Eggless Fruit and Nuts Cupcakes

one of my favorite cake from childhood. Very soft, moist cake recipe with lots of tutti frutti in each and every bite.

If you are from India then you must know what this tutti frutti is. for those who are not familiar, it is like the candied fruit peels. In India, mostly it is made from raw papaya.

This fruit & nut cake reminds me of Britannia snack cake with little specks of tutti fruity in it.  Recipe needs just a few basic baking ingredients and a few minutes of stirring, voila you have a delicious cake in less than an hour.

I prefer the recipe made with oil because I feel the cake is more moist in the oil version. This recipe is quite versatile, skip the nuts if you are not into nutty cakes. Sub tutti fruity with chocolate chips if chocolate is your thing. In any case, this cake recipe is a keeper and I’m sure you’ll love it.

Ingredients

Maida - 1 and 1/2 cups (200 gms)
Plain yogurt(Curd) - 1 cup (250 ml)
Granulated Sugar - 3/4 cup (165 gms)
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Baking powder - 1 and 1/4 tsp
Cooking oil - 1/2 cup (125 ml)
Vanilla essence - 1 and 1/2 tsp

Few chopped Nuts and Tutti Fruti 

Method:

Sieve maida twice and keep aside.Cream sugar and curd until sugar completely dissolves. 

Add baking powder, baking soda to the creamed mixture and mix well.

Leave aside for 5 mins and you can see the bubbles appearing. Now add vanilla essence,cooking oil and mix well.

Next slowly add maida in portions at a time and blend with wet ingredients. 

Beat well with a whisk until creamy and thick.

Preheat oven to 180° c for 10mins. Meanwhile prepare cupcake tray,  line the cupcake liner in the tray. 

Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree  for 25 mins or till a fork inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. 

Allow the cupcakes to cool down for 10mins. 

Notes:

Use curd at room temperature.Do not try to reduce oil and curd, I tried once to reduce oil and the cake was a great flop ;) But still there is one way add 1 and 1/4 cups of curd and 1/4 cup oil, I assure you with the same results.

Also after the batter is ready, dont allow the batter to sit for more than he preheating time as baking soda reacts faster. I have a reader who gave me this tip as her cake went hard as she kept the batter for 30mins after mixing.

And while inserting fork or toothpick try checking in the center if its cooked completely or not.

Dont doubt on using curd, the taste of curd is totally not shown in the cake. You can use homemade curd or use nestle curd which is very thick and works good too.

You can use icing sugar too, I used normal sugar only. I felt 3/4 cup of sugar was enough but the orginal recipe called for 1 cup. If you have a very sweet tooth then use 1 cup of sugar.

As I always mention select a pan such that the batter is close to 3/4th of it or slightly above 1/2 of it. And the time for baking depends on pan.