Our First Cake

Vanilla Cake – (Sponge Cake) – Without Oven

To start with, there are way too many recipes to prepare a vanilla cake, leave alone other types of cakes, so it was confusing to start with. There were differences e.g. in the quantity of eggs, maida, etc .So we chose a recipe which had a good history from our personal experience.

Ingredients -

2 Cups - Maida ( Refined flour )

2 Cups - Castor Sugar

2 Cups - Butter (We chose the home made one)

1 tbsp - Baking Powder

4 Eggs

4 tsps -- Milk

1 tsp -- Vanilla Essence

Handful of Tuti Fruti

Recipe –

1. Sieve the maida. We did it for 3 times, but more the merrier. In between sieving, add a table spoon of baking powder.

2. Sieve sugar seperately.

3. Break the eggs and whip it. We did not separate the yolk and the white, but whipped it together using a hand mixer.

4. Take the butter on a plate. The bigger the plate the better. Now, whip the butter on the plate, with large clock wise motions with the palm ,around the plate. The idea , I understand is to incorporate air into the butter. It makes the butter smooth and fluffy. We did this for around 10 – 15 mins.

5. Pour the egg mixture on to the butter and whip it again with hand for around 15 mins.

6. Similarly, add maida and sugar and continue whipping. This is followed by milk, vanilla essence and Tuti Fruti.

7. The entire mixture now becomes a smooth bater.

8. Take a thick iron plate and pour about 2 cups of sand over it. Now heat the iron plate and ensure that the sand also is evenly hot.

9. We had an aluminum vessel with a hole in between .We poured the batter around the hole to fill the vessel. It looks like a giant doughnut.

10. We kept the gas on medium, for about 80 mins. We regularly monitored the baking after 45 mins. It might be better to keep the gas on medium for 30 mins, and at sim for the remaining period. Since the vessel we used had a hole, the problem of the centre not getting cooked did not arise.

11. The cake came out sufficiently sweet and soft. However, due to the excessive heat, it got a trifle burnt, but nothing serious.

12. Insert a skewer or needle inside the cake. If the needle comes out clean, the cake is baked.

For the first attempt it was good, but there are few things we might do differently the next time.

A. Whip the egg white and the yolk separately.

B. Keep track of the temperature. Maybe just shut off the gas just before it cooks, so that the trapped heat completes the remaining cooking.

C. Increase the amount of sand and modify the baking vessel.

D. Maybe reduce the quantity.

We plan to bake orange cake the next time. Then we will post the recipe with the snaps of various stages in the preparation process.