Eggless whole wheat flour vanilla cake with dark chocolate frosting

Here is a small poem (if I may say so) as an introduction to this post that has the recipe for eggless whole wheat cake which is also my entry to Whole grain(Eggless)baking event hosted by the very talented Madhuram of egglesscooking.

Wheat flour I use only in dosa and roti,
So whole grain baking event made me jittery.

Whole grain I know is healthy,
Hence switched on the PC
And hunted for some recipe.
Saw a cake that looked spongy.

Baked the cake with some panic,
But the result made me euphoric.

Thanks to the event hostess Madhuram,
I got to bake a cake that was so yum.

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Without any further harassment to the readers, here is the recipe as adapted from Recipes4US though I decided to bake the cake after seeing the picture in Sunita's blog.

Ingredients

Whole Wheat Flour: 1 1/2 cup(I used ashirvad aata)
Castor Sugar: 1 1/4 cup
Baking Powder: 2 tsp
Sunflower oil: 6 tbsp
Warm Water: 1 cup
Vanilla Extract: 1 tsp

Procedure

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 degree C.
2. Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the castor sugar.
3. Add oil, water and vanilla extract and mix well until the mixture is smooth.(I did this with hand for a few seconds)
4. Bake in a greased and parchment paper lined cake pan for 20 to 25 minutes or till the edges begin to brown slightly, and the centre of the cake is springy to the touch.
5. Remove from the oven and take out the parchement paper carefully.

I got 2 cakes. I cut each cake into 2 halves and applied chocolate frosting and layered the cake and applied the frosting all over the cake.

Dark chocolate and whipped cream frosting(adapted from joyofbaking)

Ingredients

Dark Chocolate: around 150 gms(chopped)
Heavy cream: 3/4 cup
Unsalted Butter: 1 tbsp(at room temperature)

Procedure

1. Place the dark chocolate in a bowl and keep aside.
2. Heat cream and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat and bring just to boil.
3. Pour the boiling cream immediately over the chocolate and a;;ow it to stand for few minutes.
4. Stir the mixture until smooth.
5. Let it sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
6. Beat the mixture until creamy and smooth.
7. If the mixture is a bit loose, freeze it for few minutes so that it comes to applying consistency.
8. Apply on the cake.

Eggless wheat flour cake with dark chocolate frosting is ready.

Verdict: This is the first time I tried wheat flour baking. I should say the cake tasted good. But definitely not as good as its maida counterpart. Also since it does not use butter, the rich taste was missing. But the chocolate frosting helped the cake to taste better. I might not like to eat the cake without the frosting mainly because I got the raw smell of whole wheat in the baked cake. I really appreciate if somebody could suggest a way so that the baked cake does not have the raw wheat flour smell. Surprisingly, the raw smell had reduced a bit the next day when I tasted.(after refrigerating overnight) I would definitely bake whole wheat cake again as it is healthy and taste wise its not that bad..I think I would start liking it once I get used to the wheat flour taste.

Note: The cake was not spongy like Sunita's. I think I baked for a little longer time. If castor sugar is not there, ordinary granulated sugar can be used by reducing the quantity to 3/4 cup.

This is my entry to Whole Grain(Eggless) Baking event hosted by Madhuram.