Eggless Chocolate Cupcake

After making the vanilla cupcakes, i wanted to try my hand at chocolate, and see if I could make that work (this time at least!) with the new recipe. It worked!! So here goes:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Maida/All purpose flour (apf)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened chocolate powder (i prefer Hershey’s, you can use any other brand, but the taste may be slightly different)
• 1.25 cup thick curd
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cooking oil (except olive oil)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp soda bi-carb
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven @ 210 deg C / 400 deg F
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the curd and sugar until the sugar has completely dissolved.
• Add in the baking powder and soda bi-carb and let it rest. the mixture will start to “bubble” in 2-3 minutes
• Sieve the maida/apf and chocolate powder together and set aside
• Add oil and essence to the curd-sugar mixture and mix well.
• Gently add the flour and mix thoroughly to avoid clumps
• The mixture should now be in dropping consistency, else add a bit of curds.
• Grease your baking dish/cupcake moulds with oil and lightly dust with maida/apf
• Pour into the baking dish of choice and place in oven
• Bake for 10 minutes
• Lower the temperature to 150 deg C/ 300 deg F and bake for ~18 minutes at the lowered temperature.
• Test the cake by inserting a toothpick into the center. When pulled out, it should be clean, without cake stuck to it.
• Visually, the top should be lightly browned and formed a “crust”
• Let the cake sit for a few minutes in the dish before removing it.
• Let the cake rest on a wire grill to cool. Let it cool to room temperature before cutting.

I hope you enjoy making this quick and light cake!

Eggless Vanilla Spongecake

I’ve been experimenting with quite a few recipes to finally get this one right. This recipe can be modified into a regular cake, or cup-cakes. The time taken to bake is slightly different, but all else is the same!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups Maida/All purpose flour (apf)
• 1 cup thick curd
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cooking oil (except olive oil)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp soda bi-carb
• 1 tsp vanilla essense (or butterscotch)

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven @ 210 deg C / 400 deg F
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the curd and sugar until the sugar has completely dissolved. You can use castor sugar, but the amount to be used may vary.
• Add in the baking powder and soda bi-carb and let it rest. the mixture will start to “bubble” in 2-3 minutes
• Sieve the maida/apf and set aside
• Add oil and essence to the curd-sugar mixture and mix well.
• Gently add the flour and mix thoroughly to avoid clumps
• The mixture should now be in dropping consistency, else add a bit of curds.
• Grease your baking dish with oil and lightly dust with maida/apf
• Pour into the baking dish of choice and place in oven
• Bake for 10 minutes
• Lower the temperature to 150 deg C/ 300 deg F and bake for 35 minutes
  • For cupcakes bake for 25 minutes at the lowered temperature.
• Test the cake by inserting a toothpick into the center. When pulled out, it should be clean, without cake stuck to it.
• Visually, the top should be lightly browned and formed a “crust”
• Let the cake sit for a few minutes in the dish before removing it.
• Let the cake rest on a wire grill to cool. Let it cool to room temperature before cutting.

I hope you enjoy making this quick and light cake!

Uggani

This is a breakfast/snack dish that I learnt from my SIL. Her family is from the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, and this is a very typical dish from that region. Typically Uggani is served with mirchi bajji. However, both dishes can be had independently of each other too.

Ingredients:

• Borugolu or murmaralu – 250gms
• green chillies – 2
• 1 onion chopped finely
  1 finely chopped tomato (preferably naati/local tomato rather than hybrid)
• roasted peanuts
• senega pappu podi (can be replaced with desiccated coconut and putanalu pappu)
• turmeric – 1 pinch
• salt to taste
  Tadka:
• aavalu (mustard ), minapappu (urad dal), senega pappu (chana dal), curry leaves

Method:

• In a large bowl, soak the borugulu for a minute, squeeze the water out hard and set aside.
• In a wok, heat a 1 tbsp oil and add the tadka.
• once the tadka starts to sputter, add the onion and fry till it turns translucent.
• add in the tomato and chopped green chillies, and braise till the tomato has completely mingled with the tadka and onion.
• add the salt, roasted peanuts, senega pappu podi and turmeric powder, and mix well.
• Finally add the borugulu and mix well.
• let it cook for a minute and take off the flame.
• garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot.

You can serve the uggani with mirchi bajjis as a side. Or it can be had by itself as a snack.