Eggless Chocolate Cake (Dairy Free)

I never used to make eggless cakes until the time that my sister was found to be allergic to eggs followed by my brother’s daughters who were both lactose intolerant as well as allergic to eggs. I started researching for recipes for some of the common sweets and desserts we used to make at home and how we could make those without eggs and dairy. And I must say that I actually was enjoying this journey into a whole new world of eggless and dairy free baking. So much so that I started replacing butter with oil in many of my bakes…:)

And now, after multiple trials with eggless and dairy-free versions of chocolate cakes, I can finally say that I had a recipe which gave me consistent results. I have served this cake plain without any frosting, frosted with ganache as well as have used it as a layered cake under fondant. And it has never disappointed me. (Check recipe for Ganache: https://foodtokwithsherin.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/chocolate-ganache-sauce/)

Few Things to keep in mind

• Dairy Free Recipe: I have used milk in this recipe. But the entire quantity of milk can be replaced with water making the cake dairy free. Alternately, you can also replace the quantity of water used by milk if you wish to retain the dairy in the cake.
• Sugar: The recipe calls for granulated sugar. I do prefer using castor sugar for all my baked goodies as the larger granules in regular granulated sugar could bring in a slightly different texture to the baked item. However, for this recipe, the regular granulated sugar works perfectly fine. You can replace it with castor sugar also, if you prefer. In case you do not have castor sugar and wish to use that, you can pulse the regular sugar in a mixer a couple of times such that the sugar granules are much smaller, but they are not powdered either.
• Chocolate Chips: I prefer adding chocolate chips or chopped dark cooking chocolate to this cake. But if you want to skip it, you can. But in that case, make sure you increase the quantity of sugar by another 2 tbsp.

Recipe

Ingredient List

• All Purpose Flour – 1 ½ cups (200 gms)
• Cocoa Powder – 1/4 cup (20 gms)
• Baking Powder – 3/4 tsp
• Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp
• Salt – 1/4 tsp
• Granulated Sugar – 1 cup (200 gms) (See Recipe Notes Above)
• Water – 1/2 cup (125 ml)
• Milk – 1/2 cup (125 ml) (See Recipe Notes Above)
• White Vinegar / Lemon Juice – 1 tbsp (15 ml)
• Oil – 1/4 cup (60 ml)
• Chocolate Chips or Chopped Dark Cooking Chocolate – 1/4 cup (about 50 gms) (See Recipe Notes Above)

Step by Step Process

1. Grease and line a 7 inch round or an 8 inch square tin with parchment paper. Alternatively, you can grease the tin with oil and dust it with some all purpose flour or cocoa powder.
2. Preheat the oven to 165 deg C.
3. Sieve together the all purpose flour (keep a tbsp of flour aside), cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl. To this mix in the sugar.
4. Add the water, milk (or water if you are replacing the milk with water fully), vinegar and oil to the dry ingredients and whisk well so that there are no lumps and everything is well incorporated.
5. Add the flour kept aside to the chocolate chips / chopped chocolate and toss it well so that its all well coated in the flour. Add this to the batter and mix quickly.
6. Pour the prepared batter into the cake tin and bake for 35 min first. If the top looks done and sides are slightly released, open the oven and check with a skewer if done. If not done, leave it for another 5 – 10 min till a skewer inserted comes clean.
7. Let it cool completely before cutting and serving. This is a very moist cake and can be enjoyed without any frosting

If you wish to make it fancier, you can frost it with some chocolate ganache and top it up with some chopped nuts!!! (Check recipe: https://foodtokwithsherin.wordpress.com/2020/02/22/chocolate-ganache-sauce/)