Eggless Baking: Chocolate Walnut Cake

My Microwave Convection oven is back after some repair work and I have been earnestly trying to make up for time lost not baking. The baking spree is also on to test if my oven has really got back to good working condition.... stress testing it :) 

This recipe is from Divya Kudua's Easy Cooking - Eggless Chocolate Walnut cake. I am writing down the ingredients and procedure down here for any direct reference. There is a difference in temperature setting I used from the blog I referred to. 

Ingredients

Flour - 1 cup

Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup (I used Cadbury's Cocoa powder) 

Instant coffee powder - 1 tsp (used BRU instant coffee powder) 

Thick curd(homemade) - 1 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup (this quantity yields sufficiently sweet cake, just perfect)

Baking powder - 1 1/4 tsp

Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

Oil - 1/2 cup

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp

Chopped Walnuts - 1/2 cup (tossed them in sugar)

Chocolate vermicelli - 2 tbsp (these are also like choco chips, but slender and rod shaped) 

Method

1. In a mixing bowl,beat together - sugar and curd till creamy. Mix in baking powder,baking soda and vanilla essence,beat well at low speed in electrical hand mixer. Let it rest for a couple of minutes till bubbles appear. 

2. Beat in oil into this at the same speed for a minute. 

3. Sift together flour,cocoa powder and coffee powder and keep aside. 

If the coffee powder is not powdery (happens that Bru gets sticky and solid quite fast), then beat it along with the other ingredients in step 1. 

4. Add the flour mix to beaten wet ingredients and fold in using a spatula to form a smooth batter  without any lumps. 
5. Prepare a tin, I used a 6 inch square tin, first rub on its sides and bottom little unsalted butter (softened) and once the greasing is done, dust little flour on sides and bottom. 

6. Pour the cake batter into the tin and top it with chopped walnuts and give a generous dash of chocolate vermicelli. 

7. Preheat the oven to 180'C and then bake the cake for 45 minutes (use a knife, check if it comes out clean to confirm end of baking) 

8. Cool the cake completely after baking, if baked well, you can invert it intact and I was lucky to get a perfect, well baked cake. The cake is one awesome thing to eat and relish and will surely vanish in a jiffy. 

A closer look at the cake 

Step 1 is very important for a fluffy cake, beat sugar and curd well along with baking powder and baking soda (I used my NOVA electric hand mixer at low speed for a minute) and let is rest for a while till bubbles appear. Step 4 is also important, take care to fold in the flour slowly using a spatula and check there are no lumps.



Not that I intended to bake this cake for any special reason, but Chennai Super Kings clinched a marvelous win that evening against Royal Challengers Bangalore, chasing the second highest total ever in IPL. Many thanks to Divya Kudua of Easy Cooking blog for sharing the recipe for such a delectable cake.