Lock down time has drifted each one's life some or the other way. I believe it was good too in a way to introspect our lives and to understand each of us more deeply. Many forgotten hobbies are polished back and many known to me have started their own You tube channels. The lock down period has blessed each one of us to atleast stay safe at home which many people are devoid of especially the daily wage workers. Baking was hard during lock down period with the easily available ingredients. There was a time when I exhausted the baking powder and cocoa powder, the near by stores ran out of these too and it took many days to get the stock. I think people stocked up homes and so there was scarcity of these. That's the time I started trying out simple bake recipe with the easily available ingredients.
Today's recipe is one such keeper cake that can be made anytime for tea and can be simply put together without any fancy ingredients. This cake uses wheat flour and rava with baking powder, baking soda. Rava adds a nice crumbly texture to the cake. There is no butter and eggs, only oil is used. But the star ingredient of this cake is the use of apple sauce. I made apple sauce from scratch and it worked fine. I have made this cake a few times now and have used both brown sugar and regular granulated sugar. Each piece of the cake has bits of almonds in it which is optional but definitely adds a nice crunch to the cake. You can even add cashew nuts chopped instead of almonds too. Atta aka wheat flour cakes are known to be dense compared to the all purpose flour(maida) cakes. This cake is also on the denser side but its soft, filling and delicious. It tastes more delicious the second day than the first, leave it at room temperature stored in a air tight container.
Preparation time ~ 15 minutes
Baking time ~ 40-45 minutes
Author ~ Julie
Serves ~ a bread tray
Ingredients
for sauce
apples 2 small or 1 large
dark brown sugar 3/4 cup
for cake
wheat flour 1 cup (120gms)
rava 1/2 cup (64 gms)
baking powder 1 tsp
baking soda 1/2 tsp
salt a pinch
milk 3/4 cup
oil 1/2 cup
apple sauce 3/4 cup
vanilla essence 1 tsp
almonds chopped 2 tbsp + 1 tbsp sliced
Method
- Wash,peel and chop the apples small and add to the mixer jar. Grind till smooth. Add this to a pan and add sugar. Heat this mixture until 2-3 minutes or till sugar is dissolved and the sauce thickens slightly. Switch off flame and leave to cool.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a tray with oil dusted with flour.
- In a bowl add the wheat flour,baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift twice and keep aside.
- In another bowl, add the rava and add milk. Let the rava soak up the milk, wait for 10 minutes. To this add the oil, cooled apple sauce, vanilla essence. Mix well. Add this to the dry ingredients and using a spatula combine well. Add in the chopped almonds and give a quick toss.
- Transfer to the prepared tray. Garnish with sliced almonds on top(optional). Bake in pre heated oven for 40 -45 minutes or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
- Transfer to a cool rack and then remove from tray after 15 minutes. Cool completely before slicing else there will be lot of crumbs and pieces may break.
- Enjoy with a cup of hot tea.
NOTES
* If you have fine rava use that or just pulse the coarse rava once or twice to powder. I have used regular upma rava here.
* I have used brown sugar as it gives a better colour to the cake but I have made this cake using white sugar too. So you can use whichever you prefer.
* I have used Ashirwaad atta / wheat flour to make the cake.
A few more simple EGGLESS cakes that you can try-
The cake looks so moist made with applesauce!
ReplyDeleteWow! lovely texture
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