Eggless Golden Yellow Cake > *Christmas 2011*

Merry Christmas Y'all! :-D

10 years ago, my neighbor, who also happens to be my best friend Jennybum (oops, Jennifer) and I were deciding what to ask Santa Claus. We were in 3rd grade then. We made big plans, kept milk & biscuits for Santa & wrote down our long list of gifts, seeing which, if Santa had been real, would surely have had a heart attack! :-D It was Selvi Aunty, Jenny's mom who was our *secret Santa*. We settled for pencil boxes & crayons. :-) Selvi aunty's yellow cake, strawberry swirl cake, cookies and so many more goodies made all my childhood Christmases.

To get the Christmas-y feeling now, I decided to bake the classic yellow cake that I've always wanted to try. :-) I couldn't try this before because all those recipes called for eggs. And I happened to come across this cake & I knew it was a sign! :-D I've baked this twice since then and every time, it doesn't fail to impress. I did make a few changes in the ingredients to get the perfect cake coz the first time, although tasty, the cake was crumbly. The pictures you see are from the 1st time. But the recipe is altered to get my perfect cake. You can always follow the original recipe if it works for you.

RECIPE
(Print this recipe)

Ingredients	Amount	Detail (if any)
All pupose flour	1 ½ cup	(230 grams)
Milk	1 ½ cup	(250 ml)
Granulated Sugar	3/4 cup	(150 grams) Can use powdered sugar too
Vanilla custard powder	1/3 cup	75 grams / substitute with equal amounts of cornflour & vanilla essence
Baking powder	1 3/4 teaspoon	Around 8 grams
Baking soda	1/4 teaspoon	-
Vanilla extract	1 teaspoon	-
Butter	100 grams	At room temperature, softened
Almonds	½ cup	Chopped | optional

Method -
Heat oven to 150C/300F
1) Sift together flour, baking powder & baking soda

2) Heat milk in a deep bottomed pan & add sugar when it is hot enough & mix

 

3) Once sugar dissolves, remove from flame & bring it to room temperature. (or lukewarm)
4) Add custard powder / cornstarch an mix well

 

5) Add the butter and mix well. (It is okay if the mixture is lumpy. Once you mix with flour, it mixes well)

6) Add the milk-mixture to the flour-mixture and mix well

 

7) Add vanilla essence & mix well

8) Fold in the chopped almonds (optional)

9) Pour into a greased baking pan

10) Bake at 150C for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

Note:

> If using cornstarch, you'll get a white cake, not yellow. You could add a drop of food coloring to get the yellow color. Or even the white cake tastes good.

> Even though original recipe is to bake for 55 minutes, mine was done in 30 minutes. So keep a close watch on the cake after 30 minutes.

> I added lesser butter (80grams) the second time and the cake was still, perfect. Maybe a little less greasy but that's good.

VERDICT - The cake is all I ever wanted it to be. Soft, spongy, tasty & YELLOW! :-) I still haven't figured out why the brown crust forms on my cake while there is no crust on the original. But that's okay. the crust gives the cake a nice crunch along with the almonds. :-) And if you wat it warm, you'll experience bliss! :-D

Merry Christmas! :-)

(This post is dedicated to Jenny, Satish, Selvi Aunty & Raj Uncle!)