Eggless Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake - Eggless-baking February Challenge

My tryst with frosting cakes is not much to boast about. I have had the icing bags and nozzles for two years now and I have hardly used them. Firstly, baking the cake in the limited time I have on weekends is challenging enough, with a little pair of hands bungling the recipe unknowingly in her zest to help her mommy bake the goodies. Secondly, waiting for the cakes to cool down hardly happens. She wants a bite of the stuff immediately as soon as the cake is out of the oven. Thirdly, she might want to help me with the frosting too and thus I might finally snap at her after the prolonged attempts at bungling, sigh! I guess, I am the world's worst mom. She shows so much zeal and care to help me out and I call it bungling :(. 

Anyways, I have frosted cupcakes with buttercream a couple of times, and a bundt, pound cake with buttercream. I have used ganache once for an eggless chocolate cake. I have never used whipped cream to frost cakes. So why am I delving into statistics? To apologize in advance for any offensive attempts at frosting in this post!

This recipe seriously gave me jitters. I did not want to frost with buttercream. I certainly did not want to make 2 cups of buttercream and use it on a large cake. 

I decided to make the batter without adjusting the original recipe except for the eggless variation; I then decided to make two small 6 inch cakes and a host of cupcakes. I made just 1 cup of buttercream, and frosting 4 cupcakes and one 6 inch cake. 

As always, the original recipe from Hershey's goes first. I shall present the cake recipe only in both the original and eggless form. The frosting is normal chocolate buttercream and the recipe is from Hershey's verbatim.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
2  eggs
1 cup milk
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar

Method
1 Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
2 Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. 
Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. 

Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3 Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. 
Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 
Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

Variations
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. 
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. 
Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. 
Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. 
Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. 
Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Now for the eggless version.

Eggless Variation

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup milk powder  + 1/2 cup milk (See Note)
1 cup milk
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar

Method
Heat oven to 180 degress C. Grease and flour two 6-inch pans and some cupcake moulds.
Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
Dissolve 1/2 cup of milk powder in 1/2 cup milk and keep it aside. Add milk, milk powder paste, oil and vanilla to the dry flour mix; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. 

Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans. I used 2 small round cake moulds (5-6 inches) and 6 cupcake moulds.
Bake the small cake moulds for 40-45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. 
Bake the cupcakes for 22-25 minutes. 
Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. 
Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

Note I used Nestle's sweetened milk powder and so I reduced the quantity of sugar by 1/2 cup. Since adding 1/2 cup milk to the milk powder made the batter even thinner, I wonder if I should have just used the milk powder without the additional 1/2 cup milk. 

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING


1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.
Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

I halved the recipe for the frosting and made 1 cup of buttercream. I used it to pipe some roses and stars on one 6-inch cake and 4 cupcakes. I still had about 1/4 cup buttercream. I plan to use it as a spread on bread within the next couple of days.

Verdict: The batter was too thin and I felt, I could have just used milk powder instead of dissolving it in another 1/2 cup milk. The texture was fine and the cake tasted good, except that one cake sunk in the middle.

Eggless Strawberry Ice-cream

I am usually surprised when someone shows no preference for strawberries over other fruits. My little girl loves fruits like papaya, banana and grapes and is not fond of strawberries. I just don't believe it, how mother and daughter can have such varying preferences... About the picture above, we found a huge strawberry in the box we purchased last month and I took this picture to show the size comparison. The strawberry was as big as the Fiji apple in length. This is the largest one I have seen.

Speaking of preferences, my daughter does love strawberry flavoured milk and ice-cream. So I decided to make this icecream for her one day. This has no eggs or gelatin and requires some simple ingredients.

Ingredients

Milk cream - 600 ml
Milk - 150 ml
Strawberry crush - 1 cup (I used Monin's)

Method

Heat the cream and milk until they come to a boil. Allow the milk and cream mix to cook down completely and then add the strawberry crush, using the hand mixer, blend the mixture well. The strawberry crush has sugar and so I did not add any sugar to this mixture.

Pour into freezer safe box and allow it to freeze for an hour. Take the box out and whip the ice-cream for about 3-4 minutes. You can see soft peaks form. Put the mix back in the freezer for an hour or so. Whip the ice-cream once again for 2-3 minutes. Allow to freeze for 4-5 hours and scoop and serve.

Verdict: Simple ingredients and extremely easy to prepare. The only time consuming part is the whipping of the ice-cream before it sets and forms icicles. If that happens, thaw the ice-cream about half-way and then whip it for 5 minutes or so until soft peaks form. Then whip every hour for a couple of more times before letting it set.

Coconut-milk rice (Thengai-paal saadam)

A typical childhood tantrum... "Amma whats for lunch today?" Whatever the answer is, "Amma, make something else. I am bored of eating this all the time". Mind you, no matter what the dish is, the reply would be the same. There are very few exceptions. I was no different when I was growing up. Mom was tired of my fussy eating habits, but she never gave up. Eventually when the child is hungry, he/she does eat whatever is available. I am experiencing the same with my little girl. 

This was a very time-consuming lunch dish that mom used to make when we have guests over or on special occasions. I did not appreciate the effort and would think why does mom no change her menu at all, until I stated making it myself. It is an elaborate process of extracting coconut milk, frying the onions, spices and vegetables and then mixing them with the rice and cooking the rice. 

Ingredients:  

Rice - 1 1/2 cups 

Coconut - 1, freshly shredded 

Onions - 1, chopped 

Green peas - 1/2 cup 

Diced Beans and Carrots - 1/2 cup 

Cloves - 4-5 

Cinnamon - 1/4 stick, crushed 

Cardamom - 2, crushed 

Ginger - 1 tsp 

Green chillies - 2, slit 

Salt - to taste 

Water - See Note 1.

Oil - for frying 

Coriander - for garnishing

Method: 

Wash the rice and keep it aside. 
Shred the coconut and with very little water, blend the shredded coconut in a blender until smooth. Strain the coconut blend and extract the water. This is the first coconut milk extract. You can use the dregs a couple of more times with a little water to extract the coconut milk a second and third time. The coconut milk extract the second time is less concentrated than the first and the third extract is even less concentrated than the second. You can mix the three extracts and keep aside; measure the coconut milk quantity.  

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the cloves, cinnamon and cardamom. When they start to splutter, add the onions and fry until they turn pink. Add the vegetables, ginger, green chilies and fry until the raw smell is gone. Keep the vegetables aside.

Drain the water from the rice, add a little oil and fry for a few minutes. Add the coconut milk and when it comes to a boil, add the vegetables and stir well. Add salt. If the quantity of coconut milk is not sufficient for the rice, add some water to make up for it. 

Cook the rice, garnish with coriander leaves and ghee. Serve hot with raitha or any other vegetable side dish. 

Note 1: 

One coconut usually yields, 1.5 - 2 cups of coconut milk.

Usual water proportion for rice is as follows: 

Pressure cooker: rice : water = 1 : 2. 

Sometimes older rice takes more water, then you need to add 1/2 cup more water for every cup of rice.

Open pan: rice : water = 1: 3. 

Verdict: Extracting the coconut milk is the time consuming part. I have not tried using the packaged coconut milk extract. I should try it sometime. Otherwise the blend of coconut milk and the spices is heady and extremely addictive.