Simple Homemade Cake (Delights of blogging)

See? I am back, just like I promised. Ok, maybe three weeks is a bit late, but for someone who did not blog for a whole year, three weeks is a good time. So you have to credit me with that. And yes, I do remember saying that my next post would feature Chocolate Squares. I will be sharing those with you as well, but just on a later date. Why?  Well let's just say that I am in the mood for cake. :) Boy, I am I in the mood for cake ! I have gone cake crazy in the last couple of weeks you could say. Let me tell you why.

For a long time now I did not have a good functioning oven. The one that I did have drove me mad. Its thermostat conked off and I became  aware of this  only when its temperature soared so much that the handle on the door of the oven melted and fell off. Can you beat that? Have you ever heard of anything like that?  So for a long time baking came to a standstill. But then out of the blue my mom asked me if I needed a oven. She had one that my sis left behind when she moved to the States. It is a well used oven, but it works just fine and now it's mine. I am so thrilled. So I have been baking, inspite of the hot weather. I even took a cake as a present for my niece, when I went to wish her All the Best for her 10th Std board exams. I love gifting homemade cakes. There is something just so special about it.

I will admit though that all my cakes are plain cakes. I do not go for fancy frostings or any kind of toppings. My family too loves the plain ones best. Now this one I have for you, is the first one I made last week. I have posted this under my Delights of Blogging category. This is a category I have for food that I have tried  from another blog. This simple but yummy looking eggless cake (yes!! it is eggless) had caught my attention ages ago and was sitting in my favourites list for God knows how long. I have so often been asked for a good eggless cake recipe so I have tried a few recipes in the past, but unfortunately the cakes that came out were not so good.  So much so, that I had begun thinking that a good eggless homemade cake is a myth. But then I saw this cake on Divine Taste a blog that I follow and I had to try it out. It looked amazing and I couldn't believe it was eggless.Thanks to Anushruti, who runs this lovely blog with the most awesome food and pics.

So here's how to go about it. I followed Anushruti's recipe verbatim.

Ingredients:

250 gm plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda/ sodium bicarbonate

1 tin/400gm sweetened condensed milk

100 gm butter melted

175 ml milk

2 tsp good quality vanilla extract/ or vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat the oven at about 100 to 120 degrees centigrade
2. Grease and dust bottom of an 8” square or 9” round cake tin.
3. In a mixing bowl, assemble the flour, baking powder and baking soda, mix with a spoon and sieve once to make the mixture uniform.
4. Put in the condensed milk, melted butter, vanilla essence and milk into the mixing bowl containing the dry ingredients.
5. Beat with an electric hand mixer, whisk or spoon until the mixture comes together and there are no lumps. This shouldn’t take more than a minute with an electric hand mixer/beater. Be careful not to over beat the mixture as this could result into a dry cake.
6. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for an hour at 150 degree centigrade. Since this is an eggless cake, you might find the batter on the looser side, but not to worry, as it comes out alright, soft and spongy out of the oven.
7. The cake is done when a knife or cake tester comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake.
8. Leave the hot cake in the tin for a little while, till it cools down slightly. Inverting a very hot cake is not a good idea. This could break the cake.
9. Once it has cooled down a bit, invert it onto a cooling rack  and let it cool further.

Now you could enjoy it just like that with a cup of tea or coffee or, you could cut the cake horizontally and sandwich the two layers with jam. Sprinkle some icing sugar on top and viola you have a fancy Victoria Sponge Cake on your hand. Or you could apply jam to the top surface of the cake and sprinkle dessicated coconut on it. The possibilities as they are endless.

ENJOY!!!