Instant Microwave Banana Nut Cake

I've resumed cooking. It was something I had to do to bring in a sense of "normalcy" into my life. Attempting to cook in the serviced apartment without a pressure cooker was an experience in itself. I realized how much I took my kitchen in Gurgaon for granted. But I also realized that healthy meals are possible even if you have almost no appliances and only three utensils.

After we moved into our apartment, the first set of boxes we opened were the ones which would help me start cooking. Slowly, all my appliances came out of their boxes and I was thrilled to see the pressure cookers, the mixer-food processor and my wet grinder. Once I got into the groove of day to day cooking, I started missing baking. And I started missing my oven. For the moment, I only have a basic microwave. I decided to stick with it for the time being and invest in a combination oven in a couple of months. But (my friends know this) I needed to bake to feel really normal.

I've only baked two cakes in the microwave before this. I also don't have a fully stocked pantry as yet. So, I quickly stocked up on baking powder, baking soda and some vanilla essence. I started scouting for more microwave cake recipes with easily available ingredients. My research brought me to cooks.com and I found a banana nut cake recipe that seemed to call out to me. I decided to improvise with what I had on hand and also made several substitutions to make it a very healthy cake.

The final result was fabulous. The cake wasn't crusty on top, but I know not to expect that from a microwave cake. The texture of the cake was as good as, if not better than, most banana cakes I have baked in the past. This recipe is a sure shot keeper.

1/4 cup Oil

1/4 cup Low Fat Milk

1 Egg

1 Ripe Banana

1/2 cup Jaggery, grated

1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/4 cup Flour (Plain)

1/2 cup Mixed Nuts, chopped

1/4 cup Raisins

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

In a blender jar, beat the egg until fluffy. Add the banana and blend until there are no lumps. Add the jaggery, oil and milk and blend again. Add the flours along with the baking powder and baking soda and blend for a minute or two.

Grease a microwave safe baking dish. Pour the batter into the dish and stir in the chopped nuts and raisins. Bake on high (800) for 8 minutes. Allow to stand for 10 minutes. Cut into slices and dig in.

I'm glad to be back to cooking, baking and blogging as well. I'm even happier to be able to send this to an event I regularly participated in: The Monthly Mingle. This month, Deeba of Passionate About Baking is hosting this event and I am sending this to Deeba as my entry to Fruit in Baking.

Savoury Vegetable Cake

Cakes aren’t always sweet, are they? While I absolutely love the whole idea of baking a cake and having the aroma of vanilla fill my entire house, I love this savoury cake every once in a while. Again, a microwave cake recipe, but this one is all Indian, down to the “icing”!


1 cup Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Sugar
¼ tsp Turmeric
½ cup Onion, finely chopped
½ cup Oil
1 cup Vegetables, finely chopped and cooked
2 chopped Green Chillies or 1 tsp Green Chilli Paste
1 tsp Ginger Paste
1 tbsp Coriander leaves, chopped
1 tbsp Mint leaves, chopped
2 Eggs, beaten
2 tsp Lime juice

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and turmeric powder. In a microwave safe bowl, place ¼ cup oil and the chopped onions. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Combine this with all the other ingredients. Cook uncovered for 4-5 minutes. Allow to stand for 2-3 minutes.

Serve with a tempering of mustard, asafoetida and curry leaves or with green chutney. My favourite way to eat this is by spreading the green chutney over the cake slices like icing. It is a hit at breakfast or tea time.

Off this goes to Srivalli as part of her MEC: Cakes event.

Eggless Chocolate Cake

This is really the simplest cake I have ever made. It is eggless, has just 5 spoons of oil, takes less than 10 minutes from flour to baked product and can me made in a basic microwave oven. The best part is that the people who eat it will “assume” that you toiled for hours to get this cake ready.

I have made this many times in the past and the result has always been “Wow!” I’d been pushing Srivalli to announce cakes for her MEC and finally she did. I think I was drowning in that thing called work and I’d managed to come up for a gasp of air before the sheer force took me in once again and there – I saw the announcement. I thought I was going to miss the bus yet again and then I caught her online and pleaded with her to extend the deadline. And she did.

So without making her wait any further, let me post the recipe for this microwave cake that is definitely a keeper.

1 1/2 cups Flour

3 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 cup Powdered Sugar

5 tbsp Oil

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 tbsp White Vinegar

1 cup Milk

Sift the dry ingredients together. Add the liquid ingredients. Blend well. Pour into a greased 8 inch microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 5-7 minutes. Allow to stand for 10 minutes.

Your cake is ready. While baking, you could top it with some cashews and brown sugar, coconut and sugar... or just about anything you like.

Chocolate cakes work best in pureplay MW ovens as they don't need to brown on top. A vanilla cake bakes just as well, but the top remains whitish brown. And when one doesn't frost the cake, it looks a little odd. Another thing to note while baking a cake in a MW is to never flour the pan after greasing. The rationale is that the flour-fat mixture actually gets cooked!

Mixed Vegetable Curry

I have been busier this past week than I have been in a long time. So, much as I promised to be regular and all that, I have not managed a single post in an entire week. While work did keep me occupied a great deal, I also had my cousin and family visit me from Bombay. They returned to their base last morning. Having a three year old in the house can be a lot of fun and it can also be a very trying experience. Especially if the little one doesn't enjoy mealtimes. I have been thinking an awful lot about how I became a non fussy eater. How did I learn to not just eat what was placed in front of me, but also relish it? I made a pizza on the day the family arrived. My niece did not even look at it. (On another day, we went to Pizza Hut, and she devoured a double cheese pizza.) I baked vegetable buns and chocolate chip buns. She didn't even look at them. I tried telling her that she should try things out before deciding whether she likes them or not. Did I succeed? Not entirely. Which also means that I didn't entirely fail. I got her to look forward to milk time. She tried chocolate milk and strawberry milk and found that milk was not all bad. She enjoyed a fluffy cheese omelette for breakfast one morning. The entire episode got me thinking and I figured that I am this way because of my parents and their attitude towards food. If my parents had nurtured strong likes and dislikes in me, I may very well have fallen into the category of fussy eaters. For this 3 year old, meal times meant dal-rice and curd rice. In many ways, I couldn't help but empathise with her for not enjoying meals. But it got me thinking nonetheless.

I also wonder why meal times have to mean rice or rotis. There was this one time when we'd invited a bunch of people over for dinner. I'd made several items and served biscuit rotis as appetizers. We had a 3 year old who devoured them. He ate three and a half rotis and then had a bowl of tomato soup. Quite a meal for someone who'd just turned 3. In fact, quite a meal for someone who turned 30 as well. Despite this, his mother fretted over his not having eaten rice and made him eat a serving of peas pulao and then some curd rice.

While I have been wondering about all this, you must be wondering if I have been cooking at all. I assure you, I have. I am not in the cracker and milk mode and have a decent meal each night. I am also having very decent breakfasts and lunches. I have not had a chance to buy fruit and that's the only item missing from my daily diet and I will fix this very soon.

I made this mixed vegetable curry to go with rotis some time ago and liked it a lot. I made it again today with mushrooms and soya and had it with some jeera rice. I didn't click a picture, but since the recipe is the same, I decided to write about this one. I just put in whatever I could find in the mixie jar and made this paste. This has no onions and no garlic. So it is ideal fasting/festival food.

1 cup Carrot, cut into long pieces

1 cup French Beans, cut into long pieces

1/2 cup Soya nuggets, prepared as per instructions on the pack

1 tbsp Oil

Grind to a paste:

2 tbsp Cashews

2 tbsp Peanuts

4 Red Chillies

1 tsp Coriander Seeds

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

1/4 tsp Kashmiri Chilli Powder

Salt to taste

This dish tastes great when prepared over the stove as well as in the microwave.

Stove Top Version:

Pressure cook the carrots and beans.

Heat the oil in a kadhai. Add the paste and fry for a few minutes. Add the vegetables and the soya nuggets. Cover and cook for 4-5 minutes.

Microwave version:

Place the carrots and beans in a microwave safe bowl. Add a little water. Cover and cook on high for 5 minutes. Keep aside.

In another microwave safe bowl, place the oil and heat on high for a minute. Add the paste and cook on high for 2-3 minutes, stirring after every minute. Add the vegetables and soya nuggets. Cover and cook on medium for 5-7 minutes. Allow for a few minutes of standing time.

Enjoy this dish with rotis or rice or even bread. I am sending this to Suganya for her Vegan Ventures event.

I am also sending this to Srivalli for her Microwave Easy Cooking: Side Dish Series.

We are off to attend the wedding of S's friend in Agra. And after we get back, we have 5 other weddings to attend this week. That definitely means almost no cooking at home. I hope that doesn't mean no blogging. I have not even thought about RCI this month yet and there's the JFI entry that I have to post. There's the big issue of WBB as well. I will get back to this blog as soon as I can. See you soon.