Strawberry ShortCake recipe (Eggless)

I absolutely love short cake and I was dying to make this after eating the famous biscuits and gravy in the US. The biscuits reminded me so much of the short cake that I made them as soon as I got a weekend free after getting home.

Here's a pic of the short cake that I made last year.  Do try this one and I'm sure you wont stop making this. I owe this one to one of my mom's close friends who taught me how to make this one along with nan khattai. She is an amazing cook like my mom but does a lot more baking that my mom does now.

I got the recipe from here as I did not remember what I had learnt.

Ingredients (serves 4):
For biscuits :

1. 1 cup maida
2. 1/2 tbsp baking powder
3. 1/4 tsp salt
4. 1.5 tbsp sugar
5. 1/2 stick/60g butter chilled
6. 1/3 cup of milk or fresh cream

For filling :

1. Whipped cream  - instructions below
2. Homemade Strawberry preserve - as per liking

How I made it :

1. In a food processor, mix in the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. Add the butter cut into small cubes with the processor on.
3. Wait till the flour mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs
4. Add milk little by little till the dough almost completely comes together
5. Take it out of the processor and knead on a lightly floured surface till the dough is smooth and less sticky.
6. Preheat oven to 200 degree C.
7. Roll out the dough into a 1 inch thick rectangle.
8. Cut out circles or into sqaures, place on baking tray, brush with a little milk, sprinkle a little sugar and bake for 15 minutes.
9. Serve with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. I served it with my homemade strawberry preserve

Whipped Cream :

Ingredients :

1. 200g fresh cream

2. 3 tbsp sugar

How I made it :

1. On a ice bath, place a glass bowl. 
2. Pour in the fresh cream into the bowl and beat on low speed.
3. It takes about 8 minutes to get whipped cream with soft peaks. Add the sugar once you feel that the cream has begun to thicken.

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Eggless Moist Chocolate Cupcakes

I've been itching to bake since I've been back from my US trip as I did not get to do much there with the absence of an oven. Last week I made strawberry shortcakes which were absolutely yum and this week since I am going to meet my Guddu darling, I made eggless chocolate cupcakes. I hope he likes them. I adapted the recipe from here.

Ingredients (For 6 cupcakes):

1. 1/4 cup maida
2. 1/4 cup wheat flour
3. 1/4 cup ragi - I used sprouted ragi flour from Manna
4. 1/2 cup brown sugar or 1/3 cup white sugar
5. 1 tsp vanilla powder
6. 2.5 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder - I use the one from cadbury. The weikfield cocoa powder does not satisfy the chocolate urges that I get.
7. 1/4 tsp salt
8. 1/2 tsp baking powder
9. 1/2 cup water
10. 4 tbsp neutral oil
11. 1/4 tsp instant coffee powder
12. 1 tsp vinegar

How I made them :

I made them in 2 batches as I have only one 6 cupcake tray.

1. Sift the maida, ragi, whole wheat flour, vanilla, baking powder, cocoa powder.
2. Add the salt and brown sugar. Keep aside.
3. In another bowl mix in the water, oil, coffee powder and vinegar.
4. Heat the oven to 180 degree C.
5. Prepare your cup cake moulds and place liners if required. I have a non-stick tray and hence don't always need the liners.
6. Mix the dry with wet ingredients as your oven is almost heated up. Don't fold or mix too much. Just enough to have a well mixed dough.
7. Pour spoonfuls into the moulds until 2/3rd full.
8. Bake for 17 minutes in middle tray. If you do not have a rack try placing the cup cake tray over any other inverted cake moulds/cooker vessel that you may have.

Cool on a wire rack and serve.

Tips :

1. Use only cadbury cocoa. If not, you will get the same taste that you get when you eat the Chocolate cakes at cafe coffee day which I don't like.
2. Mix the wet and dry ingredients just as the oven is almost at 180 degree C as the trick is to get the mixture into the oven as soon as possible. The baking powder starts to work as soon as it meets the wet ingredients. The longer you take to put it into the oven, the lower the cake will rise.

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Eggless Ragi Pancakes

What better way to get back to blogging than with a healthy recipe? Here's what I made for breakfast after being inspired by Appu's ragi pancakes. She made them in a jiffy when I decided to drop in for a cuppa chai :)

Ingredients : (makes 3 pancakes)

1. 1/3 cup ragi flour
2. 1/2 tsp baking powder
3. 1 tbsp sugar
4. A pinch of salt
5. 2 tsp olive oil or any neutral oil
6. A little less than 1/2 cup of milk
7. A few dried pumpkin seeds - I usually pop them in the microwave for 2 minutes and once cooled, store in an airtight container. These add some texture to the pancakes - tip borrowed from Appu
8. 2 tbsp butter/oil

How I made it :

1. Mix all the ingredients from 1 through 7 to form a smooth batter
2. Heat up a tawa or griddle.
3. Lightly greast hot tawa with butter/oil
4. Pour a ladleful of batter.
5. Cover for 45 seconds
6. When you lift the lid and see nice holes, flip and cook for another 45 seconds to 1 minute.

I served it with my homemade strawberry preserve. It was my first attempt and I did not add enough sugar so it was a bit tart.

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Eggless Chocolate Banana cup cakes with Pomegranate

I got home today, thinking about the enthusiasm of my friends who travel with me to work. They have immense energy and always manage to try something new after work. And I went, why could I not show more zeal. They were planning to make cup cakes and I said, why should I not do so too. So, I quickly found this recipe to use up the pomegranates that we'd bought during our grocery shopping and decided that it was what I was going to make. I made an eggless version using banana puree instead of the egg and I quartered all the ingredients as I did not want to make 24!!! I also had half a coconut with which I thought I would make bounty bars - this again inspired by the same friends. Posting that recipe soon.

Ingredients (for 6 cupcakes) : 

1. 1/4 + 1/8 cup flour
2. 1/4 cup cocoa powder
3. 1/8 tsp vanilla powder or essence
4. 1/8 tsp baking soda
5. 1/4 + 1/8 tsp baking powder
6. 1/8 tsp salt
7. 1/4 cup sugar
8. 1/4 cup milk
9. 1/8 cup oil
10. 1 medium banana - ripe
11. 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
12. 1/8 cup boiling hot water

How I made it :

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree C.
2. Blend the banana, milk and oil in a mixie jar and keep aside.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder.
4. Add the salt and vanilla essence to the flour.
5. Add the sugar followed by the blended mixture of step 1.
6. Add boiling water. Mix well into smooth mixture.
7. Throw in the pomegranate seeds.
8. Line muffin tins with liners.
9. Pour in mixture upto 3/4th level
10. Bake at 190 degree C for 25 minutes.

These were amazing. The flavour of chocolate and banana with the bite of pomegranate here and there. Loved them and they were gone in hours.

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Eggless Whole Wheat Banana Almond Pancakes

Since we have plans to travel this weekend and I was unwell last weekend, I have not stocked up my fridge and pantry. A few days back Pras and I had a fight over breakfast, I just did not have anything on hand to make a substantial meal. It is so true "A hungry man is an angry man". To avoid a repeat of the same, I quickly thought of making pancakes without eggs as I did not have any. I did have a couple of ripe bananas. So I decided to make Banana Pancakes.

Last Monday I had tried to make a Chocolate Almond Cake by Julia Child but it was a disaster. I guess I should've baked it longer. Anyways, I had the almonds that I had toasted for the decoration. I chopped them into slivers to sprinkle atop the pancakes.

Ingredients (makes 4 pancakes):

1. 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2. A pinch of salt
3. 1/2 tsp baking powder
4. 3/4 cup milk
5. 1 tbsp sugar
6. 2 medium ripe bananas - sliced into rounds
7. 8 toasted almonds chopped into slivers
8. 2 tsp Butter

How I made it:

1. Mix the whole wheat flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. 
2. Add in the milk and mix into a smooth batter - with no lumps.
3. Heat a skillet.
4. Add 1/2 tsp butter. Pour a ladleful of batter.
5. Sprinkle some chopped bananas and almond slivers.
6. Cover and cook for 45 seconds.
7. Flip over and cook for another 30 seconds.

These tasted delicious especially cause of the sweetness of the bananas. They did not require any honey on them as they were sweet by themselves. I'd reckon that they tasted like banana muffins without the wait :)

1

Eggless Strawberry Pancakes

Well, it is holidays now and I get really lazy, more so that it is quite cold this year in Bangalore. I woke up and Pras was like "I want some breakfast!!" I had hardly any ingredients on hand to make a healthy breakfast, not even eggs!! I went to open up the fridge and I saw "STRAWBERRIES". Out they came and pancakes were on my mind. Quickly, as almost always, I went to one of my favorite blogs and adapted the recipe from Eggless Blueberry Pancakes by Nags.I also had some condensed milk handy. So I served the pancakes with the condensed milk.

Ingredients  to make 3 pancakes :
1/3 cup maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
Sugar - 1 tbsp as the original recipe. Use more if not serving with maple syrup or sweetened condensed milk
A pinch of salt
2 tsp olive oil
A little under 1/2 cup of milk
A handful or more of strawberries
2 tbsp nutella ( optional)
2 tbsp butter/oil

Method :
Mix together the maida, baking powder, sugar, salt, olive oil, nutella and milk to form a smooth batter. Chop the strawberries.
Heat up a tawa. Smear the butter. Pour on some of the batter on the hot tawa. Once the bubbles start appearing, sprinkle some of the chopped strawberries over the batter. Cover it for about 30 seconds. Make sure the heat is on low. Take off the cover and flip the pancake. Cook until golden brown on the other side. Take off pan and serve with sweetened condensed milk.

This is ready in minutes and is eggless. Do give it a try. It was truly yummy with the condensed milk ;)

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