Confusion Cook

This is my first sweet punch bake. I’m not sure where to start and what to write. I guess I’ll start from scratch! A Sweet Punch is started by Divya of Easycooking, Ria of Ria’s Collection & Maria of Maria’s Menu. I’ve been following Easycooking since December last year and I’m grateful to Divya for starting me on the journey of baking. I had a microwave/ convection oven and not an OTG, so for years I believed I can’t bake in it (I did try a couple of times, but they were such a disaster, let’s not talk about them here!). One fine day, while surfing for some recipes on Chef in You, I came across a post by Divya on Baking in Microwave/ Convection mode. I couldn’t believe it!! There was actually someone out there who does her baking in Convection mode. You gotta be kidding!! Slowly when it all sunk in, I searched for eggless recipes on Divya’s blog and started on my baking life

A Sweet Punch is for bakers like me – Home Baking Made Simple. I guess we would like it simple. Thank you Divya, Ria & Maria for making it simple.

This month’s Sweet Punch was a Perfect Pound Cake from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Apart from choosing her recipe, they also chose to follow the method of mixing the batter differently, which would ensure a tight crumb just like Sara Lee Pound Cake.

When I first read the recipe on reveal date, I was in a fix as I don’t eat or use eggs. For me it became more than Perfect Pound Cake, it became my first cake wherein I have substituted egg on my own account. I googled for eggless pound cake recipes, there are many but none that follows this proportion or method and I didn’t want to deviate from both. By following available recipes on google I felt I was missing the whole fun of being a Sweet Punch Member.

Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

So I decided to simply substitute the eggs in the given recipe with best possible subs. In this endeavor, I ended up making 2 cakes – Eggless Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting & Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake. I substituted egg with banana & ricotta cheese respectively. In the process I learned to make cream cheese, coconut cream cheese frosting at home and that Paneer is a closest alternative to Ricotta Cheese. Enough of jibber-jabber, here to recipe -

Eggless Banana Pound Cake – I replaced egg with ripe Banana & Baking Powder in this recipe – (1/4 cup ripe Banana + 1/2 tsp Baking Powder replaces 1 egg) Also my fluted tube pan is smaller than 6 cup, so I reduced the quantity by 1/3rd maintaining the same proportion.

Recipe Source – A Sweet Punch Team

Ingredients -

• 2 Tbsp – Milk
• 1/2 cup ripe Banana + 1 tsp Baking Powder (replace 2 eggs)
• 1 tsp – Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup – Sifted Cake Flour
• 1/2 cup – Sugar
• 1/2 tsp – Leavening Agent (1/4 tsp Baking Powder + 1/4 tsp Baking Soda)
• a pinch – Salt
• 123 gms – Unsalted Butter

Method – I simply replaced the egg with banana in the steps. Baking powder is added in dry ingredients along with other leavening agents.

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease fluted tube pan. Sift dry ingredients together 2-3 times.
2. Puree the banana in a processor.
3. Lightly whisk together milk, banana puree and vanilla in a medium bowl.
4. Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix on low speed for 30 secs, until blended.
5. Add butter & half of the banana mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are moistened. On medium speed beat for 1 minute. This will aerate and develop cake’s texture. Scrape down sides.
   

   Banana Mix

6. Add the remaining banana mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 secs between each addition. Scrape down sides.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan. Smooth surface with spatula. I baked for 25 – 30 mins.
8. Let cake cool on a rack in the pan for 10 mins before inverting onto a greased wire rack.
   

   Eggless Banana Pound Cake

For making Cake flour at home – Take one cup of APF and remove 2 Tbsp from it. Replace the 2 Tbsp flour with cornflour and sift together 2-3 times. Cake flour is ready to use.

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting – When the cake was ready, I felt it was incomplete without a frosting, so I promptly used my search engine and came up with a very simple recipe of cream cheese by Khushboo. Thankfully this recipe doesn’t call for fancy ingredients like some others do. She has given 3 recipes I chose the simplest one as the ingredients were available and time used was minimum (with a toddler to manage time is of great importance to me).

Again search engine came in handy for finding a recipe for coconut cream cheese frosting. This one is from Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic.

Recipe Source – minimally adapted from Khushboo of Notecook & Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic

Ingredients -

• 1 cup – hung Curd (hang 2 cups of curd to get 1 cup of hung curd)
• 1 cup – full Cream

I used 1 cup cream cheese to make frosting as my cake was small.

• 1 cup – Cream Cheese
• 50 gm – unsalted Butter
• 1/4 cup – fresh grated Coconut
• 3/4 cup – Icing Sugar
• 1/4 cup – fresh grated Coconut for sprinkling on top

Method -

Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

1. Mix hung curd & cream together to get 2 cups of cream cheese. Remember this method gives slightly curd smelling cream cheese.
2. Cream the butter and cheese together for about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides.
3. Slowly add the sugar. Fold in the coconut. Chill for assembling.

Assembling the Cake -

1. Spread onto the cooled cake. Sprinkle grated coconut on top of frosting.
2. Chill and serve. My cake tasted much better once we chilled and cut.
   

   Coconut Cream Cheese Frosted Cake

I especially timed the cake to celebrate Father’s Day. And I had to give in to lot of demands from him – being V is not patient, I can’t wait to eat, who cares for frosting or photos is his motto!! He didn’t let me chill the frosting and didn’t even let me sprinkle the whole cake with coconut. So I had to make do with half sprinkled cake. For every resistance I would get – It is my day and it is baked for me, so what I say will prevail. MEN!!! May be it’s another excuse for a bad photo job I’m learning you see…. my learning curve is slow. I learnt not to bake when V is around. Next attempt will definitely be on a weekday.

Eggless Perfect Banana Pound Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

The cake came out good with a distinct taste of both banana & coconut. Though as I mentioned, it tasted very good after chilling and eating. I felt the cake was slightly on the denser side – which I attribute to lack of eggs, no hand mixer & addition of baking soda.

SO, I made a second attempt as this shot was far from Perfect Pound Cake -

• I tried paneer as a substitute for egg.
• I bought a hand mixer finally and wanted to use it on this cake. This cake is all about timing and speed of hand mixer so I guess this cake deserved my first mixer use.
• I added baking soda with presumption that it is just enough to utilize the slight acidity of the bananas to create the desired carbon dioxide bubbles. However, I may be wrong, as addition of soda in absence of proper acidic medium gives a denser cake. So in second attempt I added cocoa powder (acidic medium) to make full use of soda properties.

In short I made Perfect Eggless Chocolate Ricotta Cheese Pound Cake for second attempt. Since this post is already too long, I have decided to put together my workings for next attempt as a separate post. I hate long posts! So see you around in a couple of days.