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Eggless Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Madhuram — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:30:17 +0000

Actually this cake is 100% vegan if I had used vegan chocolate chips. I had 2 big zucchinis in my fridge and was wondering what to do with it. Coincidentally I saw a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake in one of the cookbooks I have. I was not surprised because I’ve baked a chocolate chip zucchini bread earlier and I know that you cannot taste the zucchini at all. But I didn’t want to proceed with that zucchini cake recipe because it was a 4 layered birthday cake with frosting and all. I wanted something very simple, like a snack cake. Googled and found a couple of zucchini cake recipes. I decided to go with this chocolate zucchini cake recipe because it was very simple and it also gave me room to make some healthy changes.

I used Ener-G egg replacer powder instead of eggs. This is my 4th attempt with Ener-G. My first experiment was not that good but the remaining 3 came out very well. I will post the other 2 recipes shortly. For this zucchini cake I kept the original measurements same but changed the ingredients to make it as healthy as possible. Like using whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour, oil and applesauce instead of butter, 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips instead of 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips. You can take my word that this cake is absolutely delicious in spite of all these healthy substitutions. My son (most of you know that he is a very picky eater) enjoyed this cake very much, not only on the first day but until it got over. This cake is not light and fluffy but dense and moist. This zucchini cake is also not overly sweet. Unlike the cakes made with all purpose flour and rich frosting which increases your sugar craving and makes you grab another slice of the cake, this cake is very filling and satisfying. We were not able to locate even one strand of the shredded zucchini.

Ingredients

For Cake:

Whole wheat pastry flour 2 cups

Cocoa powder 1/2 cup

Baking soda 1 teaspoon

Baking powder 1/2 teaspoon

Salt 1/4 teaspoon

Canola oil 1/4 cup

Unsweetened applesauce 1/4 cup

Granulated sugar 1/2 cup

Light brown sugar 1/2 cup

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Instant coffee powder 1 teaspoon

Ener-G egg replacer, in place of 3 eggs 4 and 1/2 teaspoons

Water 6 tablespoons

Milk (I used soy milk) 1/4 cup

Zucchini, grated 2 cups

Mini chocolate chips 1/2 cup

For Topping:

Light brown sugar 3 tablespoons

Pistachios, toasted and chopped 1/2 cup

Procedure 1 Preheat oven to 360F/180c for 15 minutes.

2 Grease and flour a 9 inch spring-form pan. You can use cocoa instead of flour.

3 In a large mixing bowl sift together the flour,cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

4 In a small blender/processor blend together the Ener-G and water until it’s nice and fluffy like beaten eggs. I used my Magic Bullet blender. I pulsed it a couple of times.

5 In a medium bowl add oil, applesauce, sugars, vanilla extract and coffee powder. Using a hand mixer beat the mixture in medium speed for 3-5 minutes.

6 Add the egg replacer liquid in 3 additions beating it after every addition. Now also add the milk and beat until well combined.

7 Reserving half a cup of the flour mixture, add slowly the remaining flour to the wet ingredients, while beating it in low speed. Combine well the grated zucchini, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of flour. Add this to the batter and mix it well. Note that the batter is thick at this stage. So don’t worry.

8 Pour the batter in the prepared cake pan and smooth it out using a spatula. While using a spring-form pan it’s advisable to place the pan on a baking sheet, so that the batter or baked cake does not fall down if the pan is not locked properly.

9 Prepare the topping by mixing the brown sugar and pistachios. Sprinkle this mixture evenly on the batter. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Mine was done in 45 minutes.

My Notes 1 The key in using Ener-G is processing it with the water in a blender until it’s nice and fluffy. Simply whisking it with a fork does not give desirable results. If you pour this immediately in a liquid measuring cup, you will see that it measures exactly 3/4 th of a cup, which is perfect because we usually replace every egg with 1/4 cup of any egg substitute. But by the time I was ready to add this mixture to the rest of the wet ingredients, I saw that it had reduced to 1/2 a cup. So to replace the 1/4 cup of liquid missing I used unsweetened soy milk. You could use any milk or even some fruit juice which you think would go with the flavors you are baking.

2 You can also use an 8 inch or 9 inch round cake pan instead of a spring form pan. But I think you cannot do the topping because, while inverting the pan to unmould the cake the toppings may fall down.

3 Zucchini can be grated without peeling. After grating I felt that the strands were very big, so I chopped them coarsely.

This goes to the Egg Replacement Event – Egg Replacer Powder hosted by me.

I Can’t Believe It’s Eggless Chocolate Cake!

Madhuram — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:21:22 +0000

My son turned 3 yesterday. For his birthday I wanted to bake an eggless layered cake with frosting and all. Earlier I have baked an eggless carrot cake and also a chocolate cake using soy milk. This eggless chocolate cake was way before I started the blog and for some reason I did not save the recipe. It had a soy milk ganache for the frosting and it also came out very well. I wish I had saved the recipe.

I wanted to bake a chocolate layered cake, because he loves it and was going through various resources to find a good eggless recipe. Earlier this month I had bought the EnerG, egg replacer from the grocery store. I thought that I would buy a ready made cake mix from the store and use the egg replacer instead of the eggs and bake the cake. Then only I found that EnerG does not give desired results with store bought mixes. So I dropped that idea. I have read in so many books/sites that tofu is a very good egg substitute in baked goods. I also had silken tofu sitting in the refrigerator and decided to use it for baking the cake.

Some of the chocolate cake recipes I was looking for had a minimum of 3 eggs. Then I found a chocolate cake recipe which required only 2 eggs, in my “Baking for Dummies” book. So I decided to proceed with that recipe and use pureed tofu instead of eggs. The rule is adding 1/4 cup of tofu per egg to be replaced.

Even though I proceeded with the recipe, I was skeptical about the taste and texture until I cut the cake on Sunday and tasted it. I baked the cake on Saturday and let it cool off until Sunday afternoon and then frosted it. I was anxious than my son to taste the cake. We were also talking about running to the grocery store on Sunday evening to buy a readymade cake, if this one flops.

But I need not have worried so much after all! The cake turned out so moist and together with the icing it was no different than the usual cakes. We did not taste/smell the tofu at all. More than anything I was so happy that my son liked the cake very much.

Ingredients For the Cake:

All Purpose Flour – 2 cups

Salt – 1 teaspoon

Baking Powder – 1 teaspoon

Baking Soda – 2 teaspoons

Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – 3/4 cup

Granulated Sugar – 2 cups (See My Notes)

Vegetable Oil – 1 cup (I used Canola Oil)

Hot Coffee – 1 cup (I mixed 1.25 teaspoons of instant coffee powder with 1 cup of hot water)

Milk – 1 cup (I used 2% milk)

Silken Tofu, pureed – 1/2 cup (I used Nasoya Brand Silken Tofu)

Vanilla Extract – 1 teaspoon

Vegan Option: Use soy milk instead of regular milk and you have your decadent vegan chocolate cake!

For the Frosting:

Dr Oetker’s Organic Chocolate Icing Mix – 1 packet

Hot Milk/Hot Water – 1/4 cup (heat it in the microwave oven for 15 seconds)

Butter, at room temperature – 1/3 cup (which is 5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon)

Vanilla Extract – 1/4 teaspoon

Baking Soda – a pinch

Yield: One 9-inch layer cake or 8-inch layer cake and 6 cupcakes

Cake Preparation

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1. Preheat the oven to 325F (160C).
2. Grease and flour (I used cocoa powder to flour the base of the pan because it’s a chocolate cake) two 9-inch cake pans.
3. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and sugar into a large mixing bowl.
4. Make a well. Add the canola oil. Then the hot coffee decoction.

5. Add milk.
6. Add the pureed tofu. (Remove the silken tofu from the packet using a spoon add it to the blender and puree it to a creamy mixture)
7. And a couple of drops of vanilla essence.

8. With an electric mixer, beat at medium speed for 2-3 minutes. (At first I did not use the hand mixer to combine the batter, because I remembered reading somewhere that while using egg substitutes, in this case tofu, beating the batter is not recommended and was so worried to see such a diluted batter and it was also having a lot of small lumps. So anyhow I decided to use my hand mixer to get rid of the lumps, but still the batter was considerably thin).

9. Pour the batter evenly into both 9-inch cake pans. (or fill the 6 muffin cups halfway with batter and divide the remaining batter between both 8-inch pans).

10. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a wooden tooth pick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (Check the cupcakes after 15 minutes). I placed 1 pan in the middle shelf and the another in the bottom shelf and set the timer for 25 minutes and switched the pans around 12 minutes. Switching the pan means moving the pan from the middle shelf to the bottom and the bottom shelf pan to the top. This is done to ensure even baking of both the cakes. One of my make was done exactly at 25 minutes and the other one took 30 minutes.

11. Let the cakes cool completely before removing them from the pans. The time mentioned in the original recipe was 15 minutes and so I tried to transfer the cake to a wire rack after 20 minutes and it was little messy. So I left the other cake in the pan itself for quite some time. Maybe after an hour I touched the bottom of that pan and found that it had cooled completely and so transferred it to the wire rack.

12. The cake should cool completely on the wire rack before frosting. I baked the cakes on Saturday and frosted them on Sunday. I left it out on the kitchen counter and covered it with a bamboo basket. You could also refrigerate the cake to cool it off.

Frosting

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1. Sift the mix.
2. Add the butter, hot milk, vanilla and baking soda. (I read in the same book that adding a pinch of baking soda to icings prevents hardening and cracking so icing stays moist)
3. Beat the mix using a hand mixer at medium-high speed. Add few drops of water/milk if required.

Frosting the Cake:
This was my first experience with frosting a cake, so I simply followed the steps listed in the book.
1. First I placed the bottom layer upside down, so the rounded side (top of the cake will be on the serving plate). If you have dome top on the cake, even it out by slicing it with a serrated knife and then place it upside-down.
2. Spread about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of frosting on top of the bottom layer. Don’t use hard strokes, but spread it gently using an offset metal spatula or plastic spatula.
3. Now place the second layer on the first, cut or domed side up.
4. Frost the sides of the cake first with another 1/2 cup of frosting.
5. Finally frost the top of the second layer.

It was slightly difficult for me, but somehow I managed to frost the entire cake. Before and while frosting the cake I was not sure about the consistency of the frosting. Later after seeing quite a few cake pictures I realised that my frosting was definitely thick and that’s why was I having hard time spreading it. I should have added a few more drops of water to thin it and frosting would have been a breeze.

Decorating

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As you all know the options are endless. Being a rookie that I am, and because my son loves M&M’s I used them to line the cake. I also used the ready made CakeMate decorating pens which are available in the grocery store in the baking aisle to write the birthday message and draw some flowers.

My Notes As a whole the cake was excellent. But considering healthy eating I would modify the recipe a little bit the next time. Like reducing the quantity of sugar in the cake recipe from 2 cups to 1.5 cups. Since the frosting is also sweet enough, we don’t need that much sugar in the cake too. Next reducing the quantity of oil too. Instead of 1 cup of oil, 1/2 cup can be replaced with unsweetened applesauce.

I would like to send this cake to the following events:

1. Sia is hosting this month’s JFI – Soya. JFI originally started by Indira.
2. Hima’s Sunday Snacks – Bake It.

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