Cake Design for Church's 3rd Anniversary

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Eggless cakes have never fascinated me.   But I always thought I should try my hands on it.  This is a recipe one of my colleague’s wives passed on in Sept 2009.  It took me 4 years to really make this, an ideal example of procrastination. I should have tried it long back as it is easy, simple and no ingredient fussy.  This is especially for my colleague Farea, as she is allergic to egg, and has been asking for Eggless cake recipe. And thanks to Joythi bhabhi for this recipe.

Ingredient

Maida – 1cup

Sugar powder/castor sugar – 1 cup
Curd – 1 cup
Coco powder – ¼ cup
Oil – ¼ cup ( I have used Rice Bran Oil but you can use any cooking oil which does not have flavor)
Vanilla essence – ½ tsp
Baking soda – ½ tsp (also known as metha soda in hindi and appakkaram in Malayalam)
Fresh cream – 1 tbsp

For Icing

Cooking chocolate – 100gm
Fresh cream – 3tbsp
Hundreds and thousands – to sprinkle on top

 Method

1.      Pre heat the oven at 120^oC

2.      Sieve together maida, coco powder and baking soda. And keep aside.

3.      With a hand blender mix together curd and sugar for a minute.

4.      Now add oil & vanilla essence and keep on mixing

5.      To this add the flour mixture and mix well.

6.      Pour the mixture in a greased and dusted baking tin.

7.      Bake at 120^oC for 40 min or till the knife come clean.

8.      Remove from the pan and let it cool

For Icing

1.      Mix the chocolate and cream in a pan

2.      In very low flame,  heat this mixture with continues steering.

3.      When it starts melting remove from the fire and keep steering.

4.      Pour this mixture immediately on the cake and spread evening.

5.      Sprinkle hundreds and thousands.

Hummus

Hummus is part of the Arabic Cuisine.  It’s a dip or spread made of chickpeas.  In the original recipe chickpeas are blended with tahini, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil.  Though tahini is a major component of Hummus, I am omitted it as I was not able to get it. Tahini is a form of roasted sesame seed paste,   I will try to make it again with home make sesame paste.  But as of now it is without tahini. This recipe should need a luxurious toss of virgin olive oil.

This dip was introduced to me by a friend of mine who is a major admirer of Lebanese food like falafel, Shawarma, pita bread etc., and hummus comes as add-ons with these.
    

The first time I tried to make, the major mistake I did was with the sourness of the dish. You have to be careful while putting lemon juice as sometimes it become sour and ruins the taste.  What I do now is to put the lemon juice little by little, mix and taste. It should have a tint of sourness (the beginning of sourness).

I make it once in a week and store it in the refrigerator.  Whenever my kids are hunger especially after they playing session, they just spread in on breads or rotis and have it.  This type of food comes very handy as a working mother.   Try making it once and I am sure it would be there always as an emergency dip in your refrigerator.
 

Ingredients

Chickpeas/chole  - 1 cup

Garlic – 5 pods
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Olive oil – 2 tbsp
Salt – as per taste
Black olive – few to garnish

Method

1.         Sock the chickpeas in water for 6 or 7 hrs. and boil till it is properly cooked ( pressure cook for 5 whistle).

2.         In a blender or mixer, blend boiled chickpea, garlic, 1 table spoon olive oil, lemon juice and salt to a paste.  

3.         Take this paste into a serving bowl, add the remaining oil and top it with olive oil.