Today is my younger Annaya’s birthday. Between the sister and me, we have always craved for elder brothers right since we were very little. Atleast the sister had me, an elder sister but I wanted someone to look up to – a brother figure to be exact. And our share of brotherly love came from our cousin brothers. Our Pedanannagaru and Pedammagaru (Uncle and Aunt as in my dad’s elder brother and SIL) always looked after us like their own daughters and so our cousin brothers are more like our own brothers. Growing up, we hardly met each other for a few days every year but that hardly mattered. In fact, the last I saw my brothers were last year March, but that doesn’t in the tiniest bit reduce our love and affection for each other. Thanks to social media and apps like whatsapp, we are always connected and I know that they are always there for me. Today is a special day for our annaya, who is the sweetest, loveliest, affectionate and the most caring person 🙂 He laughs heartily even at my stupidest jokes and always has words of encouragement for anything I do. When all the four of us are together, we bring the roof down with our nonstop banter and laughs. He loves our food and kitchen stories, always ready to compliment on anything we make 🙂 Missing you Annaya! Happiest birthday to you 🙂 Though miles apart, I wanted to celebrate my Annaya’s birthday and the first thing that stuck me this morning was the chocolate cake. I know I can’t send this cake to him today, but whenever we meet I promise to prepare it for him 🙂 I chose a recipe that hardly requires any whipping at all, making it the easiest chocolate cake ever made. Instead of using eggs, I used flaxseed meal and the result is a beautiful, moist, rich chocolate cake. For the frosting, I used home-made cream cheese and blended it with cocoa powder to get a rich chocolate frosting. I have never like butter cream frosting and whipping cream is so difficult to find in regular stores here. This cream cheese frosting turned out lip-smackingly delicious and it’s going to be my go-to 🙂
To Make Eggless Chocolate Cake Serves - 4 Time to prepare – 60mins What I used –
Maida/All Purpose Flour, 2 cups Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, ¾ cup Baking Powder, 2 tsp Baking Soda, 1.5 tsp Instant Coffee Powder, 1 tsp Salt, ½ tsp Sugar, 1.5 cups Toned Milk, 1 cup (at room temp) Oil, ½ cup Flaxseed Meal, 2 tbsp Vanilla Essence, 1 tsp Boiling Water, 1 cup + 6 tbsp
To Make Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Toned Milk, ½ ltr Vinegar or Lemon Juice, 2 tbsp Icing Sugar, 1 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, 1.5 tbsp Instant Coffee Powder, ½ tsp Silver Sugar Balls, for decoration (optional)
How I made – Eggless Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Note: The baking times vary from oven to oven, keep checking the cake after 30mins to see if it’s done. For each egg that is called out in a recipe, you can use a tablespoon of flaxseed meal and three tablespoon of boiling water. To prepare flaxseed meal at home, blend flaxseeds until really fine in a mixer jar. Make sure that the milk curds for preparing the cream cheese is completely removed of the water or else, the frosting can be runny. If the frosting is too thick to spread, a teaspoon of milk can be added.
