Eggless Coffee Chocolate Cake !



Like many others in India, my grandma didn’t appreciate we eating onions in the house, so getting in eggs was unthinkable. As a teenager the only interest in the kitchen was to bake a cake, I famously followed the ‘Tarla Dalal’ recipe and managed the version with condensed milk and chocolate powder. It was eggless, the batter managed to rise and plus it had chocolate, Voila !!!

My gourmet tongue soon realized that it deserved much better. It was easier to buy a nice rich batch of intense chocolate cake from ‘Theobroma’ or just not eat at all then to convince my parents to bring eggs into our home, till such day my American returned brother decided that to survive in India he must eat omelette for breakfast.

My kitchen never looked back and welcomed the new all important entrant. Brownies, chocolate, cookies, bread, biscotti and list goes on. I baked, friends and family alike feasted.  I tell you the discovery of the egg in my home changed it all. Proteins my sibling screamed but all I cared was now I could bake, bake and bake.

Then as my baking became famous J, over dinner parties, Sunday brunches there would inevitably be one person in the group that would not sample my deserts due to egg content. I am very clear that my love for cooking is only and only because I love to feed, so for all my eggless dearies I googled and googled to find out eggless version of cakes.

I tried an eggless version of my tried and tested chocolate cake this week and was absolutely delighted that it far supercedes my version with egg. It is so so perfectly moist, crunchy and delicious that I may just stick to this recipe all together.

Even if you do not bring eggs into your home you now have a recipe to bake, so get into that kitchen soonest.

* One egg has been substituted with 1 tbsp for flax seed and 3 tbsp of water.


Ingredients
  • ·      125 gms butter
  • ·      1 + ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • ·      1 cup curd
  • ·      1 tsp vanilla essence
  • ·      3 tbsp of flax seed with 9 tbsp water (135ml of water) 
  • ·      1 + ¾ flour
  • ·      ½ cup cocoa powder (I use Hersheys)
  • ·      2 tbsp instant expresso coffee (or any other instant coffee)
  • ·      1 + ½ tsp soda bicarbonate 
For the chocolate icing
  • ·      200 ml of cream (I use amul cream)
  • ·      200 gms of cooking chocolate (I use dark Selbourne chocolate )

Method
  • ·      Preheat oven at 180 degrees C.
  • ·      Grind the flax seed in a grinder/ mixer and then soak it in water for 15 – 20 minutes. There is no need to roast the flax seed.
  • ·      Combine the butter (soften) and sugar together and whisk with electric hand mixer paddle attachment at medium setting for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy.
  • ·      Add the curd, vanilla essence and whisk for another 1 minute at medium speed.
  • ·      To the batter add flour, cocoa powder, coffee and baking powder, mix well using an electric hand mixer paddle attachment at the lowest setting until well combined.
  • ·      Add the flax seed water mix and further mix using the paddle attachment for another minute.
  • ·      Transfer the batter into a 9” round springform cake tin or 10” bundt cake tin like the one I have used.
  • ·      Bake for 40 minutes.
  • ·      Remove from oven and let it stay on a wire rack for ten minutes before icing it or eating it hot with a cup of coffee.

For the chocolate icing
  • ·      Heat the cream until it just boils.
  • ·      Remove it from fire and add the chocolate. The chocolate will melt in the hot cream.
  • ·      Pour the melted chocolate and cream when it is still hot on top of the cake sponge.
  • ·      Serve with a dollop of vanilla icecream.


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