Eggless Carrot Cake Recipe (No Butter)

It was a sunny monday afternoon and I had many leftover carrots. I was too tired making kheer/halwa and wanted to make something different. That's when I decided to bake a cake. When I was searching for the perfect recipe, I found it in SHARMI'S PASSIONS and believe me it came out really well.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minuts
Serves - 3 or 4

Ingredients:
Maida: 3/4 cup
Wheat flour: 1/4 cup
Grated carrot: 1/2 cup heaped
Curd: 3/4 cups
Olive oil: 1/4 cup
Milk: 2.5 tbsp
Powdered sugar: 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence: 1/2 tsp
Baking powder: 1/2 tsp
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
Salt: 1/4 tsp
Walnuts, chopped: handful

Method:

1. Grate carrots and keep it aside.

2. Sieve maida, wheat flour, baking soda and baking powder.

3. In a bowl, add curd, sugar, milk and olive oil. Mix well until sugar dissolves. I have omitted cinnamon powder in this recipe. If you want, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon powder can be added in the next step.

4. Add vanilla essence and mix it. Now, add carrots and the flour mixture.

5. Whisk it well to till a creamy batter is formed. I forgot to add walnuts. But, you can add it in this step and mix it well. Alternatively, after you put the batter in the baking tray, you can just sprinkle it on the top.

6. Preheat the oven at 180 deg C for 10 mins.

7. Place a butter paper inside the tin, grease it with maida and butter. Now pour the batter to the baking tray.

8. Bake at the same temperature for 10-20 mins. After 10 minutes, insert a toothpick at the center, if it comes out clean, the cake is done. If it does not, then you can bake it for few minutes. After 10 minutes, I recommend you to keep checking it regularly. Bake it until the toothpick comes out clean.

9. Once it's done, transfer the tin onto a wet cloth. Allow it to cool for 20-25 minutes, then invert and peel of the butter paper.

10. Allow it to cool for an hour or little more before you cut it into pieces. I stored it in an air tight container and kept it in the fridge. But in the original recipe it says you can keep it in the room temperature for 2 days.

I added silver balls for decoration. But I would recommend you to add nuts.

Date and Nuts laddoo

With some auspicious days coming up, I texted my aunt and asked her for any healthy recipes. She gave me this idea and I have made few changes to it. This is very healthy as I have not used much ghee and I have used jaggery for sweetness. Very easy to make!!!

Preparation time : 10 minutes

Can make 18-20 balls

Ingredients:

Seedless dates - 200 gms

Cashew, Walnut and Badam - 1/2 cup each.

Jaggery - 1/2 cup (optional)

Method:

1. Grind the dates roughly in a mixie. Keep it aside.
2. Grind cashew,walnut, badam and jaggery together.
3. Mix the nuts and jaggery powder with the dates.
4. Grease your palm with ghee and knead the mixture to make a dough. Divide it into equal sides and roll them into laddoos.

Variations:

1. You can roast the nuts and then powder them, if you don't like the raw smell of the nuts.
2. After making the balls, you can roll it in nuts powder or desiccated coconut.
3. While serving them, you can place them in a cupcake paperliner.

Pav bhaji

Pav bhaji recipe

As the name suggests, pav bhaji is a dish with bread/bun and mixed vegetable gravy. Being a very common and most wanted dish nowadays this can be made easily at home. 

Prepation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

Pav buns - 4

Butter

Onion - 2

Tomato - 3

Potato - 2

Carrot - 1 (small)

Beans - 5

Peas - 1/4 cup

Ginger - 1 small piece

Garlic - 4 to 5 cloves

Chilli powder - 1tsp

Pav bhaji masala - 1tsp

Salt - as needed

Oil - 2tbsp

METHOD:

Chop the vegetables (potatoes, carrot and beans) into cubes (before chopping potatoes and carrot, peel the skin).

Pressure cook these vegetables along with peas by adding a little water and leaving it for 2 whistles.

Chop onions and tomatoes, grind them along with garlic and ginger. You can also add green chilli if you want it to be little more spicy.

Heat oil in a pan and add the paste to it. Cook it till the raw smell goes off. Add chilli powder, salt and pav bhaji masala. If you are adding capsicum, no need to boil it, instead you can add it after the paste is added. Once the raw smell goes off, add the boiled vegetables.

Saute for few minutes. Now add little water and cook it covered for 10 minutes. You can mash the bhaji a liitle with the ladle. 

Add coriander leaves for topping

Now the bhaji is ready to be served.

For the pav:

Cut the bun into two halves. Toast it in a pan by adding butter, till it turns golden brown. Now the pav is ready to be served.

Cut onions into very small pieces and lemon into half. Add this to the bhaji as a topping before you serve it.

Note:

1. You can add capsicum also.

2. Instead of grinding the onions and tomatoes, you can cut it into cubes and add them. In tat case, first add oil, then add chopped onions. Once the onions turn golden brown add the ginger garlic paste. Then add the tomatoes and cook till its mushy. Add masala powder and the vegetables.