Eggless Chocolate cake

It has been a week since I baked anything, because I don't have butter in my fridge. Today I had been to nearest Nilgiris store and bought 4 blocks of butter. You must be wondering what I am going to do with so much butter. This week I am trying various recipes for basic eggless vanilla and chocolate cakes. I am planning to bake 3 or 4 different eggless versions and will pick the best suited recipe for my home baking.

This recipe is from http://www.rakskitchen.net/ . This recipe does not have Eggs, Butter or condensed milk, just few readily available ingredients goes in. This is the first time I am trying eggless chocolate cake. This cake was moist and spongy. But when compared to the Cakes with eggs, I find this cake little densed.  Taste wise not so good, yeah that's what I feel. When I used sugar syrub and drizzled the cake with chocolate ganache, it tasted better.


Total Time: 50 min
Prep:  10 min
Cook : 40 min

 

Yield:  6 squares as shown in the above picture

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 3 tablespoon Cocoa Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Oil
• 2 pinches of Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla extract

Directions

1. Pre heat Oven to 180 C. Grease a square pan and keept it ready

2. Mix AP Flour, cocoa powder, baking soda in a mixing bowl

3. In a separate bowl add 1 Cup water, Sugar and salt and stir until sugar gets dissolved completely. Now add 1 tablespoon lemon juice, Oil and vanilla extract to water and mix

4. Add flour mixture to the water one tablespoon at a time and mix everything thoroughly

5. Pour this batter to the prepared greased pan and bake at 180C for 35 to 40 min until toothpick inserted comes out clean

6. Let the cake remain in the pan for 10 min. After 10 min invert the cake on a cooling rack and let it cool

7. When the cake is cooled completely, cut in to desired shapes

Paruppu Payasam / Moong Dal Kheer

Paruppu Payasam is a south Indian style Kheer made out of moong dal and Jaggery. It is prepared using moong dal, Jaggery and milk. Topped off with coconut bits , raisins and roasted cashew nuts.

Total Time: 45 min
Prep:  15min
Cook : 30 min

Yield:  5 Servings

Ingredients

• 1 Cup Yellow Moong Dal
• 1 Cup powdered Jaggery
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1/4 Teaspoon Powdered green cardamom
• 1 tablespoon Ghee
• 10- 15 Cashewnuts
• 10-15 Raisins
• 2 tablespoons coconut bits

Directions

Preparation :

1. Take Jaggery in a thick Ziploc bag and crush it using a hammer or heavy metal like meat tenderizer

2. Cut coconut into small bits

3. Dry Roast yellow Moong dal in a pan until nice aroma comes out

Cooking :

1. In a small pan add 1/2 tablespoon ghee. When the ghee melts , add cashewnuts and fry till they turn light brown. Remove nuts from ghee and keep them in a small plate lined with paper towel

2. In the same pan , add coconut bits to the remaining ghee. When the coconut bits turns light brown color remove them from the pan and keep it in a plate along with cashewnuts

3. Fry raisins also in the same pan until they puff up. Raisins burn very quickly, so remove them once they start puffing up

4. Add the roasted moong dal in a pressure cooker along with 2 and 1/2 cups of water and pressure cook in medium flame for up to 4 or 5 whistles

5. Open the pressure cooker when the pressure drops

6. Mash the cooked moong dal well

7. Add crushed jaggery  and cardamom powder to the mashed dal. Add 1 cup milk to this mixture. Keep the pressure cooker on low flame and cook until milk and jaggery blends well with the dal for about 5 mins

8. At this point, check the payasam for consistency and sweetness. If it is too thick, add 1/4 cup more milk or water. Add more crushed Jaggery if you want the payasam to be more sweet

9. Switch of the flame and let the payasam cool

10. While serving the payasam , add fried cashewnuts, raisins and coconut bits

Homemade Hummus

 

 

Hummus is a Middle Eastern food dip made from cooked and mashed chickpeas. It is served as an appetizer and dip along with scooped flat breads such as pita. Outside Middle East, it is usually served with crackers or corn tortilla chips or veggies.

Total Time: 30 min

Prep:  overnight soaking + 20 min

Cook: 10 min

 

Yield:  about 2 cup Hummus

Ingredients

• 2 cups Chickpeas - soaked overnight and cooked with enough water and salt for 4 whistles in pressure cooker; reserve the excess water from cooked chickpeas for grinding
• 1/4 cup Tahini sauce - recipe follows
• 1 roasted garlic clove
• 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 or 2 tablespoon good olive oil
• salt , to taste

Tahini Sauce

• 1/4 cup sesame seeds 
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

1. Dry roast white sesame seeds in a pan over low heat for 10 mins stirring often . Keep roasting until a nutty flavour comes out of the seeds or until the seeds splutters

2. Leave the sesame seeds to cool for about 10mins

3. Add the seeds to the food processor and pulse for few seconds. then add 1 tablespoon olive oil and grind into fine paste. Scrape down the sides and grind it one more time. Tahini sauce is ready

4. For making hummus, remove skin from the cooked chickpeas and put them into food processor. It takes quite sometime to do this. but it is worth the effort. You can skip this step and add the cooked chickpeas with skin in the food processor

5. Add roasted garlic, 3 tablespoons of tahini sauce, olive oil, salt, lemon juice to the food processor along with chickpeas

6. Process everything together until it is smooth, you may need to stop and start by scraping down the sides and adding drained water from cooked chickpeas until you get nice spreadable consistency

7. Add more seasonings like red chilli flakes and olive oil while serving

Chocolate Donuts with Browned butter glaze

 

 

Total Time: 35 min

Prep:  20 min

Cook: 15 min

Yield:  about 1 dozen doughnuts 

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil for Deep frying
• 2 cups all purpose flour(maida) , plus more for dusting
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2  cup thick curd
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg

Browned Butter Glaze    

• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 2-3 tablespoon milk

Directions

1. In a large Sauce pan pour the oil to a depth of approximately 2 inches, heat oil for deep frying the donuts
2. In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients -  the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
3. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the curd, milk, and egg. Add half of the wet mixture the flour mixture, stirring to combine. add rest of the wet mixture one tablespoon at a time until the dough is well combined and not sticky anymore
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll to 3/4-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch round cutter, cut out the doughnuts. Using a 1-inch round cutter, cut out the center of each doughnut. I used two different size bottle caps for cutting out the doughnuts
5. Fry the doughnuts in hot oil , in batches, for 1 minute per side. Drain on paper towels

For the Glaze :

1. In a small sauce pan take 1/4 cup of butter and melt butter over medium high heat, As it reaches a medium brown color, remove the pan from heat
2. Whisk in 1 cup powdered sugar to the browned butter, then add 1 Tablespoon milk as it thickens; Now add one more cup of sugar and 1 more tablespoon of milk as necessary so it’s thick enough to stay on top of donuts.
3. Add clear vanilla extract, whisk until smooth
4. Drizzle hot over the top of donuts
5. This glaze sets very fast, so work quickly and apply over the donuts