It is hard to find egg-free cakes or other baked goodies in the market. The vegetarians here generally avoid taking cakes in a restaurant or buying them from a local baker. So we bake our own cakes at home and here is an archive of eggless baking recipes. We usually substitute eggs with banana, curd (yoghurt), soaked basil seeds, or other similar ingredients. I also like to add Indian flavors to my cakes using cardamom, jaggery, ghee, coconut, cashew nuts, raisins, etc. Besides, we can bake our own bread by adding various Indian spices like carrom seeds & herbs like dried fenugreek leaves.Â
Naan is a traditional flatbread made using the dough enriched with ghee (clarified butter) & curd (yogurt) and cooked at a high temperature inside a clay oven called tandoor. Lately, naan dough is prepared just like any other bread dough using leavening agents such as yeast, baking soda, or baking powder and baked like pizza over a hot stone kept inside the oven. Here I have added turmeric powder to make my naan bread bright & beautiful.
Basil seeds (sabja seeds) are one of the most sought-after summer ingredients in Asia. According to Indian Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), basil seeds are useful to lower the heat of our body. So it is a good idea to add basil seeds into our diet during summer to keep us cool & hydrated. This summer I have baked a loaf of egg-free banana bread using soaked basil seeds as a substitute for the egg.
Jerusalem is one of my favorite cookbooks for the traditional middle east recipes written by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. You may download the e-book here. I find several vegetarian recipes that we, Indians, could very well try without demur since most of the ingredients are readily available here. Helbeh is one such recipe that caught my attention as it is an exceptional semolina cake prepared with fenugreek seeds and almonds.
Despite the fact that peanuts can cause ama (indigestion), my father, an ardent follower of Mahatma Gandhi, encouraged us to snack on peanuts even at a young age mainly for 3 reasons: Peanuts are the only legumes that grow underground hence the rich sources of micro-nutrients than any other legumes; they are beneficial to vegetarians for being the greatest sources of plant-based protein; it is possible to rid of ama while taking peanuts. Raw peanuts and roasted peanuts cause ama but not the steamed peanuts, so we can avoid taking raw peanuts altogether. Instead, we can take roasted peanuts along with jaggery, some spices, or herbs that aid in getting rid of ama. Here I have prepared a peanut butter using jaggery and added it into my mug cake.
Earlier elders in our family were of the opinion that baking cakes is a painstakingly strenuous procedure, and hence nobody in my family dared to bake cakes at home. We usually devour the cakes bought from the renowned bakery in our locality. During Christmas we had opportunities to relish home baked cakes like dark brown fruit cake, pale yellow semolina cake, etc. shared by our friends & neighbors. Those days home-baked cakes were so special for people like us as it was rare to find such soft scrumptious old-fashioned Christmas cakes even in the city’s premier bakery. Later we all bought the oven and bake spongy cakes at home even with local flavors. Here I have baked an eggless fig upside down cake using whole wheat flour & foxtail millet flour.
Generally, we prefer to take moist spongy homebaked cakes drizzled with honey, fruit juice, or chocolate syrup than the ones with buttery sugary frosting sold in the bakery or restaurants. When we bake a cake at home we have the liberty to use healthy ingredients. We could replace plain flour (maida) with whole wheat flour, butter with vegetable oil, sugar with other guilt-free sweeteners, etc. Besides we can add fresh fruits, nuts & seeds to tease our palate. Now I have baked a spongy cornmeal cake with delicious jackfruit glaze using cornmeal & whole wheat flour.
Baking bread at home is actually not as exhausting as making roti/ chapathi. It is just a time consuming preparation and hence it just requires a planning well ahead of our meal. Nevertheless, it is truly a rewarding experience to bake the bread at home with the flours and spices of our choice and also to serve oven-fresh flavorful fluffy bread to our family for breakfast. Here I have used equal portions of whole wheat flour & plain flour (maida), neutral oil in place of butter and caraway seeds (omam/ ajwain) for its wonderful aroma and medicinal properties, and baked an egg-free pav bread at home.
When I noticed a bottle of left-over Nutella kept unused for some days, I badly wanted to use it up in one shot and hence I decided to bake an eggless Nutella cake. Although the idea of combining chocolate & banana together is not liked by some, it worked wonders for me, and I was extremely delighted with the outcome of luscious cake with moist texture & tender crumbs.
I have been planning to bake a mango cake in this summer, but I could not keep a few separately for baking as they were usually devoured in a couple of days. Now my mother sent me the last batch of organic mangoes that were plucked from the trees grown in her backyard when the fruit bearing season of mango is almost nearing an end. Now I have baked an eggless mango cake with two ripe mangoes and left the remaining for my family to relish them to our hearts’ content at the end of this mango season.
Being a vegetarian I like to use walnuts as much as possible as these are quite a few of plant based sources of omega-3 fatty acid. It has always been challenging to prepare a recipe using these slightly bitter nuts, now I have baked an eggless walnut Bundt cake using banana & toasted walnuts as they compliment each other, sweet bananas suppress the bitterness of walnuts and also they both add a delicious flavor & texture to the cake.
This is our family’s favorite chocolate cake for being dark, chocolaty, spongy, and most importantly guilt-free. I have used whole wheat flour instead of plain flour (maida), vegetable oil in place of butter, and also used home-made yogurt (curd). I have also used chocolate ganache for frosting and garnished with chopped pista & edible rose petals.
A simple cake can be elevated to a whole new level just by adding flavorful ingredients like fresh fruit juice, chewy fruits, chopped nuts, toasted seeds, aromatic spices, or cocoa. I find the fruits glazed with butter and syrup the most delightful addition into any spongy cake. Here I have baked an eggless pineapple upside down cake using whole wheat flour, maize flour and caramelized pineapple slices.