Eggless Orange Cake

Super soft Spongy Eggless Orange Cake

Cake whether it is eggless or with eggs when has fruits in it its nutritional value increases along with the taste, I always tell parents of school going children to order for the fruit cake rather that chocolate cake always. Reason for those children who shy away from taking fruits, it is the best way to incorporate fruits in their diet. If these cakes are made in whole wheat flour or multigrain flour then it is best as refined and bleached flour loses much of the nutrients. Whole wheat fruit cakes can be packed in the tiffin or given in breakfast with a cup of milk. What a delicious lunch box and breakfast it will make. So what stops just try it once and see how your family likes it.

Preparation Time: 20-30 min.

Baking Time: 30-35 min

Servings: Makes 300 gm. cake (Approx.)

Ingredients Required For Making Eggless Orange Cake:

• 150gm.+ 6-8 tsp. All purpose flour/Wheat flour
• 6 Oranges (I prefer at least one with green peeling)
• 75 gm. Sugar
• 50 gm. butter
• 3 Tbsp. Thick Curd
• 1 Tbsp. Vinegar (I prefer Apple cider as it is not synthetic vinegar)
• 1 Tsp. baking Powder
• 1/2Tsp. Baking soda (Cooking soda)

Direction For Making Eggless Orange Cake:

• Powder the sugar (You can take castor sugar also)
• Peel the oranges and remove the seeds and outer thin film from the oranges wedges of 4 oranges. Make pieces of the wedges.
• Sprinkle 4-5 tsp. flour on the pieces of orange wedges. After some time the flour will soak some juice from orange wedge pieces do not worry. Just do not handle it unnecessarily too much.
• Take out juice of 2 oranges.(It should be 150 ml.)
• Remove threads from inside of peel of orange with green peeling and grate it or shred it. Keep 1 teaspoon coat it with flour and keep it aside for. Discard rest. ( I prefer shredding) 
• Coat the rind pieces with the flour.

Cleaned Orange wedge pieces, rind and juice

• In a bowl take curd and whisk it to smoothness.
• Add vinegar and orange juice to curd and mix.
• Mix
• 150 gm. Flour
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Sieve the above mixture 4-5 times to make uniform mixture.
• Melt butter in a double boiler or microwave. Do not boil it.
• In a big deep bowl take sugar and melted butter and beat till it becomes creamy and fluffy.
• Add flour mixture to butter sugar mixture and mix till homogenous mixture is obtained.
• Add 1 teaspoon orange rind pieces coated with flour and mix.

Flour, butter, sugar and rind mixture

• Add curd + vinegar + orange juice mixture and mix with light (Fold and cut method), this should be done little faster else vinegar and baking soda and baking powder will react and cake will not rise properly.
• Add orange wedge pieces and mix with a swirl for even distribution.
• Cake batter should be pourable not too thick.

Batter for Eggless Orange Cake

Pourable Consistency of Cake Batter

• Pour the batter in the pan lined with butter paper. Tap it lightly to remove the trapped air bubbles and bake in a preheated oven at 165 ^o C for 30-35 minutes.
• After 10 min. you will see the cake rising and after 20-25 min the upper layer to become golden brown.
• Check the cake for the state of baking by poking a thin wooden/ metallic skewer from center in diagonal direction.

Eggless Orange Cake and Cupcakes Baking

• If the skewer comes out clean that means the cake is baked.
• If it has some material sticking to it then bake for some more time till it comes out clean.
• Baking time may differ from one oven to other by 5-10 min.

Cup cakes Baked After 20 minutes

Eggless Orange Cake

Tips:

• Make sure the oranges are not too sour best is  nice sweet oranges.
• If orange is little sour then decrease the amount of vinegar to 1/2teaspoon. 
• Sugar amount can be increased to 90 gm. but if you prefer too sweet cake. I prefer the cake to have a balanced sweetness so that the orange taste is not camouflaged.
• The number of oranges can be changed according to the pieces you want to put in the cake.
• Orange juice should be not less than 100 ml. 150 ml. is ideal.
• The skewer should be thin (1 mm. in diameter).
• Do not over mix or beat the mixture, mixing should be done fast with fold and cut action..
• If you find the upper crust becoming brown without the cake getting baked reduce the temperature by 10 degrees and cover the cake with foil or moist cloth without removing the cake from oven and then bake.
• Add the liquid mixture in three parts and if you find the batter becoming thin stop do not add more.
• Do not fill the container more than half with the batter, if the batter is more instead of pouring it in the cake baking container add little juice or water to make it little thin and put in cup cake moulds (oiled and flour dusted) and bake with the cake, They will bake in 20 min.

Alternate Suggestions:

• 1 Tsp. orange essence, pinch of orange color can be added to the batter. I prefer not to add any artificial additive.
• Orange rind pieces can be coated with caramel this will give cake a wonderful color.
• Oil can replace butter. If you are taking oil no need to heat it. As heating of butter is to just melt it.
• Instead of mixing baking soda to the flour it can added to the vinegar + curd + orange juice mixture and this can be added to the flour + butter + sugar + rind mixture only one has to be very quick as soda will react with the vinegar and bubbles will be formed rendering soda ineffective.

Happy baking

Trifle A Yummy Dessert

Trifle Served with Pomegranate

Trifle

Trifle is basically a dessert with three layers made from custard, cake, and jelly. But many other variations are made using biscuits/cake, whipped sweetened cream, chocolate, fruits etc. The recipe I am going to explain today is the one which my children love from their childhood and I get excellent reviews from my customers who come with more take away orders. They even want me to do minimal decoration on the top for birthdays. 

Make the cake from whole wheat flour or multigrain flour and fill the jelly with fruits and you have a healthy nutritious and yummy dessert. Without much ado I write the steps to make it. Do not get riled up by the details written in the recipe because it may look tedious but is very easy to make and assemble. Your efforts will be appreciated by friends and family and you will also give yourself a pat in the back.:)

Preparation Time: 15-20 min (for cake)

Cooking Time: 30 min for baking cake, 10 min. for custard, 10 min for jelly

Assembling Time: 10 min

Setting Time: 1 hr

Servings: 8 large Servings

Ingredients Required For Making Trifle:

For Cake:

• 2 eggs
• 100 gm. All purpose flour (Maida) /whole wheat flour /Multigrain flour
• 50 gm, Sugar
• 50 gm, Butter
• 1 Teaspoon baking soda
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla essence
• For Custard:
• 50 gm. Custard powder ( vanilla flavoror anyother flavor of your choice)
• 500 ml. Full Cream Milk
• 50 ml. Cream (optional)
• 100 gm. Sugar/to taste

For Jelly:

• 100 gm, Jelly packet of the flavor of your choice (Blue bird/Rex). I prefer raspberry / Strawberry flavor for the rich color and flavor it gives
• Water 350 ml

Directions for Making the Cake:

• Grind the sugar to powder.
• Mix maida. Salt and baking powder and sieve three to four times to make sure all ingredients have mixed properly. Cover and keep aside,
• Separate egg white and egg yolk. Beat egg white to stiff peaks.
• In a large bowl take butter and sugar and beat them to creamy consistency.
• Add egg yolk spoonful at a time and beat to creamy consistency till all egg yolk is incorporated.
• Into this creamy beaten mixture add stiffly beaten egg white and maida baking soda mixture alternately, Mixing should be done in folding motion and with light hand.
• When all flour and egg whites are added then add vanilla essence and mix.
• Pour the batter in the baking pan lined with butter paper.
• Bake in a pre- heated oven at 180 degree centigrade for 30-35 min. or till the cake is baked.
• Check by poking a dry smooth thin knitting needle or wooden stick, if the stick comes out clean then the cake is baked.

Direction for Making Custard:

• Dissolve custard powder in 100 ml. of milk at room temperature.
• Boil 500 ml of milk. Add sugar and stir to dissolve it in the milk. Sugar is completely dissolved reduce the heat and add custard dissolved in milk along with constant stirring to avoid formation of lumps.
• Cook on low flame till thick consistency is obtained.

Consistency of Custard

• Switch off the heat, add cream and mix (optional) cover with lid and allow to cool.
• Second component of Trifle is ready.

Direction to make jelly:

• Though the directions are given on the packs of jelly, the proportions given result is jelly good to be eaten as dessert but not to make trifle.
• Instead of 500 ml. water as given in the pack take only 350 ml. water. This will result in thick setting jelly required for trifle.
• Also add 50-60 gm. of sugar to the water while boiling otherwise the jelly tastes too sour. Adding sugar gives jelly slightly sweeter taste with subtle sour taste which is desirable.
• When the sugar is dissolved add jelly mixture as instructed in the pack.
• Stir continuously to ensure solid does not settle at the bottom. When all solid is dissolved boil the solution for 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally. Switch off the heat and allow it to cool to room temperatue.

Directions For Assembling Trifle:

• Assemble the first two layers while the jelly is getting cooled to room temperature.
• Take a 4-5 inches deep glass 10x10 inches square dish and place cake at the bottom nicely packing all the corners and edges.
• The cake layer should be minimum 1 inch.

Apple cake pieces being layered 

Cake baked in The Serving dish

• Pour thick custard on the top of cake and pat the dish from all sides to remove any air bubbles. 

Custard being poured over cake

• Smoothen the top layer with a spatula. Cover with a cling film and keep in fridge to set till the jelly comes to room temperature.
• Custard layer should be almost same thickness as that of cake.

Cake and custard Layred

First Two Layers Done

• When the jelly comes to room temperature it will start to become thick and the setting process will have started.
• Pour the jelly over the layer of custard with the help of ladle without damaging the custard layer.
• Jelly layer also should be almost of the same thickness as that of cake and custard.

Jelly Poured Over Custard Layer

• This is to make sure that each spoonful gives the taste of all components of trifle in a balanced way.
• Cover again with a foil or cling film and allow it to set in the fridge for 2-3 hrs.
• Trifle with a distinct three layers having three textures and taste is ready.

Jelly sey and Trifle Ready to be served

• Cut to rectangular pieces and serve.

Trifle

Tips:

• Cake can be baked in the same dish in which trifle is to be assembled.
• Cake can be prepared beforehand. For vegetarians eggless vanilla cake can be made.
• Spoonful of custard and jelly can be kept in fridge to see if it is setting to form a good layer, if not then it can be cooked for 3-4 min with continuous stirring.
• The cooking pan for custard should be thick bottom to avoid custard from getting burnt.
• If the jelly is not setting then one teaspoon of gelatin / 2x2 inches of jelly sheet/2 inches of agar-agar dissolved in lukewarm water can be added to the jelly followed by a nice boil to the mixture.

Suggested Variations:

• To give the trifle a fruity taste apple/banana/orange cake can be made instead of vanilla cake.
• Finely cut Apple/ banana/ strawberry/pieces of raspberry or the fruit similar to the jelly flavor can be added to jelly.
• Finely chopped roasted nuts can be added to the custard to give crunchy texture. Do not add fruits to custard as they will cause custard to become thin and it will not set to the thick layer.