Category: Recipes

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Who said you need eggs for baking?

Some of my friends said I belong to no onion and no garlic Family and I have not talked about baking without eggs. In general if given an option of making cake with eggs I would prefer. But I have noticed elders and now even with lot of flu happening in birds and vegetarian diets catching on, people are preferring cakes without egg.

In my mom times she was lot of time forced to make a cake without egg due to elders or traditional reasons and she slowly figured out how to do it. I have followed some of those tips and you will find your choice does not not become restrictive. I do make lot of cakes and cookies without egg.

Let us follow the simple rule which my mom followed to replace egg. The first thing that comes to mind is condensed milk but see below what other things can be used –

  • 1-1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil mixed with 1-1/2 tablespoons water and 1 teaspoon baking powder per egg.
  • ¼  cup yogurt or butter milk approximately for 1 egg. They are very good for muffins, cake and cup cakes.
  •  ¼  cup of pureed fruit like banana, dates, raisins . You can puree then with milk. Fruit puree gives a little dense nature
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda along with 1 tablespoon of vinegar for an egg. Best results come from apple cider vinegar but you can use any white vinegar.
  • All time favorite Condensed milk – 1/4 the cup for an egg
  • Arrowroot powder-2 tablespoons of the powder mixed with 3 tablespoons of water can used to replace egg.
  • Nowadays you have commercial egg replacement products also available in various brands (Ener G is one of the popular ones)
  • Lot of people use Chia seeds or flax seeds powder but I have not used it. Whisk/blend together 1 teaspoon of flax seed or chia powder with 1/4 cup of water for each egg to be replaced. I have not personally used this but have eaten the same. They are good for cookies and cake where you need nutty flavors.
Ways to replace eggs in baking

There are many more ideas you can find on http://www.egglesscooking.com/

Hope this time I have kept some of my friends and family happy with this post.

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8 Tips for that Perfect Cake

With three easy recipes posted so far, I am sure you enjoyed making them. My attempt always have been to make things simple so that one enjoys the whole process. My husband often jokes that people have to see you cook and bake and they will wonder you are lying as there is no stress when you are in kitchen.

It is a myth that more time you spend in kitchen the food turns out good. I like other working moms do not believe the same, and trust me I don’t spend much time in the kitchen!

I have always had people ask me how my perfect cakes are made. This makes me wonder what do I do differently that people feel my cakes are yummy (I love praising myself unlike a Virgo). As I think of a reply, I can imagine my son and husband smiling at each other and wondering what I am going to say. There is a TA theory in HR where we say that most of the time parents in us take over and try to do fault finding. We start to concentrate on what went wrong, rather than looking for positive reasons. I just let the Happy “me” take over the bad and things automatically come out well. It is about the positivity around you that you create and you are responsible for it and no one else.

Enough of gyan! As promised, now let me list some basic tips which help cakes to come out perfect

  1. All things to be at room temperature
  2. Burnt bottom of the cake – means the pan is too thin or you are too close to the rod down.
  3. Fallen center of the cake – means too much baking powder, too hot an oven or you have not let the cake breathe( 🙂 or opened the door too often to keep checking)
  4. Badly cracked top – means too hot an oven, cake placed near the top or baking powder is not evenly distributed)
  5. Heavy texture of plain cakes – means we have been generous with our measurements of flour, sugar, baking powder. Or we have not pre heated the oven.
  6. Fruit sunk in the bottom – means the mixture was too flowy or we have not cut or dusted the fruits properly.
  7. If in sponge cake beating is not done properly then you get close and heavy texture
  8. Never take the cake out of the oven under a fan

Oh God, I can go on and on the list but let me not scare you. There is no rocket science in baking. With trial and error we all become perfect.  It is not about how it turned out but the whole process of doing it and who is relishing the cake. My son who is a darling will always praise the food you give him and relish each piece even if he does not like. His belief is that you should never discourage someone who take so much pain for you. There are days which may not be good.

Most important rule to follow is to have everything at room temperature and pre-heated oven. Rest all will follow its course.

Happy baking and enjoy the child in you!! (No pic this time! As I couldn’t burn my own cakes 🙂 )

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Quick Mix Cup Cakes

Cupcakes are every ones favorites these days . The way our little 7 year old princess describes it helps you to control you piece size so you will not grow fat. She loves making cupcakes and decorating with me. That is the only time we are fond of each other is while making cupcakes together. She follows me like a lovable puppy, ready to do anything for cupcakes. She motivated me to come up with a recipe that is easy for kids to make. It is called one bowl quick mix recipe. You can do any variations with flavors but you will not go wrong with it.

You will need

  • 2 eggs
  • 125 gm butter
  • ½ cup castor sugar
  • 125 self rising flour ( or 110 gm Plain flour+ ½ tsp BP)
  • Milk – 2-4 tbsp..
  • Vanilla essence – 1 tsp
  • Flavorings — u can add melted white chocolate or 1 tbsp coco powder or any essence or color to the flavor u want

Method-
All goes in a bowl and we beat it for 2 min and it is ready to be put in cupcake molds

Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 15- 20 min till firm to touch.

We had made chocolate cup cakes with coco powder in the it and then decided to give it a twist, Mom and daughter did some butter cream frosting as my little angel wanted to make them like a flower for her favorite aunt’s birthday surprise. So we mixed butter, vanilla essence, icing sugar with purple and orange marmalade. You can see how pretty they look.

They are instant hit with kids. You just need to get creative how to twist the base and frosting. All the best.

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Yummy Kebabs

Hailing from Lucknow , the city of nawabs how can I forget Tunday kababs!! People including me just can not stop eating at one. The original recipe is secret one but who says we cannot invent one!

With help of my Muslim maid of Lucknow we tried the various combinations of vegetarian versions of the same. So this time instead of talking of cakes and desserts let us try our hand at something very healthy and nutritious.

We came up with our style of lauki ke kabab.. a hit in our parties and forget kids even adults can not make out it is lauki.

Things that you will need

  • Channa dal ½ cup . Soak for ½ hour
  • One medium size lauki (bottle gourd) cut into pieces
  • Spices – 1 mota elaichi (black cardamom), 2 laung (clove), 1 stick dalchini (cinnamon), 1-green elachi (green cardamom), 1 tej patta (bay leaf), 1 star flower
  • Few pods of garlic, Grated ginger, One dry red chili
  • Salt and turmeric.

Pressure cook everything above with 1/2 cup water. Give it 2 whistles and then 15 min on slow flame. Pl note water should not be too much as lauki also leaves water.

Mash the mixture after it is cooled. If it is watery then please roast on slow flame to remove the excess water or otherwise we would need to increase quantity of bread or corn flour.

To this add two bread slices ground in the mixer, 1 tbsp Corn flour, finely chopped onion, dhaniya leaves, and green chillies. Add garam masala, jeera powder, redchilli powder, salt if needed, kasthuri methi.

Mix all and shape in the form of kababs. Shallow fry them on a flat pan (tawa).

Serve them hot with sprinkled chat masala, lemon juice, and onion slices and Green chutney.

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Chocolate Cake

Chocolate is the biggest discovery by the Central Americans (trying to sound informative!) which is very rare and everyone loves it. It just melts a bad mood, lifts your spirit and put you in happy mood. My mum’s chocolate cake was the most amazing cake she used to make. The first smell we used to get when coming back from school and we could only get a piece if we put our bags in place and have our lunch. It used to be given to us as treat. I still remember my mum’s first round oven which used to be there and we would keep peeping in to see how much the cake has risen. This is a basic recipe of chocolate cake which I think she got from the oven book and then improvised. I stole this recipe when I was 12 years and she had gone out and made it on my own:-)

So I guess it will be easy and can be done by non bakers.

Rule that I remember even now things should be at room temperature and oven should be preheated at 180 degrees.

You would need 1.5 cup maida and 1.5 tsp of Baking Powder and 5 tblsp of cocoa powder (replace one spoon with 2 spoons of grated chocolate if you want it more chocolaty).

Sift them together.

Beat ½ oil or 125 gm butter with 3 eggs.

Add the dry mixture to the butter bit. If the mixture is thick pl add milk. You will need more in winter. Typically up to ½ cup. Batter should be in flowing consistency.

Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 min or till the toothpick comes out clean.

My kids just love this cake till date and it is big hit. I made it for my sons first birthday and he just could not resist eating it.