No Butter, No Flour, No Egg and Yet a Cake!!

A friend made a food wish, an eggless cake please!! A simple request from a perfect hostess living in England; I had to take it up. She said, any eggless cake I had, never tastes as good. I agree; the fluffy airy texture of a beaten egg in a cake is what cakes are famous for. Can you substitute it? I think not!! And hence I suggest lets create a cake where there is no substitution involved!! So here is a classic goan recipe of a semolina based cake. The feel, aroma and texture, all of it is different. And hence, without substituting anything in any of your favourite recipe, you get a wonderful dessert for that ‘jain’ guest, who is about to visit!!

Now before you delve into the making of this cake, let me give you a bit of a heads up. Semolina/durum wheat is by nature heavier than flour. So obviously to make it softer, desserty kinds, you can either put in an astronomical amount oil/butter or, take out some time to soak these grains. Semolina porridge is an example of the first technique while this recipe is an example of the second. So, no oil, no flour and no eggs involved!!

Ingredients:

3 Ripe bananas (big) or as I used, 9 of the mini ones

1 cup semolina (wheat sooji/rava)

1 tsp Sodium-bi-carbonate (baking soda)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp Cardamom powder

2 cups Coconut milk

1/2 cup Sugar

1/2 cup Cashew nuts

A pinch of salt

Method:

Dry roast semolina over low heat in a wok until aroma wafts off. Then soak that rava in coconut milk for 2 hours.

Meanwhile mash the bananas well and add soda, salt, sugar and cardamom powder to it. Let it sit out so that the sugar gets a bit of time to loosen up.

After 2 hrs, mix all of them together and put in the cashews.

Oil the cake mould and pour in the mixture. You can decorate with cashews on top. As the cake doesn’t have anything which will fluff it, the nuts on top will show and get roasted beautifully in the oven.

Preheat the oven and bake for around 40-45 mins at 220 degrees c or until a knife put in centre comes out clean. The cake will be a little difficult to bake as the stubborn rava does take a little more time to cook than your usual cake. Remember to always check for doneness, right at the centre. Once done, let it cool.

Decoration tip: slice off the cake from the middle a spread over a big dollop of strawberry crush or any other fruit crush. It tastes best when served cold!!

Cheers!!

Orange Kissed Marmalade Bars!!

I don’t know what it is with me and the plain old freshly milled chapatti (Indian flat bread) flour. I remember in my childhood days when my mother would laboriously get the wheat kernels from the market, wash it, dry it in the huge balconies and then take it to the nearby milling shop to get it milled. She would wait till the time it’s milled to her liking and get it back at home to make fresh hot chapatti, a staple in our everyday food. Huge process!! I can’t be bothered so much. I simply just give the neighbourhood milling shop a call and get a freshly milled, warm pack of whole wheat flour at home. I am not against the ready-made packs available in the market, but really; I have never tried them, nor do I recommend using them. Anything fresh is always more beautiful and rather tasty!!

This cookie is a great way of making a filling snack for in between of bigger meals. The whole wheat flour adds on the fibre, with a fruity dose from the Kissan Real fruit Marmalade Jam.  This is my take on the various cream/jam filled biscuits available in the market. Why buy when you can make them using simple everyday ingredients???

Ingredients:

½ cup of Unsalted Butter

½ cup Vegetable Oil
2 Cup of Whole Wheat Flour
1 Egg
½ cup of Granulated White Sugar
½ tsp of Salt
2 tsp of Baking Soda
1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
Zest of 1 of an orange
½ to 2/3 cup Kissan Orange Marmalade Jam

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and line a 9X9 inch baking pan with butter paper and set it aside for use.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, oil and sugar, till it’s light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and orange zest and mix in until well combined.

Quickly with a wire whisk, mix together the dry ingredients, namely whole-wheat flour, salt and baking soda; before mixing it with the wet mix of butter, egg and sugar. It should form a pliable ball of dough.

Press 2/3 of the batter into your prepared pan evenly. Now smear on Kissan Orange Marmalade Jam all over; then crumble on the remaining dough on top. You can choose to be as messy or as precise as you wish to. Remember to leave a bit of room between the top crumbs for the jam to peek through the cookie dough.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and crisp on top.

Allow it to cool completely, before cutting into mini bars as per your liking.

Cheers!!