This is my favorite homemade cookie/granola bar recipe. I have been baking them with egg substitutes for quite a long time and thought it was an appropriate recipe for Madhuram’s Egg Substitute Event-Yogurt/Buttermilk. Check out the original recipe here.

I have made the following few changes to the above recipe:

1. The recipe mentions the use of 2 eggs. I always substitute it with 1/2 a cup of fat free milk and 2 tsp of vinegar (which is actually a substitute for buttermilk as well). I am sure Vegans can use Soy Milk/Rice Milk/Almond Milk. I got to know that each egg can be substituted by ¼ th cup milk and 1 tsp of vinegar (Courtesy: Chef Niru Gupta.
2. I have tried Lime Juice as well in the same amount (after confirming from Chef Niru Gupta via emails) and it works fine. However recently I came to know that if you need to use lime juice instead of vinegar, the ratio of lime juice to vinegar must be 2:1. Hence next time I plan try this recipe with 4 tsp of lime juice instead of 2 tsp of vinegar.
3. I prefer ‘King Arthur Unbleached White Whole Wheat Flour’ for all my baking and cooking.
4. Oatmeal of Generic Brand can be used. I use old fashioned oats. I have observed that bars made with old fashioned oats become more crispy (the way my friends like it) than those made with quick oats.
5. I use 1 ¼ cup of white sugar.
6. I usually avoid salt.
7. I use ¾ th cup of vegetable (or canola) oil instead of the 1 cup of unsalted butter. (Refer here for fat substitutions) It has been mentioned that 4 parts of solid fat can be substituted by 3 parts of oil.
8. Though the recipe mentions raisins, I have tried using chopped almonds. I believe any variety of chopped nuts and/or chocolate chips can be added. They also taste really good without any nuts or dried fruits as well.
9. I prefer them to be crispy and hence I bake them on a greased cookie sheet for 25-30 minutes on the top rack in a conventional oven (please refer to the original recipe for baking time). I let them cool for 5 minutes outside the oven, cut them into small size pieces and then again let them cool completely for an hour before storing.

For the cake:
1-1/4th sticks unsalted room temperature butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar (I used white vinegar)
1/6th Cup grated lemon zest
1 ½ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
6 tablespoons yogurt (I used fresh homemade one)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the syrup:
1/4th cup granulated sugar
1/4th cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the glaze:
1 cup confectioner’s sugar sifted
1 3/4th tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 1 8/12 by ¼ by 2/12 inch loaf pan that could make 4 mini loaves and this recipe yielded 3 mini loaves)

For the Cake:
1. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer or by hand until it is light and fluffy. Mix the lemon zest to this and keep aside.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
3. In another bowl combine the lemon juice, yogurt and vanilla.
4. Add the flour mixture from 2 and yogurt mixture from 3 above, alternatively to the creamed butter.
5. Lastly add vinegar to this and pour it in the pan and bake for about 45 minutes to an hour until a cake tester comes out clean (I had to bake mine only for about 30-33 minutes as the same amount of batter was spread over a larger surface area.)
6. Cool the cakes for about 10-15 minutes. Remove them from the pan and set them on a rack.

For the syrup:
1. Combine granulated sugar with lemon juice and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves.
2. Pour this syrup over the cake that has cooled for about 10-15 minutes.(Remember to set your cooling rack over a plate to catch the syrup that runs down the cakes)
3. After this allow the cakes to cool completely (I cooled mine overnight).

For the glaze:
1. Combine the confectioner’s sugar and the lemon juice until smooth. Pour over the cakes and set aside (covered) until the glaze sets.

I love the taste of lemon or orange in a cake and was always looking for an eggless recipe for it. I found this recipe on food network by Ina Garten but it was for 2 big loaves. So I scaled it down to make one loaf. Also when I tried the original recipe, I only made these substitutions:
• Substituted eggs with Yogurt + 2 tablespoons vinegar
• Increased the amount of butter and baking powder to help the elimination of egg

By making these changes, the cake had a great texture and cooked perfectly. But it was too sweet and very sour (not just lemony). So then the next time, I reduced the amount of sugar, vinegar and lemon juice in the recipe (the above recipe lists the revised measurements).

A couple of other combination I would like to try are 1) to use condensed milk instead of vinegar as an egg substitute & 2) to try to bake these in a large loaf pan instead of a mini loaf pan. I am wondering whether the cake will hold the shape if cooked in a bigger pan and cook evenly like it did in the mini loaf pan. Both the times I baked these, I was going to have company and didn’t want to risk the results. Hence I baked them in the mini loaf pan. But I will try to bake it in a larger loaf next time.

This cake has the best taste an eggless lemon cake can have. It has a great texture, cuts nicely into slices and looks great.

Deepali Kallidai from UK has sent her favorite Black Velvet Chocolate Cake recipe using lemon juice.

Makes two 8″ sandwich tins

2 2/3 cups Plain Flour
1 1/3 cups Caster Sugar
2 tsp Soda-bi-carb
2 tsp Baking Powder
6 tbsp Cocoa Powder
2 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp Vanilla essence
2/3 cup Oil
1 1/4 – 1 1/2 cups Cold water

1. Mix dry ingredients and seive few times to incorporate air.
2. Mix wet ingredients (mix only 1 cup water at this point as more can be added later, if needed)
3. Mix wet ingredients gradually with dry ingredients (preferably electric beater).
4. Bake in preheated oven at Gas Mark 4/160C for about 30 minutes.

I have decorated this cake with fresh whipped cream and fresh fruits.

This recipe is very simple and easy to make.

2 In another large mixing bowl, beat together the oil and sugar. Then add the cocoa and beat once again until well blended.

3 In a blender, blend together the EnerG powder and warm water for 2-3 minutes until it’s foamy.

4 Add the EnerG mix and vanilla extract to the wet ingredients and beat it once again.

5 Add the flour mixture gradually to the cocoa mixture, beating well. At this stage the cookie dough becomes very thick. My electric hand beater stopped working and I had to mix the dough with my hand. It had the consistency of stiff chapathi dough.

6 Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least 6 hours.

7 Preheat oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Prepare cookie sheets by greasing or lining with parchment paper.

8 Shape the dough into balls (I used around 1/2 tablespoon of dough); roll in powdered sugar to coat. Place about 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets.

9 Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched lightly and tops are crackled. I baked mine for 11 minutes. Cool slightly. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack and cool completely.

1 I first test baked 2 cookies. When tasted I found that it was very sweet. So for the subsequent batches I rolled the cookies with very less powdered sugar. For the final batch, I rolled the shaped cookie dough in cocoa powder to balance the sweetness. With the first bite you can taste a very light bitterness but it gets sweeter and the cookies were a little sticky.

2 The next time I bake it I’m going to try reducing 1/4 cup of sugar.

2 In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Since the quantity of butter is very less, the creamed mixture was dry and resembled coarse crumbs.

3 In a blender/food processor blend together Ener-G, water, soy milk and vanilla extract until nice and foamy.

4 Add the Ener-G mixture to the creamed butter/sugar and beat everything together with the hand mixer until thoroughly combined. This mixture looks creamy like a white sauce.

5 In another bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg (if using). Add this to the wet ingredients. The batter will be thick.

6 Stir in apples and nuts. Mix it thoroughly.

7 Spread the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with just a few crumbs. Mine was done around 38 minutes. You can also see that the cake starts pulling from the edges.

8 This cake can be sliced directly from the pan while its still warm, so no need to wait for the pan to cool to invert it and then slice it.

2 The apples were required to be diced, but I grated it because I was not sure if my son would eat the cake if it had chunks of apples in it. He usually eats all fruits and especially apples and pears are his favorite. But I can never guess him. The apples were really invisible, so if you have a picky eater sneak the apples by grating.

3 I was wondering what to do about the sweetness. If it’s not sweet enough you can always sprinkle some powdered sugar, have it with vanilla ice cream etc. But how to reduce the sweetness. Then I got this idea of coating the cake with unsweetened chocolate so that the bitterness would offset the sweetness. I wanted to try it immediately but did not have it at home. Sent my husband immediately to the grocery store and he got the Baker’s unsweetened baking chocolate. It’s a pack of 8 individually wrapped squares of plain chocolate. I wanted to test very little first. So melted 3 squares in the microwave oven. Cooled it a little bit. I decided to shaped the cake into small balls and dip it in the melted chocolate so that it would resemble truffles. Since the cake was slightly warm and moist I was able to proceed with the idea and shaped them into small balls. Dipped the cake quickly into the melted chocolate and placed it in a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I had a perfect slice of cake as well. My husband dipped 3 sides of the cake in the chocolate. I placed the baking sheet in the fridge for the chocolate to set. I couldn’t contain my excitement to taste it. Managed to wait until the next day morning. The chocolate had set perfectly and I took a bite of the apple cake truffle and was literally doing the happy dance. It tasted so good! The bitterness of the unsweetened chocolate took care of the sweetness perfectly. The taste was phenomenal. I’m very glad that I tried this apple cake recipe.

2 In a large bowl, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla.

3 In a food processor/blender whip together the egg replacer powder and water together, until it’s thick and creamy. Add this mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, combine thoroughly.

4 In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.

5 Gradually beat the flour mixture into the wet mixture until it begins to form a dough.

6 When it is almost thoroughly combined stir in the chocolate chips and nuts, if using.

7 I greased a tablespoon to scoop the dough and drop it easily onto the baking sheet.

8 Bake 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown.

9 Let stand for 2 minutes on the baking sheet itself. Then transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool
completely before storing.

2 For vegan chocolate chip cookies use non-hydrogenated, non dairy butter and nondairy semisweet chocolate chips.