Eggless Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

Decided to celebrate the National chocolate cake day with this delicious recipe..Enjoy!!

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
2/3 cup Cocoa Powder
1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 cup veg Oil
1 1/2 cups Hot Water
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 cup Mashed Bananas


PROCEDURE:
Preheat the oven at 350F for 15 minutes. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners and spray them with non stick cooking spray.
In a large bowl mix, together the dry ingredients and keep it aside. To this mixture, add the canola oil, hot water and vanilla extract, mix well. Now add the mashed bananas and blend thoroughly. Pour the batter in the cupcake liners and bake for approximately half an hour or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let them cool down before serving.

For any suggestions, tips or variations in the recipe please refer to  http://www.egglesscooking.com/2010/01/06/vegan-chocolate-banana-cake/ from where I got this recipe.

Chocolate syrup Brownies

This is the recipe which I tried out from www.dominosugar.com and it makes a great snack for kids!!

INGREDIENTS
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
4 eggs
1 cup Hershey's chocolate syrup
1/2 cup chocolate morsels or nuts

DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13x9 inches cake pan with nonstick spray and keep it ready.

Cream the sugar and butter in a mixing bowl till it is fluffy and light. Then add eggs, flour, and the chocolate syrup. Beat well till the batter becomes smooth. Stir in the morsels or nuts. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 mins or till the toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let it cool for about half an hour. Then cut into square pieces and serve. You can frost the brownies if you want with the frosting of your choice. I kept it plain as my son loves it without any frosting...

Semolina (rava) Cake

This is the easiest cake you can ever bake and it makes a great snack for the kids!! They surely would love it!!


INGREDIENTS:
1 cup semolina (rava)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk (thick)
1 tbsp melted unsalted butter (ghee)
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 tsp nutmeg powder
1/2 cup sliced almonds and cashews
2-3 drops of yellow/orange food color (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Mix all the above ingredients thouroughly and let them stand for around 4-5 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch cake pan with butter and pour the mixture into it. Bake for around 20-25 minutes or until the toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. The cake usually bakes in the given time, overbaking results into hardening of the sides of the cake. Let it cool for around 10-15 mins. Serve it with tea!!

Double butterscotch cake

This cake has the butterscotch flavor and also the frosting is the butterscotch flavor along with the butterscotch garnishing, and hence the name of cake -Double butterscotch. It is really pretty easy to make this one!!

INGREDIENTS:
For cake:
1 package yellow cake mix
3/4 cup melted butterscotch chips
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
1 cup water

For butterscotch frosting:
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
8 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons butterscotch chips + water

For garnishing:
1 cup chopped almonds and butterscotch chips mixture

DIRECTIONS:
Prepare the two 9-inch square cakes according to the instructions on the cake box. The only change you have to make is add 3/4 cup melted butterscotch chips to the mixture and blend it in. Bake it for about 25-30 min or till the toothpick comes out clean.

For preparing the frosting, first melt around 4 tablespoons butterscotch chips and water (just enough to cover all the chips) so as to form a smooth paste. You can do this in a microwave or on a stove top. Let it cool down. Take heavy cream, vanilla and sugar in a bowl and start beating at medium speed. After around 1 min, start adding the cooled melted butterscotch to the cream while beating continously. Beat till you get the stiff peaks of the mixture.

Frost the cake with the butterscotch icing and use a mixture of chopped almonds and butterscotch chips for garnishing. 

Eggless Pumpkin Cookies

I was baking these for a potlluck Thanksgiving lunch..I followed the recipe through this site http://www.egglesscooking.com. I just made some small changes here and there though, like I did not use nuts  as some kids at the party were allergic to it. They came out very nice and kids and adults too enjoyed them a lot!!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 Cup Shortening
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Pumpkin Puree
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg powder
1 cup nuts/raisins/ chocolate chips (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven at 350F for 15 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin and vanilla.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg powder.Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix well. If you are going to use nuts or raisins, fold them in. 

Drop the dough by tablespoon 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets.Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned. Watch closely. The cookies remain soft in texture. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Thomas Train Cake

It was a half-sheet vanilla cake with strawberry mousse filling. I required 3 Betty Crockers vanilla cake packs for this and had got the strawberry mousse ready mix for the filling. It was  Dr. Oetker brand and the mousse came out really nice. It was very soft and creamy. I had got some thomas stickers from the party store and with the help of toothpick I just inserted 3 of them on the top of the cake and I used the remaining stickers for the cake board sides. The tracks are made up of kit-kat bars which I broke into halves. I topped the cake with some flowers and grass and placed the thomas engine on the track!!! The birthday boy loved it!!

Anniversary Piano Cake

The basic cake was a single layer chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream which I baked in a 13x9 pan. For the chocolate cake recipe follow http://dreamcakeworld.blogspot.com/2010/09/chocolate-butterfly-cake.html and for the vanilla buttercream recipe visit the Wilton cakes section of the blog. After frosting it with the buttercream I spaced the chocolate bars for them to look like the piano keys and placed the dancing couple on top of it. I piped out 2 roses at the corner along with some music notes to go with the theme. It was surely a romantic gift for my husband on our 11th anniversary!!