Friday, March 09, 2007

Eggless carrot cake

I do believe I'm beginning to get rather fond of my eggless baking book! Another ridiculously easy cake that tastes wonderful - can you believe there's no beating or creaming or any such hard work involved? It's a one-step cake. Basically, get all the ingredients together, mix 'em and shove into the oven for about 40 minutes.

As is usually the case, I did make a few changes to the original recipe to make the cake more "Indian" tasting - with an added tip remembered from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook. Basically, to substitute some of the butter with 2 tbsp ghee for that carrot halwa taste without having to suffer the smell of cooking carrots.

For certain my mother's enjoying my baking efforts. For all that she moans that she'll put on all the weight she lost in India (by being unwell), it doesnt stop her from "sampling" my eggless cakes. I'm going to try and make as many from the book as possible while she's here... and eventually see if I cant adapt other cake recipes to be egg-free. It's going to be a slow journey but who cares!

The next thing I'd like to try is a pressure cooker cake, suggested by Vijayalaxmi Hegde in a comment on my previous post. I know there are some Chinese-style pressure cooker cake recipes around, but those arent what I want to try just yet.

Anyway, for now here's how to make my spicy eggless carrot cake.

Recipe for:
Carrot cake




Ingredients:

1 heaped cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp soft butter (I used 2 tbsp ghee and 2 tbsp butter)
1-1/2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup yogurt
1/4 cup chopped nuts - I used pistachios and pecans
1/4 cup sultanas
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
a large pinch of cardamom powder

Method:

1. Grease a 6" square pan. Preheat the oven to 180C(350F).

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a big bowl.

3. Add the ghee/butter



yogurt



and sugar



and mix. The batter will be quite thick at this point.



4. Add the grated carrots, ginger, spices, nuts and sultanas.



5. Mix well. The moisture from the carrots should make the batter a little loose, but if it seems still too thick, add a little more yogurt and mix again.



6. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a wet spatula or with your hand.



7. Bake at 180C for 40 minutes or till the cake tests done. Let the cake remain in the pan for 10 minutes.



8. Loosen the cake from the sides of the pan, if required, and turn out onto a wire rack to cool.



9. Cut into squares or rectangles when cool. Store in an airtight tin.

42 comments:

Terri the terrific said...

shammi, this one has my name written all over it! And it's just in time too, because the orange cake's all gone ... even the crubs licked clean. Thank you for the recipe; I've been thinking of that eggless cookbook of yours all week.

Anonymous said...

Hi Shammi..I cant wait for u to try all the eggless cake recipes! Curious to know if Vijaylakshmi wasnt probably referring to cakes 'baked' in a pressure cooker, coz I dont have an oven either & thats how I bake em.
Waitin for the next piece of cakey goodness :)

Vijayalaxmi Hegde said...

Yes yes Shvetha, that is what i was referring to. And shyamala, thanks for thinkin about it. am banking on you :)

Lakshmik said...

Hi Shammi

Wow, another eggless cake. I am going to try this one. BTW, I tried your eggless maple pecan cake from taste goblet's blog. And it is the best cake I ever had. Thanks for the recipe.

Anonymous said...

Terri: Hope you like this one as much. :)

Shvetha: I've been looking for recipes that steam-cook the cake as well as those that use a pressure cooker dry to create an oven-effect.

Vijayalaxmi: Wow, now I'm feeling the pressure! :D

Lakshmik: Glad you liked the maple-pecan cake! I certainly did.

Priya said...

Carrot cake is one of my favorite's and I have a bag full of fresh carrots in my fridge rite now. I'm going to try the recipe this weekend :-) Thank you !

Swapna said...

Looks like we both have been baking carrot cake at the same time:-)..Liked ur eggless version with all the dry fruits
Swaps

Anonymous said...

mmm....more divine-looking eggless cake recipes...have I told you you are my inspiration?! *grin*
Thanks so much for sharing Shammi and I can't wait to try out both this carrot cake and that amazing/sinful-looking orange cake. Will keep you posted on the results...

although I can't possibly imagine anything going wrong, what with recipes and photos like these... =)

Thanks again!!

Anonymous said...

i just saw this recipe other day and tried it out y'day itself. All of us loved it ! This cake is simple and very easy to make too. Thank you so much for posting the recipe.
Kavitha

Anonymous said...

Priya: Do let me know how it comes out :)

Swapna: Saw your carrot cake on your blog too! :)

Tastegoblet: Thankyou thankyou. :) But to tell the truth, YOU are the latest addition to my baking inspirations - your cakes and cookies look amazing! Bet they taste amazing too.

Kavitha: Really glad you tried the carrot cake - even gladder that you liked it :)

Anonymous said...

Dear Shyam, Great to have a recipe for a carrot cake without eggs. Sounds like a good way to cook since you speak of just mixing all the ingredients and putting them in the oven. The spiciness of the ginger and nutmeg in the cake makes it quite unique.

Kay said...

wow!!! my favorite cake and you make it seem so simple!

:)

have you tried eating this with vanilla icecream? :)

Anonymous said...

I think this recipe is one of "THE" best one's. With pics attached to each step is just an added asset for a first time baker like me. Keep up the excellent work! Kudos shyam.
Thanks
Rama

Anonymous said...

Pritya: Yep, I was a bit doubtful about the ginger, but it works very well with the other flavours.

Kay: How nice to see you here after so long! This cake IS simple... I dont do complicated. :) Havent tried with vanilla iceream, no. But I'm not sure how good it would be with icecream - it's not a gooey cake, more a lunch-box type, with a firm texture. :)

Rama: Thanks! I like to take step-by-step pix when I can. :) And I like recipes that are simple but turn out great cakes.

Unknown said...

Hi Shyamala,

I tried your carrot cake recipe and its awesome! However I wanted to know a cup is small or a big one?
I used rice cooker cup for measurement which is small so my cake was not as thick as shown in the picture (I am first time baker!)

Thanks for your nice recipe!

Rashmi

Shammi said...

Hi Rashmi

Your rice cooker cup would have been way too small. When I say "one cup" I mean the standard measure which is about 225 grams or 8 ounces (or 16 tablespoons). Hope this helps.

Anonymous said...

Shammi, thanks for this great recipe. My wife runs cake shop in Brampton (website: http://www.vegcakes.com) and all her cakes are eggless. She tried your recipe and she really loved it. Thanks...

MAA said...

Thanks for a wonderful receipe. Mine tasted like Gajjar ka Halwa, albeit a westenised version. For a rank beginer who didn't bake, finding such eggless receipes is a boon. Keep up the good work....

Laksh said...

Shyamala, I was searching for eggless carrot cakes and landed on your page. I made it for one of the get togethers yesterday and it was a super duper hit. Thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Your recipe looks really nice. I had stumbled on an eggless date cake recipe too and that was equally good. I want to know why we use yoghurt and not milk?? Your cake is a curious mixture of aromas like nutmeg, ginger...waiting to try it soooon...Thanks

Sujatha said...

Hi,

I tried your recipe. The taste was great! Though I made a mistake and didn't use regular maida/white flour for the recipe. I used bread flour, which made the cake a little dry. But a good lesson for me to remember.

Sujatha said...

One more thing I forgot to mention is, I put a piece in the microwave for 30 seconds after a few days of being in the fridge. It was soooo good.

Anonymous said...

Hi Shammi, Can u or anyone lease post what AP Flour is?? Thank u so much.
Nilu

Shammi said...

Nilu: AP flour = all-purpose flour or maida

Yamini Kaur said...

Hi,

I tried this recipe and the cake tasted absolutely yummy. My only issue was that I couldn't cut neat slices out of it. When I started to cut, it kept breaking and crumbling.

The skewer came out clean at the end of 40 minutes, should I have baked it some more ?

I used the recipe as is, except I skipped the ginger (my daughter doesn't like it) and I added just 2 spoons of yogurt in the end when I thought the batter was too thick.

Please advise.

Thanks,
Yamini

soybeanlover said...

Thank you so much for this delicious recipe! My son is allergic to eggs, and this is a great tasting cake we all love and can share! I'm making it again for his birthday tomorrow. Thanks again for sharing! (Yeah for google too)

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much! I am deathly allergic to eggs and am not sure yet if my son is so this is the perfect solution for his 2nd birthday cake.

Anonymous said...

Can someone tell me how to bake in a pressure cooker? I am not familiar with the concept.

Anonymous said...

I tried this cake and it came out well.Perfect receipe for an eggless cake.Thanks

Priya

mummyjaan said...

Hi. I made carrot cake using this recipe and it turned out great. I made 2 substitutions to turn this into an eggless AND dairy-free cake: used soya cream instead of yoghurt, and a butter substitute made from vegetable oils that I got from Tesco.

Will be trying out the other eggless recipes on this blog too.

Thank you for sharing.

Anonymous said...

I was googling for an eggless carrot cake n thats how I stumbled onto ur blog...just finished baking it and it has turned out really really scrumptious..we are already halfway thru' it :-D I did tweak it a little bit by adding some orange juice and replacing cardomom with cinnamon...and I got my wish! Thank you so much...I cannot wait now to try out ur other recipes..ur apple sponge looks way too tempting...hmmm, maybe once this one is all gone.:-D

Anonymous said...

Hi Shammi

Love the web site

I have 3 questions to ask
1 what is AP flour?
2 How much is a cup?
3 what was the beef curry we ate on New Years Eve?

Thanks

Kerry

HP said...

Hi Shyamala,

This recipe is awesome. I am vegetarian so no eggs at all and I really find baking difficult. This cake has been such a hit with my family and people at the office think I'm the best baker ever! I used a cottage cheese icing and pecan nuts on top.

Ana said...

I have also found this recipe via google and I got cracking and just made this cake, but including cinammon and subtracting a few other ingredients. It's downstairs cooling and will wait to try it. Thank you so much! :)

Aparna S Mallya said...

thanks fr the recipe. tried this last week. it was delish!

Anonymous said...

I forget to get eggs on my home, so when I found this through google, it was perfect. I skipped all the add-ins and spices to make it picky kid friendly. It's really moist and light. Very good! Thanks.

kalyani said...

hi ... thats a real nice eggless version I am almost dying to bake for my little one.... however, need ur help - my microwave although available with micro+grill+convection options does not have the convenience of preheating or setting the temperature.. how do I go about this?? and what is the procedure in case I need to get this done with a pressure cooker! Pls do write in...thnx in advance

Anonymous said...

How much is 1 cup? I saw on the net it says 125 gms in metric measure but you have mentioned elsewhere it is 225 gms, can you clarify? I want to make this cake, it looks good and seems easy enough.
Thanks

Anonymous said...

I'm vegetarian and also don't eat eggs and can cook indian food alright but am hopeless at baking. I was looking up eggless recipes and came across your blog and now i'm hooked =) - i've now made the carrot cake and ur triple chocolate muffins and tonight i'm going to try browned butter apple cake. thanks soo much your recipes are great - i'll make these desserts for a long time to come =)

Anonymous said...

hi ,
can anybody tell me what is ap flour?

The Phoenix said...

hello..this was an awesome recipe..had a sweet craving- did this..and wow..the apt now smells of the spices!! :) absolutely delish!

SouthindianHome said...

Shyamala,

I tried this recipe and it turned out great. Thanks for sharing

Have posted it in my blog
http://southindianhome.blogspot.com/2011/03/eggless-carrot-cake.html