My first Cake!

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I made a cake! Well, I won't say making "a cake" was a "cake-walk" for me because it was the first time I tried my hands at cooking or baking. Although, the cake tasted wonderful taking into consideration that a first-timer made it, even my Dad who don't like cakes ate two slices! I sweated out in kitchen for two-hours just to make the cake-batter. At a certain point, when the dry ingredients were to be mixed with the wet ingredients, I messed up but, thank goodness the cake turned out to be fluffy and dense. I'm a vegan, hence I had to research a lot to find an eggless cake recipe worth making. Have a look the pictures of the cake below and the recipe too (Don't worry, my blog isn't going to turn into a Baking Blog).....

I was pretty tensed before baking, whether the cake would rise?

Woah! I was jumping with joy at the sight of my cake done. Well the cake cracked at the bottom as I inserted the knife too deep!

Cake, ready to eat!

Basic Vanilla Cooker Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup Refined Flour (Maida)

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Soda Bi-carbonate

100gm Curd

100gm Butter

2-3 drops Vanilla Essence

1/2 cup Milk

3/4 cup Castor sugar 

1 tsp Cocoa Powder*

Procedure:

1. In a mixing bowl sift all dry ingredients; Refined Flour, Baking Powder, Soda Bi-carbonate and Castor Sugar.

2. In an another bowl, beat 100gm butter at room temperature and curd until they come together. Use softened butter which is at room temperature for ease (I learned it the hard way, I added chilled butter and it was very cumbersome to beat the butter together with curd).

3. Now, in the wet mix (butter and curd) slowly add the dry mix (Refined Flour, Baking Powder, Soda Bi-carbonate and Castor Sugar) with a little milk at a time. 

4. When the batter gets incorporated, add vanilla essence to the batter.

5. If using a pressure cooker like me, fill 1/4th of the  pressure cooker with sand and let the sand warm up for at least 5mins. If you are using an oven, preheat the oven at 180C for 10mins. 

4. Line a cake pan with butter and Refined Flour and pour the batter into it. 

5. Put the cake to bake, your cake is done when a knife inserted into it comes out clean (Sorry, I didn't paid any attention to the time while my cake was baking)

6. Voila, it's done. You can have it as it is, or decorate it with some icing sugar and tutti-fruits as I did.   

*I used Cocoa Powder in the Vanilla Cake just for a lovely brown colour.

Note: I used a 250ml cup to measure my ingredients. You can add some more curd if you like your cake too spongy. Also, the quantity of milk can be adjusted as per your preference.

Source: Adapted form the MasterChef India 2 Zaykebazon ka Safar's recipe.