Merry Christmas! It is eggless chocolate and vanilla cupcakes for the Christmas. It’s a rainy Christmas in Singapore and with all the neighbors gone, our floor is even gloomier so I just needed something to cheer me up. What better than baking a cake! I like to bake cakes more than eating them. The smell of a freshly baked cake just lifts up the spirits and makes me happy. Baking or rather eggless baking has always been very satisfying for me. As kids, we never had any cakes for birthdays or any occasion for that matter. It was not a Marwadi thing or rather not a middle class thing to afford. But being the odd one out always, I have been trying to bake since my school days. From pressure cooker cake disasters to decent cakes in convection oven, I have tried lot of baking at home. Now that I have a wonderful oven in my kitchen, I experiment even more.

I don’t know what it is with eggs and baking. The more things I want to bake the more I need to research on how to bake an eggless version of it. Once you try these cupcakes you will agree that eggs don’t matter really. For me the most important lessons of baking are Follow the recipe point to point; PREHEAT the oven – however excited you are to put your cake in; ALWAYS use the best quality and exact measurement of Ingredients.

I have made chocolate and vanilla flavors as few members in my family prefer vanilla flavor to chocolate. Really! If you wish to make all chocolate cupcakes, just double the quantity of cocoa powder and mix it in the whole batter or if you wish to bake only vanilla cupcakes, leave out the cocoa completely and double the quantity of vanilla essence.

One thing to keep in mind while baking them is that every oven has a different baking time. Best would be to bake the cupcakes for 15 minutes and check them once and then continue baking as required. These mini cupcakes go well with tea, or as a dessert after a meal or just eat them when you like. You can choose to ice them or just eat them warm.

Ingredients

Makes 40 mini cupcakes or 25 normal cupcakes

• 1 ½ cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• ½ cup hot water
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup oil (preferably rice bran)
• ½ cup curd (Indian curd)
• ½ tbsp. vanilla essence

Recipe

Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl and pass this mix through a sieve once or twice so that the soda gets mixed with the flour.

Combine hot water and sugar and beat them on medium speed till the sugar is almost mixed in water and you see very small grains. Add the curd and oil and blend on high speed for 2-3 minutes. Add half of flour mix and blend on low speed. Add rest of the flour mix and blend on low speed till the flour is mixed into the liquid ingredients and there are no lumps. Make sure to scrape the edges in between. 2-3 minutes should be enough to mix the dry and liquid ingredients well.

Divide this batter into two portions. Add vanilla essence to one portion and cocoa powder to another one. If you find the batter with cocoa too stiff, add one table spoon hot water at this time.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a cup cake mould or put cupcake liners in a cupcake mould. Spoon the vanilla mixture in half the liners and cocoa mixture in half. Fill only 3/4^th of the liners. Tap the mould lightly on a flat surface. This is to get rid of any air bubbles in the spooned batter. Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean when you put it in the cupcake.

For a variation you can also spoon alternate layers of chocolate and vanilla.

Once the cakes are baked, cool them completely and decorate with the icing of your choice.

Icing

I have used Betty Crocker’s Dark Chocolate icing and Cooked Flour frosting from leelabeanbakes.com.

In India, you can get the ready butter cream icing from Pillsbury. It is easily available at supermarkets like FoodWorld and Spencers. You can also try whipped cream or Nutella  Icing. Happy baking!!