes worried that I may change my mind.

Chilli Corn Wedges~~Blog Hop 3

 For this week’s Blog Hop initiated by Radhika  of Tickling Palates I was to visit Monika of Sin-A-Mon.

 The place is wonderful to say the least. Lovely recipes and pictures! As I was going through her blog I came across this recipe Chilli Corn Muffins!!

Honestly they are Chilli Corn Muffins to a person who associated muffins with sweets this was a full stop, my choice for today’s BlogHop,all the other delicious recipes that I have bookmarked will be tried later.

Here is the recipe that I have used.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup corn flour

½ cup Maida

3 eggs

¼ cup corn kernels

1 onion, chopped

2 green chillies (could have used more)

4 flakes garlic

1 tsp chilli flakes

½ tsp oregano

3 leaves of basil

3 mint leaves

½ cup cheese

½ cup milk

1 tsp baking powder

 Salt to taste

Method:

1.     First I washed the corn kernels added enough water to cover the corn and salt and pressured cooked them for 2 whistles.

2.   Since I have one kid who does not like biting in chillies I decided to grind the chillies, garlic but since the quantity was too little for the mixer I added ¼ cup of onions, the oregano, mint and basil to make a fine paste.

3.     Preheat the oven to 180°C.

4.     Next mix both the flours and the baking powder and salt.

5.     Since I cannot fin the muffin papers here in Goa I decided to use the regular round mould (by hindsight I should have used a smaller one or the ice cream tray) greased   well.

6.     Beat the eggs and milk and mix in the flours till well incorporated.

7.     Fold the chilli paste, corn, cheese.

8.     Transfer to the mould and bake for 30 minutes.

9.     Once done let it sit in the tray for 10 minutes before turning it on the wire rack.

10.   If you are lucky family will wait for it to cool down, you can cut them and dish them beautifully else you get pictures like mine here.

Off these go to 

Archana

Strawberry Banana Muffins~A Sweet Punch

This August month‘s Sweet Punch was Strawberry Banana Muffins from Joy of Baking.

The first reaction I got was as expected, Ma……… and a sour face. But as the idea gradually sank in I was asked,” Ma when are you baking those muffins? “So now that the green signal was waved there was no stopping to making these muffins.

I had already decided to halve the given recipe and I got 6 ½ muffins, 6 huge ones and one small oneJ!!

The only hassle was that we have no fresh strawberries in the market they will start coming somewhere in October or November so I substituted

1 cup Fresh strawberries with ½ cup of strawberry crush

½ cup unsalted butter with ¼ cup salted butter (no salt)

¾ cup light brown sugar with ½ and 1/8   cup ordinary sugar

I had no means of grinding cinnamon hence I did not use it

The muffins were yummy, soft fluffy and colourful but too sweet. Next time I will reduce the sugar ½ a cup.

I will like to thank Sweet Punch for introducing me to a new taste that I had heard of but never tried.

 Archana

The Perfect Pound Cake- A Sweet Punch

The July Sweet Punch was pound cake.

 I must thank the Sweet Punch Team for making me sit up and look again at the recipe.  My basic recipe was 2 cups each of maida, sugar, ghee and 4 eggs.  The ingredients re the same but the way the whole mixing is unique.

Check the cake out!!

Never has my pound cake disappeared so fast in 1 hour!!!! Mind you I have made the same cake twice. I barely managed to get the pictures both the times!!

 Here is the recipe as it is on the Sweet Punch blog. I made absolutely no changes.

  Surprised are you not? 

Well the first time I was testing the recipe and the second time I realised I cannot change perfection!!

Perfect Pound Cake as on the Sweet Punch Blog


Ingredients
3 tablespoons Milk

3 large Eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups sifted cake flour**(see below)
¾ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
13 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened [184 gms]

Method:

1.    Preheat your oven to 350 F. Butter an 8 inch by 4 by 2.5 inch loaf pan, or any six cup loaf or fluted tube pan.

2.     Lightly whisk together milk, eggs and vanilla in a medium bowl.

3.     Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low speed for 30 seconds, until blended.

4.    Add the butter and half the egg mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened.

5.     On medium speed, beat for one minute. This will aerate and develop the cake’s structure. Scrape down sides.

6.     Add the remaining egg mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds between each addition. Scrape down sides.

7.    Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with a spatula.

8.    Bake for 55-65 minutes (35-45 minutes if baking in a fluted tube pan), until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 minutes before inverting onto a greased wire rack. If using a loaf pan, flip the cake over so the top is up.

**For making Cake flour at home - Take one cup of all purpose flour and remove 2 tbsp from it. Replace the 2 tbsp flour with cornflour and sift together 2-3 times. Cake flour is ready to use.

Triple Joy Brownies

Triple Joy Brownies I saw this name here at Love 2cookand opened it. For Love2cook   has beautiful recipes and stunning pictures.   Needles to say I was drooling.

 I decided to make them immediately as both my kids were out to play Holi and I did not have help!!  Most importantly I had all the ingredients at hand.

Chocolate Cake

Finally baked this cake the way it is supposed to be baked.

Goes to prove that you need not only a recipe but a good perfect mould and of course patience!! 

Ha ha!!

Cannot claim credit to the pictures or decoration or the topping. Kid did it thankfully took a picture of the cooling cake before she dug in.

Biscuit Cake(Eggless)

My SIL makes this cake very often. It's very simple, tasty, and can be made out of ingredients available at home. Her instructions are also simple but I have tried to put some standard measures.

Ingredients:

1 packet of glucose biscuits the one that costs Rs.10/- only (190 grams).

3 dav sugar (dav is a serving spoon for daal substitute with  190 grams)

2 tblspns Drinking chocolate

2 tblspns  cocoa

220 ml milk

1 sachet of Eno's fruit salt (5 grams)

Method:

1.  Grease a bowl/ tray about 6x3 inches.
2. Grind the biscuits, sugar cocoa and drinking chocolate to a fine powder.
3. Transfer to mixing bowl.
4. Add 200 ml milk and make a batter. Mix well.
5. In the remaining milk add the fruit salt and mix immediately in the batter.
6. Mix well. Transfer in the greased bowl/tray.
7. Microwave for 10 minutes or, till the cake leaves the sides of the bowl or till a knife inserted in the cake comes out dry.

P.S. the beauty of the cake is you can add 10-12 almonds, cashewnuts . I generally add it in the mixer to avoid the complaints galore.

You can use any biscuit only the sugar and flavouring will have to be changed accordingly.

Bake it as a regular cake in the oven also its divine.

Date Cake(Eggless)

I have made the date cake from the site "Aayi's Recipes" many times.
It is just fantastic!!
Last week I tried the recipe twice, only the second time I had no
cashew nuts!! And so I substituted with almonds and 2 lonesome dried
figs.
I did not expect my kids to like it so I was quite surprised when the
younger one ate it.

Ingredients:

10 dates(Khajoor)
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup atta
1/2 cup oil
11/4 tea spn baking soda
20 almonds and 2 figs

Method:

1. Soak the dates in warm milk overnight.
2. Remove the seeds.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C /350°F.
4. Grease a tray mine is a bowl which is 6"x3".
5. Add sugar and grind them to a smooth paste along with the milk in
which it is soaked in.
6. Add the nuts and figs and grind to the desired consistency. I
generally grind it fine as my kids do not like nuts in their cake.
7. Add oil and mix.
8. Sieve together flour and baking soda. Add the flour one table
spoon at a time and mix slowly.
9. If you are adding whole nuts add the nuts now and mix.
10. Bake for 35 minutes, till the cake leaves the sides of the bowl or
till a knife inserted in the cake comes out dry.

Dressed up Lemon Zest Cake

In the morning, I decided that my cake needs some dressing up, so I heated up about ½ cup Mapro’s Strawberry Crush, 1 cup water , 1½ tblsps of corn flour and  ½ tsp of gelatin soaked in water (about 1 tblsps for a few minutes) in a double boiler till the mixture thickened.

Cooled and poured the strawberry mixture on the cake.

Dessert after dinner was great.

Egg-less Lemon Zest Cake

It's been a long time since I have tried anything new and ages since I
baked. I am seriously addicted to Farm ville and Cafe world on
Face book so I hardly have time to do this anymore.


But I just happened to be surfing and I landed on this blog "Evolving Tastes" and there is this cake that the lady has tried and WOW !


I just had to try the cake out!


But as I had run out of Maida/cake flour I decided to try it with
wheat flour/atta. I mixed the ingredients with increased quantity of
baking powder and soda but was reluctant to experiment with the amount
of liquids. So the resultant batter had a sticky soft dough
consistency. I could not shape it in any conventional shape, by then I
was worried if anyone will like to eat the so called cake. So I just
baked it.

The result was amazing, not only the cake eaten but my family did not
allow the cake to cool!

They just kept on breaking off pieces of the stuff.

Mind you, all this was complaining, as long as the cake lasted, that
the weather was too hot to eat hot things like this.

So I decided to bake two cake now one following the recipe and one
with the" Mad Scientist" at work. So here is my version of the recipe.

You will need these as ingredients:
1 ¾ cups wheat flour
¾ cup sugar
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
2 tsp lemon zest
1/3 cup curds
¾ cup milk
1 cup water
2 tablespoons oil + a little more for greasing your baking tin
½ tsp vanilla essence
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method:

1. Grease the baking tray and pre- heat the oven to 180C. I use auto
bake in the microwave.
2. Sift flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. I did it
so that all the ingredients are evenly mixed.
3. In a large bowl mix the milk, water, oil and sugar. If you are
using Castor sugar it is a good idea to allow the sugar to dissolve a
little.
4. In the bowl add the curds, lemon juice and just swirl it a little
and mix all the dry ingredients add the lemon zest too.
5. Transfer to the baking tray and bake till a knife when inserted
comes out clean.
6. Remove from the tray and allow it to cool.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

I had a lot of butter left, we had all the ghee we needed and some more. I was at my wits end as to how to finish the butter before we left on holiday so Smita suggested this recipe. Boy did we love it.

Method:
100 grams maida
100 grams powdered sugar
3 tblspn drinking chocolate
2 tblspn cocoa

1tsp baking powder

A big pinch of soda-bi -carb

Essence
4 tblsp homemade butter
½ cup milk mixed with ¼ cup milk (lukewarm)


Ingredients:
1.Sieve all the dry ingredients.
2.Run the butter in the mixer. Since the quantity for my mixer was too small I ran it with the milk and water mixture.
3.Fold in all the dry ingredients.
4.The mixture bubbles a little.
5.Pour in a greased container and microwave for 5 minutes if glass container is used and 4 if plastic container is used.

Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 cups plain flour (260 grams)
150 gms sugar
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
150 gms almonds

Method:
Roast the whole almonds (blanched or otherwise) & let them cool.
Preheat oven at 300 F (150 degree C)
Mix all the dry ingredients (excluding almonds) with an electric mixer (or a hand mixer) or sieve them together a couple of times.
Mix eggs with the extracts & beat a little.
Slowly add the egg mixture to the flour & continue mixing with an electric mixer (or a hand mixer) When the dough forms add the roasted almonds.
On a lightly floured surface form a log of the mixture & then place it on a baking tray.
Bake for 30-40 mins in the oven.
After taking out let it cool for 10 mins & then cut it with a sharp knife into thin slices.
Bake the slices on one side for 10 mins again then turn on the other side for baking another 10 mins.
Cool & Store. (Lasts for a good few days in an airtight container.)

I have this recipe shared by one of the members of this forum.

The only changes I have made is that since I did not have almond extract I used vanilla essence.

Also I could not knead the dough as the recipe needed as my dough was a sticky mess I just transferred it to the baking tray I had greased and lined with flour.

I will post the pictures when I next make it as Akanksha has finished the last slice.

Dark Chocolate Cake

This is a cake I had tried from the magazine Woman’s Era and it is superb. We just cannot have enough of it. Here the recipe was with plain flour i.e. Maida. However, since now I don’t have the time to bake as often, I have started using self-raising flour. Save the bother of keeping a track of the freshness of the baking powder.

The ingredients are:

1 ¾ cup plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

6 tblspn cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tblspn + ¼ cup ghee

¼ cup butter

¼ cup hot water

4 eggs separated

½ cup milk

1 ½ cup castor sugar

Method:

1. Grease and flour 10” square pan or two 8” round pans.
2. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
3. Sift flour, baking powder, salt.
4. Mix together cocoa powder, 2 tblspn ghee, hot water. Keep aside.
5. Cream till light and fluffy ghee, butter and sugar.
6. separate egg yolks in the mix
7. Mix in coco paste and vanilla essence.
8. Mix a little milk, blend, and add some flour blend, repeat till flour is over. End with flour.
9. In this sticky dough fold gently stiffly beaten egg whites.
10. Spoon the batter gently.
11. Bake till done.