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!

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 Mawa Cake - Saffron and cardamon flavored eggless milk cakes

Dear All,

This post has been pending in my drafts from quite some time now and finally today I decided to go ahead and share it with all you wonderful people out there. Mawa cakes are plain simple cakes made out of khoya, these are perfect for tea time treats, very rich in flavor and fulfilling at the same time. I have grown up eating these yummy cakes from Parsi bakeries, I still remember my mom buying a packet of 6 small muffins and we kids would finish them in no time. I had bookmarked this recipe long time back and finally decided to give it a try few days back. I have added few saffron strands and some powdered cardamons to give it a rich and festive flavor. You can even try adding some cashews and currants, which I am planning to add next time :)

On a lighter note here's a sms which one of my friends messaged me...Once a beautiful woman was asked to describe Marriage..She said: "Sacrificing the admiration of many men for criticism of one man" ...I am not sure if you all will agree with this but I do find some truth in it :) Let me know your views

Original Recipe Source - Ravum's Recipe
The recipe yields close to 18/19 small muffins
Wet Ingredients:-
1 tin condensed milk (400 gms)
1/3 cup butter, Amul is fine
200 gms mawa or khoya
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup milk (this is to be used while mixing dry and wet ingredients if the batter is too thick)

Dry Ingredients:-
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (210 gms)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp freshly crushed cardamon powder
few strands of saffron
1/4 cup of finely chopped cashews (optional)


Procedure:-

• Grease and line 18 muffin cup cake moulds.
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
• Mix all the wet ingredients together except 1/4 cup milk, heat this mixture until all the butter is melted and it becomes homogenous mixture. Cool it to room temperature.
• Sift all purpose flour and baking powder, add in saffron and cardamon powder.
• Mix the dry ingredients with the wet mixture, if the batter is too thick use 1/4 cup of milk, the batter should be similar to idli batter consistency.
• Fill in the muffin liners till 3/4 full and bake them at 175 degrees C for exactly 20 mins.
• These cakes get browned very fast so keep an eye on them if you are baking over 20 mins.
• Enjoy these with a warm glass of milk or during tea time.

Verdict:- I got approximately 19 muffins out the recipe, this recipe is very easy to make and extremely rich in taste. Adding dry fruits like cashews and currants would make a lovely combo of flavors! A must try for all mawa cake lovers! I made a batch for my office colleagues and it was a BIG hit with everyone :)

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!

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!