Vegan Banana Bread – the only recipe you’ll ever need

This Vegan Banana Bread recipe is a simple, one bowl recipe which results in a moist, spongy and delicious Banana Bread.

I’ve always had a fondness for baking and it’s been this way ever since I can remember. However, when I decided to embrace more of a plant-based diet, a lot of my go-to baking recipes couldn’t be used and needed to be altered. You may have noticed that I haven’t shared very many plant-based cake or cookie recipes yet. I’ve been working on my recipes to make sure that they are just as good as the more conventional recipes, if not better.

So for the first of many, I’m going to share my Vegan Banana Bread recipe with you today. This is one EPIC recipe. And I’m not just saying that. Everything comes together in one bowl, no fancy equipment or gadgets needed and you end up with a loaf of banana bread that is ‘to-die-for’. My husband and I were totally amazed by this recipe.

In the past, I’ve tried a number of banana bread recipes (remember this one or this one), but I think this one beats them all. For a recipe that is so simple, the rewards are pretty great.


Start of by mashing the bananas really well.

Next, add the sugar and oil and mix thoroughly.

Now, add the flax egg and vanilla and mix through.

Add the dry ingredients and fold through.

Lastly, fold in the walnuts.

Pour the batter into your prepped loaf tin and bake.

That’s it. Now you’ve arrived at the hardest part of the recipe, the waiting. You sit back, wait for your banana bread to bake and then wait for it to cool completely before cutting into it.

So if you have a bunch of bananas on your kitchen counter, that have passed their prime, don’t let them go to waste. Make this delicious banana bread. If you’re buying bananas especially for this recipe, make sure they’ve ripened well. They should have a few black spots on the skin, it means they’ll be sweeter and add better flavour to your banana bread. If they haven’t reached that stage yet, I would highly recommend leaving them on the counter for a couple of days before making this recipe.

I really hope you try this recipe out. If you’re not a fan of walnuts, you can leave them out. If you’d like to add a little decadence to your banana bread, add some chocolate chips to it. Either way, I promise you, this is the only banana bread recipe you’ll ever need.

Even if you don’t necessarily follow a plant-based diet, you will love it. You wont miss the eggs and the butter one bit.

Let’s head on over to the recipe now, shall we?

Vegan Banana Bread

Recipe by Trisha Vaz
Prep time

20

minutes
Baking time

40

minutes
Total time

1

hour 

10

minutes

This Vegan Banana Bread recipe is a simple, one bowl recipe which results in a moist, spongy and delicious Banana Bread.

Ingredients

  • 3 large ripe Bananas

  • 1 tbsp flax meal

  • 2/3 cup sugar

  • 1/4 cup oil

  • 1 tsp Vanilla

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

  • 3/4 cup whole-wheat flour

  • 1/8 tsp salt

  • 1 tsp baking powder

  • 1/2 tsp baking soda

  • 1 tsp cinnamon powder

  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg powder

  • 1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Directions

  • To make the flax egg, in a small bowl, mix 1 tbsp flax meal with 3 tbsp water at room temperature. Stir well. Refrigerate for about 10-15 minutes.
  • Preheat your oven to 180ºC.
  • Line a loaf with with baking paper and lightly grease it.
  • In a large mixing bowl, peel and mash the bananas.
  • Add the sugar and oil to the bowl and mix thoroughly.
  • Add the flax egg and the vanilla and mix well.
  • Add the dry ingredients (the flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon powder and nutmeg powder). Lightly mix the dry ingredients and then incorporate it with the wet ingredients using the cut and fold technique. (Refer to the recipe video for a demonstration.)
  • Lastly, add the chopped walnuts and gently fold through till they have distributed evenly, taking care to not over-mix the batter.
  • Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 40-50 minutes or till a skewer pierced through the centre of the loaf comes out clean.
  • Cool completely before slicing.

    Enjoy!!!

Recipe Video

Christmas Fruit Cake – dark, rich and boozy

A good, rich, dark and sometimes boozy Christmas Fruit Cake is a must-have on every Christmas platter. Studded with dry fruit soaked in rum and spiced with beautiful holiday flavours, this recipe is sure to win you over.

Christmas Fruit Cake
Christmas Fruit Cake

In most Christian homes along the south west coast of India, a good Dark Fruit cake makes an appearance at Christmas and all special occasions like engagement parties, weddings, anniversaries, Communion celebrations and so on. It also holds a very prominent spot on a typical Christmas platter, or what is locally referred to as a Kuswar platter. (Kuswar=Christmas sweets)

Most people I know enjoy a good fruit cake, but very often, find it too tedious to make one at home. They settle for a commercially made cake, which very often has a number of additives including caramel colour to give it a deep, dark colour.

Today, I’m sharing with you, my favourite Fruit Cake recipe. This recipe is a little longer than most other cake recipes. However, I can assure you it is a fairly simple process and the end result is so good, it’s well worth all the extra effort. To help make the process easier, I’ve broken this recipe down into a few parts. Some of them can actually be done days before you’d like to bake this cake. The best part is, this cake tastes best if it’s allowed to rest for a couple of days, so it’s a perfect one to make ahead.

Step 1 – Soaking the fruit

This recipe calls for 500gms of mixed dry fruit. In my assortment, I’ve used raisins, sultanas, currants, mixed peel, candied / glacéd cherries and candied ginger. You can use any dry fruits of your choosing, in the proportion you’d like them. It just needs to add up to about 500 grams all together.

Dry fruit assortment
Dry fruit assortment

Chop the larger pieces of fruit down to make slicing your finished cake easier. Doing this also makes for a better eating experience, in my opinion. Place all the fruit in an airtight glass jar, top it off with some rum and set it aside in a cool dark place. The fruit needs atleast 24 hours to soak and rehydrate. The longer is steeps in the rum, the better the results. This can be done upto a year in advance.

Soaking the fruit
Soaking the fruit

Step 2 – Making the caramel

The 2nd step is making the caramel. There are many ways to make a caramel. For this recipe, you’re looking for one that gives you a slightly more fluid consistency. I’m using a 2:1 ratio – 2 parts sugar to one part water and I find that this gives me the perfect results for this recipe. You can make this caramel even a few days before you want to bake your cake. Simply let it cool down completely and store in an airtight glass jar. If you’re making this the caramel, the day that you’re baking the fruit cake, make sure the caramel has cooled down completely before you add it to the batter.

Christmas Fruit Cake - Making the caramel
Making the caramel


Step 3 – Making the cake

Making the batter is a very simple process. It’s just like making any other cake. You need to ensure all your ingredients are at room temperature. In this recipe, I’m using dark brown sugar to help lend a darker colour to the cake. If you can’t find dark brown sugar, regular white sugar will work too. Just make sure you use a fine grain sugar or simply powder your regular white sugar before adding it to the batter.

Sometimes, you find that the fruit in a fruit cake like this one isn’t evenly distributed. Mix the fruit into the flour – baking powder mix to ensure that the fruit doesn’t sink to the bottom of the cake.

Also, in this recipe, I’m using treacle to darken my cake and give it an added boost of flavour. If you can’t find treacle, use some molasses instead. I’m not using any artificial colours. A lot of the commercially available dark fruit cakes use caramel colour. If you’d like to, you can add some to the batter.

Mixing the fruit and flour
Mixing the fruit and flour
Christmas Fruit Cake - Adding the fruit to the cake batter
Mixing the batter
ready for the oven
Ready for the oven

I’m going to feed this cake only once with some dark rum, just as it comes out of the oven. This will help the cake soak up all the rum.

Feeding the cake
Feeding the cake

While you can cut into the cake as soon as it cools dow, for best results, I recommend atleast letting it stand overnight before you cut into it.

Once all the Hard Yakka’s out of the way, sit back and enjoy your stunning Fruit Cake.


Christmas Fruit Cake - Sliced
Christmas Fruit Cake – Sliced

Christmas Fruit Cake

Recipe by Trisha VazCourse: Cakes, Cakes, Cookies & Desserts, RecipesDifficulty: Medium
Yields

1.8

kilos
Prep time

50

minutes
Cooking time

45

minutes
Soaking time

24

hours (min)

This rich, dark and boozy Christmas Fruit Cake is studded with dry fruit and is beautifully spiced to make it the perfect cake for the Holidays.

Ingredients

  • For soaking the dry fruit –
  • 100g sultanas

  • 100g raisins

  • 100g currants

  • 100g mixed citrus peel

  • 50g candied / glaced cherries

  • 50g candied ginger

  • 240ml dark rum

  • For the caramel –
  • 1 cup sugar

  • 1/2 cup hot water, from a recently boiled kettle

  • For the cake –
  • 200g butter, at room temperature

  • 200g dark brown sugar

  • 4 eggs

  • 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste / vanilla extract

  • 2 tbsp Treacle

  • 120ml Caramel (recipe included)

  • Zest and juice of 1 orange

  • 250g all purpose flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder

  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon

  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger

  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves

  • Dry fruit, previously soaked as per directions below.

  • 50g cashew nuts, chopped

  • 45ml dark rum

Directions

  • Soaking the fruit –
  • Chop all the dry fruit into smaller pieces. I try and keep them evenly sized, like the size of the currants, which are the smallest in the assortment.
  • Place all the chopped fruit in an airtight glass jar. Top with rum. Mix well. Cover and steep for a minimum of 24 hours in a cool, dry place. You can leave this fruit to steep for upto a year. Shake the jar or stir the ingredients every once in a while.
  • For the caramel –
  • Place 1 cup sugar in a large vessel. Let it melt and caramelise on medium heat till all the sugar has dissolved. Do not stir the sugar. Swirl the pan, as needed.
  • Once all the sugar has completely dissolved and it caramelised, pour 1/2 cup hot water down the side of the vessel. It is important to do it in this manner to prevent the caramel splashing on you.
  • Let it heat through for about another 10 seconds or till both liquids have mixed well. Give it a light stir to ensure they have mixed through.
  • Set this aside and leave to cool completely before adding to the cake batter.
  • If you’re making the caramel ahead of time, after is had completely cooled, store in an airtight glass jar in a cool, dry place.
  • To make the cake –
  • Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl to combine well.
  • In a larger bowl, place the soaked dry fruit after draining out any excess rum. Do not discard this rum. You can top the jar up with more fruit and rum and leave to steep for the next time you make this cake.
  • Add the cashewnuts to the fruit and mix well.
  • Add the flour and baking powder mix to the bowl and mix the flour and fruit thoroughly, and stir through to break up any larger clumps of fruit.
  • Preheat your oven to 170C and line a 9 inch square cake tin with baking paper and grease it.
  • In the bowl of your stand mixer, place the butter and brown sugar and beat till it is light and creamy and all the sugar has dissolved.
  • Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each addition.
  • Add the vanilla, orange zest and juice, caramel, treacle and all the ground spice powders. Mix well till combined.
  • Lastly, add the fruit – flour mix and fold it into the cake batter.
  • Bake for 40-45 minutes or till done.
  • Immediately, pour the rum all over the top surface of the cake.
  • Let the cake cool down in the cake pan itself.
  • When it has completely cooled, it is ready to serve or store. For best results, let it rest overnight before cutting. Store carefully wrapped in a couple of layers of baking paper.
  • When you’re ready to serve, cut into slices or bars and enjoy!

Recipe Video

Notes

  • Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature.
  • The fruit should be soaked for a minimum of 24 hours or upto one year in an airtight glass jar. The longer they steep, the better.
  • Make sure the caramel has cooled down completely before adding to the batter. The caramel can be made a few days ahead. Simply let it cool down completely and store in an airtight glass jar till ready to use.
  • For best results, let the cake rest atleast overnight before cutting into it.

Vanilla Sponge Cake

Howdy folks! I hope everyone’s had a great Halloween. Now that Halloweens over, I figure its safe to start actively working on Christmas. And in an attempt to get a headstart, I’ve decided to post one of my favorite cake recipes. This one is a basic sponge cake recipe. Now I know, this is not a very Christmassy recipe, but I know a few people who don’t like fruit cake and actually request for a sponge cake instead. While this recipe is basic, there’s nothing basic about the end result. It uses simple ingredients and results in a really flavorful cake. While you can use this cake as a starting point for a number of cake creations and other desserts, this cake can hold its own as a tea cake too. Infact, my husband enjoys this cake so much, that when he asks me to whip one up, he justs wants it as is, no frosting or anything.

If you’re someone who wants to learn how to bake, this is a great place to start. I’ve actually filmed the recipe too and I’ve included some of my tips and tricks to help out novice bakers. I will link the video at the end of this post.

Vanilla Sponge Cake


250g butter, at room temperature
250g sugar (Use either a really fine grain or powder your sugar in a dry grinder before using)
250 all purpose flour
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract / vanilla bean paste
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat your oven to 180ºC and line the base of your cake tin and grease the base and the sides and set aside.

Separate the eggs.

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peak stage and set aside.

In a large mixing bow, beat the butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla till light and creamy.

Mix the flour and baking powder.

Sift the flour mix into the butter and sugar mix in 3 stages, folding the flour into the batter only until just incorporated, with each addition.

Add a couple of scoops of the stiff egg whites to the cake batter and gently mix to loosen the batter. Gently fold the rest of the egg whites into the batter till it is well incorporated.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes or till a cake pierced through the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool down in the cake tin. When it has reached room temperature, carefully take it out of the tin.

You can now use this cake in any recipe that calls for a vanilla sponge cake or serve it as it is.

Enjoy!!!

Mawa Cake … with a recipe for Instant Mawa

** This post contains affiliate links.

So last week I shared with you a lesser known, but extremely yummy recipe for a biscuit found in the Pune-Mumbai region – Shrewsbury Biscuits. If you haven’t seen that yet, go check it out, I’ll still be here when you get back.

Okay, so you’re back. Today, is the turn for another lesser known recipe, this time for a cake called Mawa Cake. Again, as far as I know this cake is found in the Pune-Mumbai region. Kayani Bakery in Pune and Merwan’s Cake shop in Mumbai are popular for their Mawa cake, though you will find quite a few other shops selling this cake. They are usually sold in packs of 6 – 6 muffin sized pieces. This simple cake is so very special. It is not much to look at, but what it lacks in looks, it makes up for in taste. If you’ve never heard about this cake before, you should put it on your list of recipes to try out. Mawa is nothing but milk solids and this is widely used in a lot of Indian sweets.

A lot of people cringe at the thought of making their own mawa and just buy it from the local Dairy shop in India. This is because, while it is a simple process of reducing milk, working with about a litre of milk could take you about an hour to process. In the past, I have made Mawa the traditional way a couple of times. But for this cake, I decided to try out a cheat’s version of Mawa. This method takes literally 2 minutes at the most, and you would never be able to tell that it is an instant version.  I’m so happy that I found this method. I have a whole bunch of recipes for Indian sweets that I’ve been ignoring, simply because it calls for Mawa. But that has changed, so you can expect to see some more Indian sweets / Mithai recipes, just before the Indian festival season starts.

Back to the cake. If you have your Mawa sorted out, the rest of the recipe is like a simple pound cake one but with a serious flavor profile. The Mawa adds a richness to the cake and it is mildly flavored with cardamom powder, resulting in a very exotic tasting cake. This time around my husband made the cake, which I guess made it even tastier (lol). He chose to bake this in an 8″ round cake tin, but you could bake it in a cupcake tray too. I do hope you try it out.

Mawa Cake
Yields: an 8 inch cake or 15-16 cupcakes

1 portion of homemade mawa (recipe below) or 200g unsweetened mawa
200g all purpose flour
300g sugar
200g butter
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cardamom powder (Seeds of about 10-12 green cardamom pods, powdered)

Preheat the oven to 160ºC.

Grease and line an 8-Inch Round Cake Pan with parchment paper / baking paper. Alternatively, if you are baking them in cupcake sizes, line a Cupcake tray with paper liners.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Beat the whites to a stiff froth and keep aside.

In another bowl, cream the butter, sugar and egg yolks till light and creamy.

Add the mawa, cardamom powder, baking powder and flour and mix till well incorporated. (If the mawa in store bought or is a firm block, grate it before adding into the batter)

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently till just evenly incorporated in the batter.

Pour the batter in the prepared cake pan and bake for about 40-50 minutes (if using a cupcake tray, bake for 15-20 minutes) or till a bamboo skewer inserted near the middle of the cake come out clean.

Cool completely, cut and serve. Don’t get fooled by the look of the cake. It tastes a whole lot better than it looks. And don’t forget, if my husband (who has probably not baked more than a handful of times so far), can whip this up, so can you.

Enjoy!!!

How to make Instant Mawa?


1 tbsp ghee / clarified butter
1/4 cup milk
1 cup full fat milk powder

Warm the ghee and the milk together. You just want this mixture warm, not hot.

Add the milk powder and stir and cook till it comes apart from the pan and starts forming a ball.

Use to make mawa cake.

Notes: If you are baking the cake in a  regular cake tin and not a cupcake tray, in some cases, the milk solids may cause the cake to brown quickly. This is normal, but if you think it is browning too fast and may burn, cover the tin loosely with aluminium foil and continue baking till the cake is done. 




Date and Walnut Cake …. keeping it real !!!

Updated with a new picture and the video recipe. 


Have you tried a date and walnut cake before? A lot of people haven’t. If you’ve spent some time in Bombay and been a part of celebrations there, every now and then you will find a Date & Walnut Cake pop up. This cake is a beautiful tea cake. It has a lovely flavor from the dates, a crunch from the walnuts and a rich, dark color that the dates lend to it. It has the most beautiful, luscious crumb. I can’t praise this cake enough. You have to try it to believe it. Its a shame I don’t make this cake more often.

As for keeping it real, I know a lot of food blogs are perfect. Not just picture perfect, but flawless in so many ways. My little blog is far from that. I like that it is human in that way. Even in my kitchen, there are times where I make some boo boos, I have brain farts and sometimes, I just could’ve planned better. This is one of those times where my brain was on a trip of its own. Maybe I was just over excited about this cake. While this cake batter is really easy to put together, I forgot to put the walnuts in it. I only realized this after pouring the batter into my parchment lined loaf pan. So what did I do? I just poured the walnuts on top and tried to stir it through the batter. That is why, you’ll notice the walnuts are mostly near the top of the cake. If you add them to the batter when you are supposed to, it will be better distributed. Now I could’ve waited till I baked this cake again to post this recipe. But in the true spirit of keeping it real and not wanting to keep this recipe from you any longer, I decided to post it with its tiny imperfection. I cannot tell you how amazing this cake is and I do hope you try it out.

Here’s the video recipe, to help you through the process –





Date & Walnut Cake
200g walnuts, chopped
100g dates, pitted and chopped
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
100g butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp soda bi carb
1 tsp vanilla essence
Place the chopped dates in a large mixing bowl, sprinkle soda bi carb over the dates. 
Place the sugar and butter in the bowl with the dates and pour the boiling water over. 
Stir gently and set aside to cool.
In the meanwhile line a loaf tin with parchment paper and grease the base and sides.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
When the mix has cooled down, beat the eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl.
Add the eggs and flour in three batches alternating between the two. (Add 1/3 of the eggs and whisk, add 1/3 of the flour and whisk until just combined and continue like this working in thirds.)
Add the walnuts and stir through the batter. 
Pour into the prepared baking tray and bake immediately.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or till a skewer pierced through the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Let it cool down. Slice and enjoy with a steaming hot cup of tea.

The best Baked Cheesecake ever

Those of you who follow my blog posts will know that my recipe titles which are normally my post titles usually never make lofty claims. This time it just had to be done. I believe, yes, truly believe that I have come across the best cheesecake recipe.

Let’s go back to where it all began, shall we! My husband and I were sitting one evening and watching the latest season of Masterchef Australia (one of my favourite food shows) and it happened to be a Masterclass episode. I’m so stoked they brought back the Masterclass episodes this year. I felt quite cheated out of them last year. Anyway, Matt Preston was making a baked cheesecake. We love cheesecake in our house. So we were very keen to check this masterclass out. Long story short, we loved the way his cheesecake turned out and decided that we would try it sometime soon.

Now I didn’t know how soon “soon” would actually be. I figured it would be a while before I got a chance to make one of them. Turned out, my husband had other plans. The following Saturday while I was at work (yes, unfortunately I do work some weekends), he actually went to the shops and picked out all the ingredients for the cake and had it prepped by the time I got home from work. We popped it in to bake and then in the fridge to set. After dinner that day we were both anxious to see how it turned out. It was HEAVENLY. Soft, creamy, beautifully flavoured with a fantastic crust. We we both very, very pleased with the way this cheesecake turned out and I can happily say that this will now be my go-to recipe for a baked Cheesecake. Thank you Matt Preston! and thank you Masterchef Australia!

Baked Cheesecake


For the base – 
1 packet of Granita biscuits (250g pack) (if you can’t find Granita biscuits, you can use Digestive biscuits instead)
60g sugar
75 g butter, melted

For the filling – 
750g cream cheese, at room temperature
230g or 1 cup caster sugar
4 eggs
2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
A pinch of salt
300ml double cream

Preheat the oven to 175ºC.

Line a 23cm spring form cake tin with baking paper.

Double wrap the outside of the cake tin with extra wide aluminium foil. This is to make the tin water tight to ensure that water from the little water bath you will create for the cake, doesn’t seep into the cake.

For the base, blitz the biscuits in a food processor till you get crumbs. Add the sugar and blitz again for a couple of seconds till its mixes well. Add the unsalted butter and blitz again to combine.

At this stage, your base mix should resemble coarse wet sand.

Press the mix into the bottom of the prepared cake tin, spreading it out with the back of a large wooden spoon to even it out.

Bake for 10 minutes till lightly brown and set.

Remove the tin from the oven and set aside to cool. This base should be completely cooled before you add the filling.

For the filling, place the cream cheese in a stand mixer and using a padding attachment beat till smooth and creamy.

Add the sugar and beat till the sugar has completely dissolved.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition and make sure the egg is fully incorporated in the mix before adding the next one.

Add the lemon juice, vanilla extract and salt and mix until well combined.

Now add the cream and mix until well combined.

Pour the mix over the cooled base. Set the cake tin in the middle of a larger roasting tray or larger baking dish. You want to ensure your roasting tray / baking dish has high sides. Set this on the middle rack of the oven.

Carefully, fill the roasting tray with boiling water upto a 2 cm height and bake till the cake has set and the top is a little golden brown. This should take about 65 minutes.

Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside the oven to cool with the oven door closed.

Then take the cheesecake and leave to cool completely.

Cover it and pop it into the fridge to cool a little and set further.

Serve with fresh berries if desired. But even by itself, the cake is so good you’ll be glad you baked it.

Baath / Badca – Traditional Goan Coconut Cake

A while ago, a reader had requested for a traditional Goan Baath recipe. That was a while ago, but eventually I got around to getting a picture of this delicious cake before it disappeared. So I’ve taken the opportunity to share the recipe with you. Baath or Badca – whatever you are used to calling it, is a delicious traditional recipe for a Goan coconut and semolina cake. Its not your run of the mill light fluffly sponge cake, but a more dense and rich one. A good baath cake should not be dry and should be mildly flavoured with ground cardamom. We typically make this for Christmas and it is a part of our Kuswar (Christmas platter).That being said, there is absolutely no reason you can’t eat this any time of the year. It goes down an absolute treat with a cup of tea / coffee.

This is a simple cake to prepare and does not require you to bring out the heavy equipment. A mixing bowl and wooden spoon should suffice. You start of by making a sugar syrup and cook off the coconut and dessicated coconut in it. Then add the eggs and bake.

Baath


200g dessicated coconut
2 cups water
2 cups semolina
2 cups sugar
6 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
6 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
A generous pinch cardamom seeds, crushed  (Seeds from about 6 large pods)

In a heavy bottomed pan, bring the water to a boil.

Add the sugar to the pan and let it melt.

Once the sugar has melted, add the coconut and the ghee and let it come to a boil, stirring frequently.

Add the semolina and let it cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the crushed cardamom seeds.

Take off the heat and cool.

After the mix has cooled

Preheat the oven to 180ºC and line and grease a baking dish / cake pan.

When the mix has cooled, add the baking powder.

Just before baking, add the beaten eggs. Mix well till the eggs have been incorporated well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake till done. (Till a skewer pierced in the center of the cake comes out clean.)

If the top starts to brown too quickly, cover the top with some aluminium foil.

Cool down and enjoy!!!

NOTE – Add the eggs only just before you bake the cake and not in advance. Preheat the oven in time to bake the cake.

Watch the video recipe here –

Chocolate Mud Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Today, let me tell you a little story. Its a story about a cake that looked a little ordinary. But we’ve all heard about how looks are deceptive, and in this case it was so very true. I made this cake a while ago and have no idea why I hadn’t gotten around to posting about it yet. I made this cake for my husband’s birthday last February. To give you a little perspective, at the end of January last year, we finally moved into an apartment here in Sydney, before which we were in a little studio apartment with a little kitchenette for the previous six months. I was excited to have a kitchen, but we’d only just moved and were still working on getting everything in place, namely furniture, appliances and the like. I knew I wanted to bake my husband his birthday cake, because he honestly doesn’t care for the store-bought stuff anymore and I hadn’t baked in more than 10 months.

So with a single cake pan and a wooden spoon, I set out to bake this cake. Please excuse the aesthetics on this one and don’t let it fool you for a single moment. This cake was so very good, I was amazed. I know I will make this recipe again. This cake was down right delicious. I think I might’ve jumped the gun when I tried to sandwich the cake with the icing. I now know better. I would’ve had a better looking cake had I just iced it on top. Which is why I don’t have a picture of the entire cake, just one enticing piece 🙂  That’s something I know I will do differently the next time. But all said, this is a winner of a recipe.

Chocolate Mud Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

For the cake – 
400g butter, chopped into cubes
400g dark chocolate, chopped
15g instant coffee powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
60 ml water
225g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g cocoa
6 large eggs
440g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Line a 9″ round cake tin with parchment paper and lightly grease it.

Place the butter, chocolate, coffee, vanilla and water in a saucepan over low heat. Stir and heat till melted. Set aside and cool to room temperature.

Sift the flour and cocoa into a bowl. Sift another 2 times.

Beat the eggs and sugar till pale and thick.

Add the chocolate mixture and beat till combined.

Fold in the flour cocoa mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.

Bake for 90 minutes or till done.

Leave it in the baking tin to cool for about 10 minutes.

Take it out of the cake tin and cool it down completely.

Note: According to the Donna Hay Magazine, where this recipe is originally from, she recommends testing a mud cake with a skewer. Piece the skewer into the center of the cake. It will emerge coated in cake. Roll the cake from the skewer onto your fingertips. If it balls up and feels tacky, the cake is done. Take the cake out of the oven.

For the ganache –


250 ml single cream
300g dark chocolate, chopped


Place the cream and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat and stir till melted and smooth.

Cool to room temperature.

To assemble – 

When the cake has completely cooled, spread the completely cooled ganache over the cake.

Serve.

Note: I did cut and split the cake into 2 layers and placed some ganache in the center. This is something I won’t do the next time, it just messes up the finish. I would recommend baking the layers separately, if you’re keen on a layered mud cake.  

SRC: Blueberry Muffins

I’ve just about recovered from a bout of fever, and while the fever seems to have left me, what I seem to be stuck with are the blues. So while I was researching my assigned blog this month, Love and Flour, I came across LeAndra’s post on Blueberry Muffins. Oh they looked good! Imaging my surprise when I read her post and realized that she whipped these up on a day when like me, she was a little blue. I loved the idea of the warmth that the ginger and cinnamon added to the recipe. So I decided, then and there, that this was going to be my post for the SRC reveal this month.

Mind you, with a blog like Love and Flour, LeAndra has a ton of recipes that will take you by the hand, lead you to the kitchen and urge you to make them. Before I decided on these muffins, I was considering the Banana Rum Cake, Marbled Chocolate & Vanilla Quick Bread, Tiramisu Bread Pudding (I still intend making this soon), or on the savory side this Corn Pudding and these Crab Cakes. I was torn between these choices so I was really glad when the Blueberry Muffins spoke up 🙂

The muffins were easy to make. The batter came together really quick and then all it took was 20 minutes in the oven. I pretty much stuck to the recipe except for the cinnamon powder. I used it but just reduced the amount compared to what the original recipe called for. I couldn’t seem to figure where it went, so I just added it to the sugary topping mix. Another thing I noticed was that the ingredient list had white sugar mentioned twice, I considered that a typo. Also, something I was really excited about was, for a change, I managed to get the actual yield that the recipe suggested. Happy days!!!

On another note, check out these cupcake liners I picked up at the supermarket a couple of days ago. They look like so much fun. I baked the muffins in these liners and I think it would be a fantastic way to add muffins to a kids birthday party dessert spread.

Back to the muffins. These blueberry muffins were amazing. They weren’t too sweet, just the way I like it. I loved the flavor that the cinnamon added. And those bursts of delicious berries with the light crunch of the sugary topping were something else altogether. In all, I’d consider this the perfect muffin. Its everything I look for in a muffin and so much more. Do yourself a favor and make them soon.

And don’t forget to hop on over to LeAndra’s blog and say Hi.

Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12

1 1/2 cups All purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided in half
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Zest of 1 lemon, divided in half
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.

In a small bowl, mix the topping ingredients – 1/4 cup granulated sugar, the cinnamon powder and half the lemon zest.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients – the flour, brown sugar, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, baking powder, salt and 1/2 the zest.

In a large bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients – the milk, oil and egg.

Stir in the dry ingredients till combined.

Fold in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter into the lined muffin tin, filling almost to the top.

Sprinkle with the topping mix.

Bake at 200°C for 20 minutes or till a toothpick pierced through the middle comes out clean.

Enjoy!!!

Two Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself craving for some chocolate cake. Now I could very easily just pop over to one of the shops not far from where I live and pick one up. Believe me, there is no shortage of cake shops and cafes in Sydney city. But all of these are a little bit of a walk away and I really wanted to bake one myself. Now seeing as to how I don’t have access to an oven, that was going to be a bit of a problem. But then I remembered seeing some posts on a number of blogs that featured microwave mug cakes, small portions of yum that I could be biting into in a matter of a few minutes. That would be much quicker that getting to a cafe to buy some cake. So I began my hunt on the internet and found a recipe that I decided to try. I was really excited about it. Its as simple as putting the ingredients into a microwave safe mug, whisking it up and baking it for a few minutes. And you have about enough time to whip up a nice cup of tea while your cake gets ready. Oh, please don’t be over eager like me. You have to let the cake stand for a while after baking, or else you’ll be left with a burnt mouth. The cake does get insanely hot, so please do yourself a favor and try to wait, no matter how difficult that may seem at the time. Anyway, I do hope you try this recipe.

I pretty much stuck to the recipe, with the exception of chocolate chips. I didn’t have any so I just left them out. And it still tasted pretty good. Also, I didn’t think the mix would fit into the mugs I had, so I mixed the batter in a larger bowl and then poured it into the mugs. Now its not as perfect as the ones I’ve baked in an oven, but it was good. And now that I know that something like this can be whipped up in minutes, I’m gonna have to try extra hard to not make this too often, for the sake of my waist; if you get my drift 😉

Two Minute Chocolate Mug Cake
Recipe from: Completely Delicious
Yield: 1 large mug or 2 small mugs

3 tbsp veg. oil
3 tbsp whole milk
1 large egg
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp all purpose flour
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
A pinch of salt

Place the oil, milk, egg and extract in a large microwave safe mug and whisk together using either a whisk or a fork until combined.

Add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and salt and mix until combined.

*If you’d like to add chocolate chips, stir in 3 tbsp chocolate chips.

Microwave on high for 2 minutes.

There  you go, your cake is ready!

Enjoy!!!