Vegan Banana Bread Recipe | Whole wheat Vegan Banana Cake Recipe : Eggless recipes

From the last few weeks, my son wanted me to bake something for him. I kept on postponing because of the move and also because of his health. I saved couple of bananas to make some banana bread. This time, without fail I took the pictures for the post.

It's a vegan (no butter, no milk, no AP flour) banana bread recipe. I have used whole wheat flour (atta) to make this bread healthy. You can treat yourself with this once a while :)

Please excuse the unevenly sliced and crumbly cake. My son was so restless to eat it and I had to.

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Baking Time: 30-45 mins
Baking Temperature: 350F | 180C
Serves: Makes a loaf or an 8 inch round cake
Recipe Source: Adapted from vegrecipesofIndia

Ingredients:
Ripened Bananas: 2 large (or about 1 cup mashed)
Whole wheat flour | atta : 1.5 cups
Sugar: 1/3 cup, refer notes
Oil: 3/4 cup, sunflower or vegetable oil (I have used olive oil too)
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
Baking powder: 1.5 tsp
Vanilla Extract: 1 tsp
Chopped almonds and cashew nuts: 1/4 cup
Chocolate chips: 1/4 cup

Method:
Sieve the whole wheat flour, baking powder and baking soda. Keep it aside for couple of minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F or 180C.
Meantime, mash the bananas thoroughly. There should not be any lumps. You can even blend it in a food processor or hand mixer.

Add the sugar, oil and vanilla extract to the mashed bananas and mix them well.

Now add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
Throw in the nuts and chocolate chips too.

Fold the dry and wet ingredients gently. Do not whisk, gently fold in everything.

The batter will be a little tighter than the normal cake batter. Do not worry. It will be just fine.
Grease the baking pan and scoop the batter onto the pan. Level the batter and gently tap the pan.

Place the baking pan in the oven and bake the cake for about 35-45 mins. To check if the cake is done: A tooth pick inserted in the center of the cake should come out clean.

Notes:
Baking time varies considerably. Please keep an eye on your cake after 25 mins. Mine was a tad bit over baked this time. This was the first cake I baked in my new house and I was over confident about the baking time.
You could use any nuts of your choice.
If the bananas are not over ripe, you might have to increase the sugar to 1/2 cup. Adjust the sugar, according to the sweetness of the banana.
I repeat again, you do not have to whisk the batter vigorously. Just fold in the ingredients.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe | Chocolate Icing

 Last year, when I made these angry birds cupcakes.., my hubby didn't support me much. Not because he did not believe me.., but he didn't want me to take the trouble to make them. I took the initiative and did them for my pleasure. It was such a huge hit among children that this year, my hubby was like.., what are you planning to do? He in fact sat with me to browse the cupcake pics on the web. We decided on making the owl cupcakes together. He even helped me to take step by step pictures to put them on the blog.

However I did not want to buy the icing from the store. I wanted to make them at home. I made few small batches and once I was happy with the outcome, I made a big batch to frost the owl cup cakes.

Here is my version of chocolate buttercream icing using cocoa powder.

Preparation Time: 5-7 mins
Cooking Time : Nil
Makes: About 2.5 cups of frosting

Ingredients: 
Unsalted butter : 1 stick or 1/2 cup, refer notes
Cocoa powder: 1/3 cup
Confectioners Sugar: 2 cups, refer notes
Vanilla Extract: 1 tsp
Milk: 2-3 tbsp, as needed

Method:
Let the butter sit on the counter until it reaches room temperature.

Add the butter to a big mixing bowl. Beat the butter until it is fluffy. I used a hand blender to beat it. You could use a food processor or you could whisk it manually using a whisker. (Refer notes)

Once fluffy, add the cocoa powder, 1 cup of sugar, a tbsp of milk, vanilla extract and beat again until all the ingredients are combined well.

Add another cup of sugar, a tbsp of milk and whisk.

If you feel the icing is very thick after mixing well, add few drops of milk and whisk.
I prefer to keep the icing a tad thinner.
Voila, your chocolate buttercream frosting is ready. Isn't it quite simple?

Now use this icing on your cupcakes or cakes

Notes:

• When adding milk to the icing recipe, remember that little goes a long way. Do not add too much of liquid to make the frosting thin. Add few drops at a time.
• If you do not like the buttery smell and feel much, you could replace half the butter with vegetable shortening like Crisco. Vegetable shortening is like Vanaspati (as called in India). I love my butter.
• Confectioners sugar is powdered sugar. You could add the same amount of finely powdered sugar too.
• I have made buttercream frosting using hand blender, food processor and also whisking it manually. One thing to keep in mind is, whisking buttercream frosting is not as hard as whisking whipped cream. You can easily whip it up manually. So, don't fret, if you do not have hand blender or food processor. 
• You can save the left over buttercream frosting for a week easily in the fridge. If you pop it in the freezer, you can save it for 2-3 months. 

Eggless condensed milk cake | Eggless sponge cake

PS: I am a beginner in frosting the cake, so please bear with me until I perfect the art.

It's raining cakes & cupcakes at my home. I baked 2 large cakes and about 45 cupcakes for my son's and hubby's birthday. Both their birthdays are in the same week. It was a baking fiesta for me at home.

I normally use the yogurt/curd recipe to make the eggless vanilla sponge cake, but this time thought of making it rich using condensed milk and butter. I prefer this over the yogurt one. I have made it many number of times and it is always a hit at home :)

This is a basic sponge cake. You could frost it however you want or have it as is. I have tweaked the recipe a little as I did not have orange juice at home.

Preparation Time: 5 mins
Baking Time: 35-45 mins
Recipe Source: My Diverse Kitchen

Ingredients: This cake yields about 16 pieces (I made it in 9" round tin)
Dry ingredients:
AP flour/Maida: 2.5 cups
Baking Powder: 2 tsp
Baking soda: 1 tsp
Salt: A pinch

Wet ingredients:
Sweetened Condensed milk: 14 ounce can or about 400gms
Butter: 3/4 cup or 1 & 1/2 sticks
Water: 1 cup
Vinegar: 1 tbsp
Vanilla Extract: 2 tsp

Method: 
Preheat the oven to 350F or 180C.
Grease the baking tray using a non stick baking spray.
Sieve all the ingredients mentioned under the dry ingredients section.
Melt the butter.

To the melted butter, add the condensed milk, water, vinegar and vanilla extract.

Mix gently and keep them aside.
Scoop the dry ingredients to a mixing bowl & mix them gently. Make a well in the center of the flour.

Pour the mixed liquid over the flour & mix. Use a whisk or a spatula to mix them. Do not whisk. Just mix them gently.

Once both the ingredients are mixed well, pour the batter to the greased baking tray. Little lumps here and there is okay.

Tap the tray and bake the cake for about 35-45 mins. Mine got done in about 42 mins.
Remove the cake from the oven & allow to cool for 10-15 mins on a cooling rack.

After 15 mins, run the knife on the edges of the cake & flip the baking pan over the cooling rack.
Tap the bottom of the pan gently and remove the baking pan. The cake will slide off easily.

Allow the cake to cool for a minimum of 1 hour before slicing them.
To frost the cake, you need to cool the cake for couple of hours.

I frosted the cake with the left over chocolate butter cream icing and sprinkled some powdered sugar. I decorated it with some chocolate chips and the cake is ready.

Notes: 

• Baking time of the cake depends on the kind of baking pan/tray used. If you use dark colored pan like the one shown above, the baking time will be more. If using a aluminium foil or thin aluminium tray, the baking time will be less. So, keep a close eye on the cake after 25-30 mins. 
• To check if the cake is baked or not, insert a toothpick to the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, your cake is done.
• You could use Nestle's Milkmaid to make this cake. 
• I will give the chocolate frosting recipe in my coming posts. Stay tuned!

Eggless Vanilla Cupcakes with Butter cream Frosting

I have been baking cakes since long but never dared to post a recipe! I have always felt that there is so much more to learn & kept on postponing. After making dozens of cakes, now I feel confident about my baking skills. So here I am with with my first cupcake recipe with butter cream frosting !!

I baked 40 cupcakes for my son's birthday last week. He took 26 cupcakes to school & remaining I gave to his friends at our apartment. Made two batches of chocolate & a single batch of vanilla cupcakes.

Pardon me for the poor cupcake decoration...

Preparation Time: 10 mins
Baking Time: 20 mins

Recipe source for the cupcakes: Cookcurrynook

Ingredients: (Yields around 13-14 cupcakes)
For vanilla cupcakes:

• All-Purpose flour/Maida : 1 & 1/2 cups
• Yogurt/Curd: 1 cup
• Sugar: 3/4th cup
• Cooking Oil: 1/2 cup (I used sunflower oil)
• Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
• Baking powder: 1 & 1/4 tsp
• Vanilla extract: 2 tsp

For vanilla flavored butter cream frosting:

• Butter: 1 cup
• Confectioners sugar/powdered sugar: 3 cups
• Yellow food color: 3 drops
• Vanilla extract: 2 tsp
• Milk: 1-2 tbsp

Other ingredients:
Rainbow sprinkles

** All the measurements mentioned above are leveled & not heaped!

Method:
For the cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 400F/200C for 10 mins. Grease the cupcake moulds with butter or place cupcake liners.
In a large bowl, mix the yogurt & sugar until the sugar dissolves completely.

Add the baking soda & baking powder to the yogurt mixture

Mix the baking soda & baking powder. Keep it aside for 5 mins. The yogurt mixture will turn frothy & will slightly increase in volume.

Meantime, measure & sieve the AP flour.
Pour in the cooking oil, vanilla extract to the frothy yogurt mixture & mix.

Add the flour & gently fold the mixture. Don't stir vigorously.

Scoop out around 2 tbsp of mixture to each cupcake mould.
Reduce the oven temperature to 360F/180C & bake the cupcakes for about 15-18 mins.
To check if the cupcakes are done, insert a toothpick & if it comes out clean, cupcakes are done.
Place the cupcakes on a wire rack & allow them to cool. (I cooled my cupcakes for about an hour!)

For the frosting:
Prerequisites: 
The butter has to be at room temperature.
Milk has to be cold.

I poured in the butter & sugar to my food processor jar & pulsed it for 10 secs.
When it was almost done, I added 1.5 tbsp of milk, vanilla extract, food color & pulsed again for 5-10 secs. Frosting was all done.
#In case, you don't have food processor, you could do it with your hand mixer/stand mixer. You could also mix it using your hands. Good exercise!!