"My kids school is all about vegetarian home cooked food, so every birthday for the past 14 years I have been baking this eggless cake. I still remember the desperate hunt those many years ago for an easy, moist, dependable, eggless chocolate cake. A prolific cook in the family provided the genesis of this recipe, which over the years has been honed to deliciousness. It's also the most shared recipe in the our school circuit, a recent ask has pushed me to publish this one ..."
Ingredients:
- 3 cups flour
- 2 cups castor sugar
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 3 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 cups milk
- 4 tbsp vinegar
- 1 cup oil
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 tsp powdered nutmeg/cinnamon (optional)
- 1 lime (juice)
Method:
- Pre heat oven at 160 degrees centigrade
- Take a baking tin of 9" x 13" or similar size and oil the tin well (works really well in a bundt or ring tin with same volume)
- Take 1 tbsp of flour and sprinkle it over the oiled tin making sure it is well covered, remove any excess flour by inverting tin
- Warm milk, add the vinegar and let the mixture curdle, takes about 10 minutes
- Mix all dry ingredients - flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda,salt and baking powder in a bowl
- Add the wet ingredients- curdled milk,oil and vanilla essence to the flour mixture
- Beat with an electric beater till just mixed (mixture will be thick and sticky, do not over beat)
- Add the lime juice and beat only once, pour into prepared cake tin
- Bake in pre-heated oven for about 40 minutes or till done (a toothpick inserted in the center should be clean)
Notes :
- This recipe, makes approximately 1 kg cake and is very versatile with many additions possible
- For extra moistness, take the cake out of tin after half hour, makes holes all over with toothpick or spaghetti and pour a chocolate or salted caramel sauce all over
- Any other additions, like chocolate chips etc., all to be coated in flour before mixing in batter
- Cover the totally cooled cake with chocolate ganache and decorate for a birthday version
