Eggless Black Forest Cake - Step by step Pictorial

Dear All,

Today I am going share a tutorial with you for baking an eggless black forest cake with step by step instructions. Hope this is helpful to all who are scared of baking cakes and will find courage and encouragement from this post to bake one successfully! I bakes this cake for my dad's 60th birthday for which we gave him a surprise birthday party :) The cake came out beautiful and was loved by everyone! It was moist and delicious!

Eggless Tiramisu Cake

Dear All,

I am back with another mouth watering treat and one of my most favorite dessert of all time TIRAMISU!!!!

I was first introduced to this heavenly dish when I was in Switzerland, we used to have Tiramisu every thursday for after lunch dessert in our canteen. One bite and it just blew my mind away! There have been times when I have had only this as my lunch! Yes I love to bits! Though tiramisu is basically made up of eggs and mascarpone cheese but I have used my basic eggless cake recipe and homemade mascarpone cheese to make this divine dessert into a cake!

Chocolate Kisses (Eggless Vanilla Chocolate Cookies)

Dear all,

On my last trip to US I had bought a big bag of Hershey's Kisses on request from my baby sister. Though I am not very fond of these but she adores them and hence I ended up buying a big bag of these! On the other hand I truly love their packing, its so very attractive and cute :) As I had lots of these I planned to use them in my baking experiments and I must say I am glad because these were delicious...light, crispy, buttery with a tinge of vanilla! Oh boy these were perfect for a lazy evening snack :)

Eggless Vanilla Cake and Happy Holi to everyone!!

Dear All,

Wishing you all a very Happy Holi!  May god gift you all colors of life, colors of joy, colors of happiness, colors of love, colors of friendship and all other colors you want to paint in your life!

I know I have been away from the blogging world from quite sometime, I do appreciate all your emails and FB messages concerning my disappearance and I sincerely want to thank you all for remembering me.

Today's cake was a special request from one of my closest friend and my roommate S for her sister. It was around 6.30 pm on Thursday and I was in office eagerly waiting to go home and I got a call from S, the conversation went something like this.....

Me: Hello S...
S: Hey are you busy right now?
Me: Nah...tell me what happened?
(Just then there is lots of disturbance in the line..it happens all the time)
S: Hello...Hello...can you hear me?
Me: Ha ha... bolo na....
S: Hello...heelllooooo?
Me: S throw your mobile away...grrr...
S: Hello..yes now I can hear you...actually I wanted a favor from you?
Me: Sure..?
(Again disturbance in the line)
S: Actually I wanted to know if you can make a caaalle...
(and the line went dead, I literally jumped from my seat as I am sure she meant CAKE)
Again S called up and this time from her office phone
S: Hello Parita...
Me: Kaunsa cake banana hai??
S: Eggless vanilla banaate hai na..my sister has specially requested
Me: Neki aur puch puch... DONE!!!

Unfortunately I reached home pretty late that day, it was almost 11 pm when we finished our dinner so we decided to get up early the next morning and make the cake. We got up 5am in the morning to bake this cake....yeah i am one crazy baker..and it was well worth the effort! I have used this recipe as my base and tweaked a bit to suit my needs. As you can see in the picture the cake turned out beautiful....perfect crumbs. It was soft, moist and spongy..didn't miss the eggs at all! This is going to be my keeper recipe for eggless cakes! Of course you can tweak this recipe as per needs ..replace vanilla with almond or lemon or orange..anything would work! Do give it a try!

Eggless Vanilla Cake
Original Recipe here
Ingredients:-
2 cups all purpose flour (Maida)
1 can sweetened condensed milk, about 400 gms
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup melted unsalted butter
1 cup aerated soda water
1 vanilla bean, split and scrapped or 1 tbsp vanilla essence

Procedure:-

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
• Grease and flour a pound cake tin or any other cake tin that suites your needs.
• Sieve together flour, baking powder and baking soda.
• Mix melted butter and condensed milk together, just until both are well incorporated.
• Now add in vanilla beans or vanilla essence and mix well.
• Now add in flour mixture along with soda water and mix well after each addition.
• Pour the mixture in the greased tin and bake for 40 to 45 mins until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Once baked, remove the cake pan from the oven and let it cool completely before removing and slicing the cake.

Eggless Date and Walnut Cake/Loaf ...Low Fat and Healthy!!!

Dear All,

The moment I think about dates (khajoor) the first thing that comes to my mind is Pani Puri and the second is this Date and Walnut Cake. This cake is not light but quite dense , not too sweet and perfect combination with some tea or coffee. This recipe is inspired from Eggless Date Cake which I had bookmarked ages ago from Shilpa's site, this cake has almost 100% success rates and by the popularity of this cake I had to try it soon. The adventure began when I saw a packet of seedless dates in my fridge. Being Anaemic I was advised to have black dates regularly due the high iron content in them. I have dates as a meal filler in between my meals, they are extremely rich and fulfilling, so next time you have craving to have something sweet go and buy yourself a packet of dates!  Lets stay healthy!

Original Recipe Source: Shilpa from Aayi's Recipes
Ingredients:
25-26 seedless dates
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar (You can increase/reduce depending upon the sweetness of your dates)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
3 tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/4 cups of finely chopped walnuts
1/4 cup of finely chopped dates

Procedure:-

• Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C, grease and flour a loaf tin.
• Soak dates in warm milk for about half an hour until they become little soft and mushy to touch
• Add sugar and grind them into smooth paste along with the milk in which the dates were soaked.
• Add oil and mix. 
• Sieve the flour and baking soda together. 
• Add flour one tablespoon at a time and mix well after each addition.
• Add the finely chopped walnuts and dates and mix well.
• Grate few walnuts on top of the cake and bake it for 40 to 45 mins until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Verdict? The cake is quite dense in nature due the dates puree used, the texture i got was quite fudgy in nature! The color of the cake highly depends upon the type of the dates you have used and varies accordingly. So if you cake is darker in color than donot worry , it does not mean the cake was burnt :)

For best result always use fresh dates and seedless ones which will speed up the process of baking as well. You can also use all whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour to make it even more healthy! Hope you enjoyed this cake. Until next time, take care!

Eggless Strawberry Cupcakes/Eggless Strawberry Muffins

Dear Foodies,

Hello everyone! I know I have been away for quite sometime but last two weeks have created quite a stir! First of all there is this never ending assignments and work in office, on top of this monsoon has finally hit India. Last couple of days have been a complete mess. It rained quite heavily here in Pune, with strong winds blowing there was quite lot of destruction. Several trees have fallen, cables wires have been uprooted, infact we almost had an accident in our office with the glass doors bursting due to strong winds! Thank god no one was hurt! With electricity gone for 2 days and maid not turning up for work I was really frustated!

So when V asked me if i could bake a batch of muffins for her office party I got the much needed break! She wanted something other than the usual chocolate and vanilla flavors. I had strawberry extract in my pantry, so thought of making some Strawberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing. She loved the idea and she wanted to use the same color combination which I had used for the cake which I made for my parents anniversary.

This is off to Bangalore Baker's Bake-Off event!

Eggless Strawberry Cupcakes/Muffins
Recipe yields - 9 muffins
Ingredients:-
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 tin (200 gms) sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp strawberry essence
1/4 cup limca or plain aerated soda water

Procedure:-

• Preheat the oven to 180 degress C, grease and flour 9 muffin moulds.
• Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda together.
• Beat butter, condensed milk and icing sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the strawberry essence.
• Alternatively add flour and limca and beat well after each addition.
• Fill in the muffin cups to 3/4 full and bake the muffins for 15 to 18 mins until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and cool them completely before going ahead with icing.

Buttercream icing, recipe here

Verdict? I got great reviews on these cupcakes and everyone in the office loved them! As compared to other eggless recipe, i like this one the most as I have always got fantastic results! Muffins were light and fluffy, perfectly baked! With vanilla buttercream icing it was a winner! Do try these and let me know, you can replace strawberry essence with any other flavor and it will still work like a charm!

Celebrating 1st Anniversary with Eggless Blueberry Coffee Cake

Dear All,

I know a lot of you were expecting a cake from my side to celebrate my blog's first anniversary, finally the wait is over and with drum rolls please I present to you Eggless Blueberry Coffee Cake!! My sister is crazy behind blueberry though she has never had them before and hence she really wanted to taste them, she even asked me if I could request my colleagues to get some fresh blueberries from Switzerland while they are coming back...can you believe it? This time to my visit to Alfa I got a tan of blueberry pie filling and I immediately thought of my sis, I am sure she would love to gobble down the entire tin with some fresh cream, she is crazy behind fresh cream too and her waist line permits her to do so :) 

Before my darling sis could empty the entire tin I planned to put them to good use. Quite sometime back I had bookmarked DK recipe for Eggless Blueberry Coffee Cake which really looked too good to be true for an eggless one! I decided to use the blueberry pie filling in place of fresh ones, if nothing else it certainly increases the moistness of the cake though I would highly recommend using fresh ones, as in India we dont get fresh blueberries I had to substitute them. DK has also used applesauce, another ingredients not easily available here, so I substituted it with curd. To make the cake less in fat I have used oil in place of butter but I will recommend everyone to use butter as i think the cake wasnt as rich as it would be with some real butter!

Ingredients:-
2 cups all purpose flour
1  cup vanilla sugar or normal
1/3 cup oil
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup beaten curd
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fresh blueberries or blueberry pie filling

Procedure:-

• Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Grease and flour a pound cake tin.
• Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda keep it aside.
• In a bowl beat sugar and oil for 2 mins until well blended. Add in vanilla extract , again beat for a min.
• Beat in flour mixture along with sour cream and curd alternatively in well blended.
• Finally fold in the blueberry filling and mix gently, donot beat.
• Pour the batter and bake at 190 degrees C for 45 to 50 mins until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• Serve warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream or some whipped fresh cream.
• Enjoy!!

Verdict? My sister loved this cake and according to her its heavenly with a dollop of fresh cream :D I would highly recommend serving this cake warm with some fresh cream or vanilla ice cream, the combo is unbeatable! Hope you all enjoyed the cake and thank you once again for your wishes!

Eggless Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting

Dear All,

First of all here's wishing all the wonderful women a very Happy Women's Day we rock girls!!

Starting with today's post, I made this Eggless Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting for my dear roommate V. She celebrates her birthday on Women's Day. Being pure vegetarian she doesnt eat eggs so with little googling I came across Sandhya's recipe for Eggless Chocolate Cake and it sounded perfect. I emailed her regarding a query and she was kind enough to reply back immediately. Thanks Sandhya for sharing such a wonderful recipe, I have used her recipe as a base and made some changes.

From the moment I saw homemade mascarpone cheese recipe on Deeba's blog I was itching to make it at home but due to some or the other reasons I really couldnt find time nor an occasion. I have used mascarpone cheese before in my Tiramisu but nothing can compare the homemade version. I was in for a surprise, mascarpone turned out to be incredibly rich and creamy! I just couldnt stop having it and I am sure I am going make this very often. It is so easy to make and so very cheap from the ones we get in the market. You can even use mascarpone cheese inplace of cream cheese in your dishes, use it in curries to make them rich and creamy or in your desserts or even while making some basic white pasta sauce or in dips and sauces...phew the list could go on and on possibilites are endless!! So what are you waiting for rush to your kitchen and make some homemade cheese!!

Ingredients:-

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 tbsp Hersheys Dark coco powder (You can even use Cadbury's)

2 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup strong black coffee

1 cup beaten curd (without water)

2 tsp vanilla extract

Procedure for Cake:-

• Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Grease and line a 6 inch or 7 inch round cake tin.
• Sieve flour, coco powder, baking soda and baking powder.
• Form a well in between and add in the liquid ingredients one by one and beat well with each addition.
• Add in vanilla essence in the end and give a quick mix.
• Pour the batter in the tin and bake for 40 to 50 mins until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Once done, cool is completely about 30 to 40 mins before slicing the cake horizontally into 3 slices.

Recipe for Mascarpone Cheese:-

500ml fresh cream 25% fat (I used Amul)

1 tbsp fresh lime juice

Procedure:-

• Heat the cream over a double boiler until it reaches 82 degrees C or 180 F. This will take about 15 mins, dont forget to stir the cream often.
• Stir in the fresh lime juice and stir it continuosly until it starts to thicken.
• Remove from heat and let it get cooled down to room temperature.
• Line a vessel with four layers of muslin cloth. Pour the mixture in the vessel layered with muslin cloth and refrigerate over night or upto 24 hours.
• After refrigeration the cream will have thicken up further and will be soft to touch.

Recipe for Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting:-

1 cup mascarpone cheese (Half of the above recipe)

200 ml heavy whipping cream

2 tbsp coco powder

5 tbsp vanilla sugar

Procedure:-

• Chill the beater knives and the vessel in the freezer for 15 mins.
• Make sure the whipping cream is also chilled but not frozen.
• Beat all the ingredients together for about 5 mins until stiff peaks form. Donot overbeat it may lead the cream to curdle.

Soaking Solution:-
1/2 cup of water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp rum (optional)

Decoration:-
Color chocolate sprinkles to decorate the cake
Let your imagination flow :-)

Assembling:-

• Place one of the three layers on the serving plate. Drizzle sugar syrup over the cake to moisten it.
• Spread the chocolate mascarpone frosting evenly on all the sides.
• Repeat this procedure for all the 3 layers. Cover the sides and top of the cake with frosting.
• I have given an uneven look of frosting on the cake purposely.
• Decorate the sides of the cake with colorful chocolate sprinkles or as you wish.
• The icing is also perfect for piping.

Verdict? I simply loved this cake, was moist and chocolaty to the core. The mascarpone frosting was very rich and light an absolute delight to work with and delicious in taste. V enjoyed her cake and even commented about this being the best cake she has ever had on her birthday :-) Now that certainly makes it a winner isnt it?

Eggless Chocolate Raisin Coffee Bread

Dear All,

The moment I saw Eggless Coffee Banana Bread at Cilantro i knew i wanted to try out the recipe but I am not a big fan of bananas and hence I dont buy them very often until and unless I am making a fruit salad. I used Cilantro's recipe as a base and made this Eggless Chocolate Raisin Coffee Bread. I love Cadbury's Temptations especially the one with raisins and rum, so I was inspired to use chocolate and raisins combo and was quite sure it would work well. Another reason for using raisins was that, few weeks back i bought a large bag of raisins which were on sale! The cake is perfect as a tea time treat, its dense and chocolaty, not too sweet but has perfect blend of coffee and chocolate! This is a perfect bread for people like me who love coffee and chocolate together! 

Adapted from Cilantro's recipe

Ingredients:-

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

1/3 cup oil

1 cup sugar

1 cup freshly brewed strong black coffee*

1 cup raisins

2 tbsp rum (optional)

1 tsp vanilla extract

* Make sure the coffee is warm and not boiling hot.

Procedure:-

• Soak the raisins with 2 tbsp of rum. If you dont want to use alcohol, pls use orange juice or you can completely skip this step as well. I prefer juicy raisins in my cake hence i soaked them with 2 tbsp of rum for about 2 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and flour a loaf pan 5-9 inch in size.
• Sieve the dry ingredients and keep aside.
• In a seperate bowl, mix together oil, sugar and vanilla. Add in the flour mixture alternatively with black coffee.
• Sprinkle some flour on raisins and add them into the batter. Mix them well.
• Pour the cake in greased or lined cake pan and bake at 180 degrees C for 40 to 45 mins, until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Cool the cake completely before slicing. The  tastes even better after refrigeration.

Eggless Chocolate Raisin Coffee bread is finding its way to Meeta's Monthly Mingle guest hosted by Jamie the theme for this month being Chocolate and Bread.

Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend ahead!

Gingerbread House for Daring Bakers December 2009 Challenge

Dear All,

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Until this month I had only read about Gingerbread Houses in books or either seen them on internet. Making gingerbread house was quite a new and exciting experience due to lack of time and as it was the first time i only used half of the recipe and made a smaller version of the house. Decoration too i have kept simple just using white chocolate and sweet chocolate balls. 

I have used Y's recipe for gingerbread which is adapted from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice A Ojakangas. Anna's recipe used molasses which is not available here. The dough was quite easy to manage as i halved the recipe. I didn't face any problem of the dough being too dry unlike few fellow DB's mentioned. The texture of the dough was perfect. Not too sweet and not too dry, the flavors of ginger, cinnamon and cloves complimented each other perfectly.

I used this template for making my gingerbread house. As this was the first time I was trying my hands on making a real gingerbread house and also the fact that i was too scared to try and make a huge house, i halved the recipe and still got enough to make one medium size house, i still have some dough resting in my fridge. Apart from the fun in decorating the house, the gingerbread smelled delicious. The fragrance in my kitchen made made my taste buds dance.

To decorate the house, I have used Royal Icing. This was also the first time i tried my hands on royal icing and i must say I am pretty impressed. Its super easy and dry's off very fast. I would for sure be using royal icing for decorating cookies.

Overall the challenge was lot of fun and a memorable experience!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!!!

Eggless Low Fat Hot Chocolate Muffins

Dear Foodies,

Its been quite a while since i last baked anything with chocolate. The baker in me was desperate and it was like a race against the time as my work was keeping me quite busy. Finally my craving got better of me and i decided to give up, but to my horror i was out of eggs as well as cocoa powder, I felt as if my world turned upside down!! No that is not an exaggeration and I am sure the bakers would understand my sentiments. Now i really had to bake something chocolaty, ok so i decided to go for eggless muffins, quick and easy but to go for cocoa powder hunting at 11pm in the night was out of question. I could use some of my dark chocolate which i got from swiss but i just have few slabs left until my next batch comes from abroad and so i guard them with my life!! Argghh.....pacing up and down in my room i saw some hot chocolate sachets of Lindt, do i need to mention what happened next?

My recipe for these low fat, eggless chocolate muffins is inspired from Mandira's recipe for Eggless Chocolate Nut Muffins which i had bookmarked sometime back.

Also I am sending my Jain Vegetable Makhanwala to Think Spice : Poppy Seeds event guest hosted by Rv brainchild of Sunita.

Recipe yields 6 large muffins
Ingredients:-
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar (adjust according to taste, if required)
1 1/2 tbsp good quality hot chocolate powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp oil
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract


Procedure:-

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
• Line 6 muffins holders with liners or grease them.
• Sieve together flour, hot chocolate powder, baking soda and baking powder.
• Add in oil, milk and whisk properly until everything is mixed properly. I did not use a beater for this, hand whisk is fine.
• Finally add vanilla extract and mix well.
• Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full and bake for 15 to 18 mins, until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Serve them warm with a cold glass of milk, enjoy!
  

I Won!!!!! celebrating with Fatfree Eggless Banana Cake

I Won!!!! yes I Won!!! yippeeeee, i still cannot believe this, i won the BSI:Bell Peppers event hosted this week by Jenn of Bread+Butter, you can check out all the entries here. You can check out my entry Cheesy Bell Pepper Swirls here. I was so happy that i cudnt control my happiness, i was chirping like a bird nonstop, my friends started thinking i have lost is completely :) this was not enough, i was just informed by Jenn that winner will be receiving a prize too, now this is a pleasant surpise, i have never won any prizes not atleast for my cooking....you can check out the prize here. I would really like to thank Jenn, this is the first BSI i have participated and winning the first time is really very special. THANK YOU once again!!!!

Ok enough of my blabbering, now for todays post I had few bananas in my pantry.....taking their last breath.... :( I must confess I am not too fond of bananas, my mom used to make me eat these with milk for the calcium content, i would rather prefer to eat calcium tablets...grrrrr..its difficult when you know something is good for your health but still you dont want to accept it, does this sounds familiar? do you all have experienced the same? pls do share.....atleast its good to know m not alone :)

Now the most important part, how to use these over ripen bananas, eating them was out of question, i have never made a banana cake before so I made an eggless version as bananas are often used as egg substitutes and this would be great way to make some healthy breakfast. I made this absolutely fatfree..i know its sounds stupid...a cake without butter or oil... thats not possible.....but believe me it is and you would really be surprised how moist this cake turned out to be. A slice served with a glass of cold milk serves as very healthy and fulfilling breakfast. If serving after dinner, just warm the cake in micro for few seconds and serve with a dollop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with chocolcate sauce...wow now thats a real treat :) This recipe is completely created by me, its not adapted from any of the recipes so its an original one from me. Next time i'll add in few nuts and chocolate chips as well

Pooja has passed me "One Lovely Blog Award" thank you so much dear, m very touched, thank you for thinking of me :) Sending this dish to Original Recipe Culinarty Event. Also sending this to Madhu's Low Fat Eggless Baking event, EFM:Breakfast Series by SriLekha and finally also sending the click to Show Me Your Breakfast event by Divya....Happy hosting gals For the decision regarding the advertising, i still am researching and will let you all know soon, i guess you will automatically come to know :) Ingredients: 2 over ripen big bananas pureed 2 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 3/4 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup sour milk(See note below) 1 tsp vanilla essence Note: We get sour milk here in the stores but to make sour milk at home, just add a 1tsp of fresh lime juice to warm milk and let it stand for few mins to thicken. I think you can substitute it with yogurt too though i have not tried this yet also sometimes buttermilk is also called as sour milk, see here. Procedure:

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
• Grease and line a rectangular baking tin or a bread tin.
• Beat together pureed bananas, sour milk,sugar and vanilla essence for about 2 mins until nicely blended.
• Now add in the dry ingredients in 3 turns and beat on lower speed for about a min.
• Now you can add in nuts/chocolate chips etc, mix well.
• Transfer the batter to baking pan and bake for 35 to 40 mins, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• Remove and cool it for 15 to 20 mins, cut into slices and serve with a glass of cold milk.