Eggless Zebra Cake

Every year ,I bake a cake on V day for my kid & her class. Some years back ,I had baked eggless marble cake.

I have been trying to bake a zebra cake for long. I did try.The cakes were cakes with stripes all mixed up as both  batters would mix up .Obviously , because, they were water for this cake.

This time, I thought, I would be more careful.And yet, though the batters did mix up , the cake can be identified as striped, at least, on the outside.

Ingredients: 1/2 cup atta, 1/2 cup maida, 3/4 cup yoghurt, 1/3 cup applesauce, 2 tsp baking powder, 3 tsp milk powder ( optional ), 3tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/2 cup white ordinary sugar, 1/2 cup or more of water for adjusting batter consistency,1 /2 tsp salt.

Method : Pre  heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade .Meanwhile, start preparing the two batters.

I wanted to make one batter with maida , yoghurt & other ingredients. This is so that maida & yoghurt would give the white stripes.The other batter would be atta or whole wheat flour, apple sauce, cocoa, etc for brown stripes. And when I started mixing the dry ingredients, I erred.I mixed atta with yoghurt instead of maida & yoghurt.

White batter : Mix 1/2 cup atta , 1/4 cup white ordinary sugar,3 tsps milk powder , 1 tsp baking powder& 1/4 tsp salt.Mix these dry ingredients well many times over with fork or whisk.Make a well in the dry mix.Pour3/4 cup yoghurt & mix to form batter.My batter was not mixed with so much yogurt. So added water little by little.Got the white batter. By the time ,it had become slightly runny batter. Keep aside.

In another bowl ,mix cocoa powder, 1/2 cup maid,1 tsp baking powder, 1/4 cup  white sugar, 1/4tsp salt to get chocolate dry mix. Mix all nicely. Make a well in dry mix.Put the apple sauce into the well.Mix to make the chocolate batter. Add water drop by drop till a drop down consistency batter is obtained. Keep aside.

Line a baking dish with butter paper. With a spoon , add 1 tbsp of white batter in the centre of the baking dish.On the white batter which has started spreading on the bottom of baking dish, pour a tbsp of chocolate batter. Again on top of chocolate batter, add 1 tbsp of white batter.Keep repeating alternately with chocolate & white batter till both batters get over. My batters were little runny especailly, white batter.So ,I stopped before 2-3 tbsps of batters were left.

Bake the cake at 180 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I baked for 3 minutes .Then after wards, I baked in microwave mode for 2.5 minutes just to be on safe side so that cake is fully baked .Rather to ensure that it is fully baked.

Cut into desired shapes & serve.

My cake pictures will reveal that batters got mixed up & so stripes are not so visible.

Padhu's kitchen recipe says that 1/4 cup batter be put alternately .So stripes may be less & yet, the striped effect or zebra strikes would come out clearly.There are many such food blogs which show thsi recipe with step by step pictures.

Moreover, if I had mixed maida & yoghurt to get white batter instead of atta & yoghurt, the white stripes would have been more whiter.And atta with cocoa would have produced darker chocolate stripes.I used baking powder as baking powder hardly affects change in colour in baking.Baking soda will change colour from light shades to darker shades. this is to be kept in mind particularly for red velvet cup cakes.

Vegan chocolate cake.

I wanted to make a chocolate cake after my friend posted her vegan chocolate cake on whatsapp.Her recipe used warm water & vinegar.I googled & came across this vegan chocolate cake recipe using applesauce. I thought, this was a brilliant idea to sneak in an apple into the cake !

I have posted an eggless chocolate cake which was baked in microwave, earlier on the blog.

I made just an alteration or two & my cake turned out super ! Except that it hardly tasted sweet.Because ,I used jaggery sugar & white sugar in 1 :1 ratio.So , I sprinkled powdered sugar on the cake & then rubbed fingers all over the sprinkled sugar.so it looks as if it is smeared over the cake.

Ingredients : 1 cup whole wheat atta, 1 tbsp maida ( In the original recipe,there was corn starch .I googled to learn that corn starch could be replaced by flour, flax seed meal etal ) ,1/2 cup sugar ( I used part jaggery sugar & part white sugar  as jaggery sugar got over) , 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp Coffee powder, 1 tsp baking soda,1/3 cup apple sauce, 1/2 to 1  cup warm water ,a pinch of salt.

Method  Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

Meanwhile as oven pre heats, mix all dry ingredients that is whole wheat flour, maida,sugar, cocoa powder, coffee powder, 1 tsp baking soda & salt. Mix all ingredients many times over so that all are thoroughly mixed with each other. Keep aside.

Cut an apple into 4-5 pieces.Deseed them.Pressure cook to 1 whistle. Cool. Deskin the apple pieces & mash them up.This mashed up apple mix is unsweetened applesauce.

Make a well in the dry ingredients mix.Add the apple sauce & mix thoroughly.I found that applesauce was less. The batter was dry...in fact not all flour had got wet even.So , I warmed some water & added to dry ingredients applesauce mix till I got a cake batter. Add water drop by drop or rather spoonful by spoonful.Add water carefully so that the batter does not get runny. If apple sauce amount is enough for cake batter , then ,there is no need to add warm water. Cake batter must have idli batter like consistency.

Take a bake able dish & line the insides of the dish with butter paper. Pour the batter into the vessel on the butter paper. Bake in oven at 180 degrees centigrade for 30-40 minutes. My cake was baked in 30 minutes.

Do the toothpick test. If toothpick comes out wet, bake in microwave mode for 2 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes.Take out the cake & cool outside oven for 15-20 minutes. Cut into desired shapes & serve.

My cake was not sweet at all....so please add more sugar.If adding white sugar, maybe a little more than 1/2 cup sugar would suffice.In case brown sugar or jaggery sugar is used, 3/4 cup sugar may be needed. I think ,even amount of coffee powder should be reduced .Maybe 1/4 tsp coffee powder can be used. Coffee powder can be skipped as some recipes use it & some recipes don't.

Easy cutlets

Leftover bread pieces, leftover bread sides , leftover potato curry can be transformed into cutlets for morning breakfasts.This is very easy & filling as well !As the bread gets older , cutlets get better ! Dry breads make for better cutlets, in short ! This is called upcycling of leftovers !

Ingredients : 1-2 boiled medium sized boiled potatoes ,2 medium carrots, a few kadi pattas ( curry leaves), 1 tbsp finely chopped hara dhania, 2 -4 slices of brown bread ( even white bread is fine ), 1 tsp garted ginger, 1 tsp flax seed powder ( optional ),1 tsp finely chopped green chillies ( or use 1 tsp red chilli powder), 1 tbsp lemon juice ( in summers,1 tsp grated raw mango can be used ),1/4 tsp turmeric,1/4 tsp hing, 2 tbsp oil,salt to taste.


Method : Clean & grate the carrots.Keep aside.Finely chop the kadi pattas after washing them.Mix them with the grated carrots,grated ginger ,chopped green chillies & chopped coriander.Keep aside.


Meanwhile crumble the bread slices into fine grainy powder in mixer.Roughly cut green chillies,kadi pattas ,coriander can be added to this in the mixer along with roughly broken bread slices to get an evenly mixed bread chilli-coriander-kadi patta mix !

Mix this bread crumble with grated carrots-chilli-coriander-kadi patta mix.Add salt ,lemon juice ( or grated raw mango ) ,flax seed powder,haldi & hing.Mix nicely.Keep aside. Peel the boiled potatoes  & mash them..Mix the mashed potatoes  with the bread carrot mix.Knead nicely all mix into a dough.Add a little water if you feel it is too dry.I did not add any water.

Grease palms with little oil & take a small amount of dough & pat it into a circular shape like a pedha though a bigger pedha.Repeat with the remaining dough & make circular pedhas.I made some 12 pedhas with the dough.

Warm a tawa on the gas.Smear the tawa with oil.Transfer the pedhas 5-6 at a time on to the tawa.Cover with lid.Let it cook for 5 minutes.Uncover & flip the pedhas over .They will have browned on the bottoms.Cover & cook for 2-3 minutes.Take them off from the tawa. They should have burned  brown a little or turned golden brown on the other side as well.If not ,cook for a minute more.

Serve with chutni or tomato ketchup.....In fact, they are so yummy that they can be eaten just like that ! 

If grated beetroot is added , the cutlets will be dark pink ......

Strawberry rasgullas.

I have made strawberry rasgullas before .And did not post the recipe as the colour was wanting in the rasgullas.This time also , the colour is still lacking .And yet , I am posting this recipe. I tried many times .Just couldn't get the vibrant colours , other food bloggers got for their strawberry rasgullas. I have used fresh strawberries.

Ingredients : 1/ 2 litre milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 10 strawberries, ghee for greasing hands for making chenna balls 1 lemon cut into two pieces,1-2 cups water.

Method : Bring 0.5 litres milk to a boil,Squeeze lemon juice onto the boiled milk.It will start curdling.Add more lemon juice & the whey will separate from the milk .At last, clear water & whey will seperate. In a thin cloth, strain the ingredients.The milk solids will get retained in the cloth. The water can be collected in a vessel & used for making chapati dough.It can be added to cook rice as well as it is protein rich.

Wash the milk solids thus collected under tap water for 4-5 minutes. Squeeze out all water from the milk solids by holding all corners of the cotton cloth. Keep a weight on the cloth containing milk solids so that remanent water is squeezed out by the weight .Keep aside for 25-30 minutes.

Meanwhile in a wide vessel ,add 1 cup water.Add sugar.Make a puree of 8 strawberries.Pour this puree in the water. Chop remaining strawberries & put them in water. Bring this water to a boil.Put off gas.

Take the milk solids from the cloth.Make a smooth dough with the chenna ( milk solids collected in cloth )  by kneading for 10 minutes Apply a little ghee to palms & make chenna balls.I got 15 balls of the size of marbles. Drop these chenna balls into the sugar strawberry syrup.I added 1 more cup water to the syrup as the chenna balls had not drowned completely.Pressure cook the drowned chenna balls in sugar strawberry syrup till first whistle.Slow down the gas.Cook on slow flame for 10 minutes.Put off gas. Let the cooker cool.Remove whistle.Remove lid. The strawberry rasgullas are ready ! Refrigerate the rasgullas before serving !

Though ,I followed the recipe by Priya , the colour of rasgullas by me is nowhere near her  strawberry rasgullas.

Sangeeta Khanna says that some colours get absorbed & not all.I agree for obvious reasons. Moreover, my syrup is unclear or rather foggy. I loved the taste though ! My mom said they were less sweet ...for me that was a sign of weaning myself away from sugar.