Eggless Chocolate Cake

My new, bright green, silicon cupcake molds stared at me every time I entered the kitchen. There were a 100 cakes I wanted to bake, but all of them used egg. While I have no qualms about eating cakes with egg in them during Lent, the thought of actually baking them made me slightly uneasy. And I was not ready for Easter to break into the new molds. So as anyone would do in such circumstances, I googled for eggless cake recipes and landed on Laxmi Nair's eggless chocolate cake. 

Even though I have great belief in Laxmi Nair's recipes, I was surprised at how well this cake turned out. It was moist and had a rich chocolate flavour. For extra chocolatiness, I topped the cake with chocolate butter cream instead of the white chocolate ganache she used. I didn't use coffee powder in my cake either, because I am not a fan of the coffee flavour. 

Recipe:
Makes 12 cupcakes 
or 6 cupcakes and a 20cm X 10cm loaf cake
or a 9" cake

For the cake:
1 1/4 cup plain flour
4 heaped tablespoons cocoa powder
1.5 teaspoon baking soda
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 cup milk
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3/4 cup oil (I used sunflower oil)

Method:

Pre heat oven to 180C. If using cake tin or loaf tin, butter the insides and sprinkle with some plain flour. 

Sift together plain flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder.

Warm milk along with powdered sugar, honey and vanilla essence. Mix well till the sugar is completely dissolved. You can replace the vanilla essence with a teaspoon of instant coffee powder if you like. Let the milk mixture cool down.

Add oil to the milk and whisk for a few minutes till the oil is well incorporated into the milk and you don't see it floating on top of the milk. Add the dry ingredients and continue whisking for about 5 minutes or till the wet and dry ingredients are well combined. Mix further with a spatula if you find lumps in the batter.

Pour into prepared cake tin or halfway up cupcake molds.

Bake cupcakes at 180C for about 17 minutes, 20cm X 10cm loaf cake at 180C for about 45 minutes, 9" cake for over 50 minutes or till a skewer inserted comes out clean or the cake's surface is springy to touch. Cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting:

3 cups powdered sugar
200 grams butter, softened (I used salted butter)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
4 tablespoons cream or whole milk

Method:

Cream butter using paddle attachment for a few minutes in a bowl. Sift in sugar and cocoa powder and continue whisking till well combined. Add essence and cream/milk and continue whisking for three more minutes. If you want a frosting that is thinner, whisk in more cream/milk, one tablespoon at a time till you reach the desired consistency. 

You will probably not be needing the entire batch of  butter cream. You can store the remaining in air tight containers in the fridge and warm to room temperature before using. Or else, let the remainder firm up in the fridge, and shape into balls. The kids are going to love it!

Enjoy!

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