Wafola : Cabbage Cake

When i sent this picture to my sister in law in US, she said "Looks like dhokla"!! Well, yes, it surely looks like one, but this is more denser. Moreover, though the name suggests it to be steamed (Waaf in Marathi means Steam), this one is baked. Hence i think it is known as a Cabbage cake.

The recipe was new to me, i had not really heard about this one! We make "Kobichya vadya" with almost similar ingredients but we steam it. The tempering and garnishing remains the same. Here, in the cookbook of "The essential Marathi cookbook", this cake is baked. The author, Ms. Kaumudi Marathe, says - "During the years of food rationing around the Second World War, when semolina and refined wheat flour were hard to come by, gram flour based snacks were a great alternative. Traditionally, wafola was cooked over an open charcoal fire but these days, a conventional oven works just fine".

Wafolas make a perfect tea-time snack or a good breakfast dish too! What more? It is baked!!! That makes it super healthy too :) The addition of tempering on top takes the dish to a completely new level of flavours!!

Ingredients:

Green cabbage : 1 n 1/4 cup grated

Ginger - 1/2 inch piece grated or made into a paste

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - to taste

Green chillies - 2 (The recipe said sliced, but i prefer making a paste in a mortar and pestle)

Ajwain - 1/2 tsp

Sugar - 1/4 tsp

Oil - 2 tbsp

Asafoetida - a pinch

Besan (gram flour) - 1 cup

Soda bicarbonate - 1/4 tsp (optional)

1/8 cup yogurt + 1/4 cup warm water

To garnish:

Ghee - 1/2 tbsp

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Red chilli powder - 1/4 tsp

Grated fresh coconut - to garnish

Corriander leaves - to garnish

Lime juice - to taste

Recipe:

Mix together cabbage, green chilli paste, ginger paste, salt, turmeric, ajwain and sugar in a bowl.

Heat 1 tbsp oil and add asafoetida to it. Mix this in the cabbage mixture.

Slowly add the gram flour and keep mixing it well.

Add the soda bicarbonate in the yogurt mixture and add this to the cabbage mixture stirring well.

If the mixture is too thick, add water as required to make the consistency as thin as a cake batter.

Grease a 9 inch baking tray with 1/2 tbsp oil. Put the batter in the baking tin.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Bake the wafola for about 20 minutes. Now brush a little oil on top and bake again for another 10 minutes or till the toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Now cut the cake into squares or as desired shape.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok for garnishing. Add mustard seeds and let them pop. Then add the turmeric and chilli powder. Stir well and pour over the cut square cakes. Sprinkle coconut and corriander leaves on top.

Add lime juice if and as desired.

Tastes best when served with green chutney - Corriander chutney, mint chutney but i served it with Peru chi chutney (Guava chutney). I will upload the recipe in next post!

Serve the wafolas warm, and am sure they will be relished by everyone in the family :)

Happy Cooking! :)

Rum cake

I know i am late in wishing you all! A very Happy New Year to all of you. Thank you for all the support you gave reading my posts last year and i hope there is more and more of cooking and blogging this year than the last :) Not only cooking and blogging, but i have seen some tremendous talented fellow bloggers, or should i say multi-talented fellow bloggers? Some paint, some write poems, some teach and some craft...So, i wish success to all of you in whatever you do. It feels great to see immense amount of "art" and "talent" everywhere around. Keep it going.

New Year's this time was cold, foggy and windy. Coping up with the season, i thought of indulging in some warm, moist, soft Rum cake. And i must say, this one was baked to perfection!!! It turned out so well that it was finished in almost a day (Yeah, it was just the two of us, but it was "holiday-eating" season :)) This time i forgot to pre-soak the fruits well in advance, as i already had my hands full with pet-sitting, you can see it here...

Some do soak almost a month in advance, the last year (2013 Christmas Cake ) i had soaked 15 days in advance but this year, i only soaked it for 3 days before making the cake and i guess, it wasn't bad either. A day in advance is good too, but the more the better. I have mentioned this before that me and hubby usually like normal cakes (ones without icing), so this one was served just as it is. But you can add any toppings/icing of your choice if you wish.

Recipe adapted from : Anshu-My Mom's recipes

Ingredients:

To soak :

1 cup of any mixed nuts/dry fruits of your choice - I soaked raisins, orange zest, cashews, dried dark strawberries and tutti fruiti.

1/4 cup Rum 

For the cake:

Rum - 1/4 cup

Maida - 1 2/3 cup

Baking powder - 3/4 tsp

Baking soda - 1/4 tsp

Cocoa powder - 1/3 cup

Sugar - 1 1/4 cup

Egg - 1

Butter - a little less than 3/4 cup

Soaked nuts/dry fruits

Recipe:

Soak the nuts/dry fruits in rum and keep in air tight container. If soaking for days, then stir and mix it well once a day.

Grease and dust a baking pan and keep aside.

Powder the sugar in mixer/grinder.

Sieve together Maida, baking soda, baking powder and cocoa powder.

Add the powdered sugar to it. Mix well with a spatula to make sure no lumps exist.

Boil 1 cup of water and add the rum to it. Also add the soaked nuts. Mix well. Let this come to room temperature before adding anything.

Melt butter in microwave and keep aside. Do not let the butter solidify again and make sure you don't add hot/warm butter to anything. Let it come to room temperature.

Beat egg in a bowl. Add butter and beat again.

Add this to the rum mixture. 

Now slowly add the dry Maida mixture to this and mix. Do not over-mix. Gently mix till everything mixes well together.

Pour this mixture in the baking pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree Celsius for about 40-45 minutes. Start checking after 40 minutes if the toothpick is coming out clean. If yes, remove from the oven and let it cool.

This cake comes out a perfect texture, colour and taste. Don't miss trying this one :) I have dusted a little powdered sugar on top (which is completely optional).

Happy Cooking! Happy Blogging! And Happy New Year once again :)

Eggless Chocolate nut cake : Cake-mania

Cakes, Cakes and more cakes : One of the reasons we got microwave this Diwali was to bake!!! Me and Hubby both love homemade cakes... we are not much fans of icing and creamy layered cakes but the spongy fluffy ones, just which can be eaten with tea or coffee or as a snack... Or can even be a dessert with an addition of ice cream.... :)
I had learnt cake making in my college days of Home-Science, and also taken one baking lesson ( on insistence of my friend Ayuushi Agarwal, and thoroughly enjoyed it too ), but that was long back ! Since almost a year i had not baked any cake, and making one was making me nervous... I hope i get all the ingredients right... I hope i don't make it too buttery... I hope i don't make it too powdery... With all these questions in mind, i still got all the ingredients ready and decided to give it a go with a simple egg-less chocolate spongy cake topped with dry fruits and nuts !
And this is how it turned out....

Yes, as much as it looks yummy, it tasted great too... why don't you make one and give it a try??

Ingredients :

All purpose flour ( maida ) - 100 gms 

Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp

Butter - 2 tbsp ( heaped )

Soda water - 1/2 cup

Condensed milk ( milkmaid ) - 1/2 tin ( 1 tin is 200 gms available in market, so calculate accordingly and keep the rest in freezer for future use )

Powdered sugar - 1 tsp

Soda bicarb ( Baking soda ) - 1/2 tsp ( store in fridge when opened )

Baking powder - 1/2 tsp ( store in fridge when opened )

Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp ( powder or liquid )

Method :

Preheat oven at 180 degrees. 

Grease a cake tin or any baking dish with butter and dust it with flour ( make sure to remove the extra flour while dusting, otherwise the cake tends to get dry)

Sieve flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and baking powder together for 2-3 times so it is very fine.

Beat Butter and condensed milk together... Add sugar and beat again till its fluffy.

Add soda water and dry ingredients ( flour mixture ) alternatively and keep mixing.

After adding soda water , don't keep the mixture out for too long. Put it immediately in the oven.

Pour the batter into the greased cake tin and add the nuts on top. You can even mix the nuts in the batter, but they tend to sink in. Adding them on top gives it an aesthetic appeal too :)

Bake at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes approx or till it's done. Check with putting a knife in the cake , if it comes out clean it's done. or else bake for some more time :)

Your yummyliscious chocolate delight is ready !!!!

Happy Baking :)