Eggless Apple cake with Caramel sauce

I wanted to make this cake after I saw Madhuram's announcement to bake egg less cake with silken tofu. I was totally surprised, as I had never heard before that one could use tofu to replace eggs in baking. For that matter, I had never bothered to know of any egg replacers. But, then my father, who is a vegetarian, would have loved to eat a home made egg less cake, and isn't it much more healthy to replace eggs with silken tofu? Yes of course! The only restriction I have is that I have plan something like this in advance, as I don't get silken tofu locally, but only in the city centre.
I was so curious to know how it would turn out. But, by the time I had got to now of the recipe, I had two weeks of time and I usually bake only on weekends, and somehow didn't get time to bake and missed the event. But, I knew I had to bake it despite that. And I also wanted to use a normal recipe prepared with eggs and replace the eggs with silken tofu. So I did!

I used my recipe - a recipe I got from my friend- the recipe of 2's, which I have modified though to a certain extent. This time I wanted to stick to the original recipe as much as possible.
Here are the changes I have made:
I used 200 g 150 g margarine (no hydrogenated fats) instead of butter
I replaced the 2 eggs with 100 g silken tofu, whisked thoroughly with a hand stick blender
I used 80 g currents and 3-5 apples (enough to cover a 26 cm springform pan) as a topping

And I made a caramel sauce using Ivy's recipe. It was delicious!


This is a very special cake. Special.... once, because it was my first ever effort to replace eggs with something vegan and it also came out so wonderful, a big success! And special also because I feel I have found the perfect egg replacer for such butter cakes I make quite often. But, the bestthing about it is the very special flavour tofu imparted to the cake. I cannot describe it in words, but it was so delicious!
Now, sine tofu is a lot of protein and the flour contains a lot of starch, so this was a result of maillard reaction, so vital to cooking without which what would food taste of?! Now, I'm sorry if I made your mood off with my explanations from chemistry for food. I find it quite fascinating and I assume that you also find it like that too.

Now, to another sweet thing to talk about...
I was loaded with these lovely awards (and a tag - will follow soon) from two wonderful blogger friends - I feel so good saying this :) - Priya and N33ma. I consider myself a comparatively new blogger, although I was surprised to see recently how long I have been blogging now and actually feel not so new any more, but it is all becuse of you all, my blog viewers without whom it wouldn't be half as much fun.
Dear Priya, dear N33ma, thank you so much! Thank you for having thought of me and extending your hand of friendship! It makes me feel good. Tight hugs to you both!




And I got these award also from N33ma. How I love to own them! Thanks a lot N33ma!
I would like to forward these to all my blogger friends, for passing by and taking your time to leave comments and taking notice of my blog - one of thousands of wonderful blogs out there. Please forgive me if I leave out anybody's name, but it is truely meant for all of those who visit my blog, regularly or irregularly:

Anudivya of ...and a little bit more...

Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen

Aparna of Sumi's Weblog

Aparna of Three Mangoes

Curry leaf

Deesha of Vegetable Platter

G. Pavani of Food Lovers

Ivy of Kopiaste

Laxmi Venkatesh of Kitchen Chronicles

Malar Gandhi of Kitchen Tantra

N&A of Delectably Yours

Priya of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes

RC of Redchillies

Soma of eCurry

Sunshinemom of Tongueticklers


Now, it maybe that you already have a couple or all of these awards, so it is upto you if you wish to just add me to the list of bloggers who awarded you and leave it at that or pass it on and do the tag of seven.
Just wanted to add: I'm sorry, but I'll do the tag soon, it is right now under process here!

Gluten free Brownie Muffins

As you might know, this is the trial where I made a gluten free version of brownies, but without the xanthan gum. We made them using a muffin pan. Sonny boy loved these, so did I. To bite into the crust and then into the soft centre. It was something like a different version of Eclairs! :D
Hubby, he's not a brownie fan. But, the reason could have been the not so perfect results. The long baking time I used made the outer cover dry out a bit and I had to increase the baking time as the centre was still much too soft after 30 minutes. And maybe it was the lack of xanthan gum needed to replace the absence of wheat flour. I'm not sure. So, you see this is not a perfect result. I do plan to make them again and tell you about the improvements. But, anyways they tasted wonderful!

And here is the recipe:

Gluten free Brownie Muffins

I used a recipe from Wiki (here).

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Baking time: 25-35 minutes
Baking temperature: 160-170 °C (convection: 150°C)


Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter (60 g)
1 cup sugar (200 g)
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract -I used bourbon vanilla extract
2 eggs -I used 1/2 cup or 100 g silken tofu, whipped smooth with a hand blender
1/3 cup all purpose flour (40 g )- I used 30 g rice flour and 10 g cornstarch
6 tbsp cocoa powder (40 g)
1/4 tsp salt (a pinch) -I used lesser than 1/4 tsp
1 cup whole nuts of choice, chopped or whole, like walnuts or hazelnuts or pecans

Method:

• melt butter in a pot, add sugar, vanilla extract and eggs (or whipped silken tofu) and whip everything together
• add flour(s) and cocoa powder (preferably sieved, to prevent clumps)
• and stir to make a creamy paste
• add the nuts, chopped or whole, and mix
  
• spread on a small baking pan - I used a muffin pan
  
• bake at 160-170 °C (convection: 150°C) for 25 - 35 minutes (check after 25 minutes) - I had to bake for 40 minutes

NOTE: The inside was very soft and gooey and the outside a bit dry. Although I'm told that this is how a brownie normally is, I'm not sure if this was an optimal result. Maybe I need to add xanthan gum or something similar to compensate for the wheat flour.

Rishab and I enjoyed the last bit of it yesterday and it was pure pleasure for both of us. So, I thought I might as well publish these not-so-perfect but yummy recipe, even though I had initially planned to bake it again and then publish it. As you can see I also made a coating of chocolate icing to compensate for the dryness, which worked wonders....