Eggless Carrot Cake

- Ingredients

Maida - 3/4 cup (135 gms)
Wheat flour - 1/4 cup (35 gms)
Grated carrot - 1/2 cup heaped
Curd - 3/4 cups (200 ml)
Olive oil - 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Milk - 2.5 tbsp
Granulated Sugar -1/2 cup (110 gms)
Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp 
Cinnamon powder - 1/4 tsp (optional)
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt -1/4 tsp
Walnuts, chopped - handful

Method:

1.Grate carrots finely and keep aside. Sieve maida,wheat flour with baking soda and baking powder, set aside. In a mixing bowl add curd, sugar, milk and olive oil. Mix well until sugar completely dissolves.

2.Then add cinnamon powder, vanilla essence and give a quick stir. Finally fold in carrots then add maida+wheat flour mixture.
3.Whisk it well to form a smooth creamy flowing batter. You can fold in chopped walnuts into the batter itself. I forgot to add it and remembered only after I added the batter to the tin so just sprinkled on the top :)  Preheat oven at 182 deg C for 10mins. Meanwhile lay butter paper inside the tin(only for the bottom)...Grease it with butter and maida,  I had some remaining batter so poured into my individual muffin tin.Bake the cake at the same temperature for 20-25mins or until the toothpick inserted at the center comes out clean.The muffins were done in 12 mins.

4.Immediately transfer the tin onto a wet cloth for easy unmoulding. Allow it to cool for 15mins, hen invert and carefully peel of the butter paper. Then allow it to cool for atleast an hour before slicing. 

Slice it into squares, cool completely and store in an airtight container.

My Notes:

• The orginal recipe uses canola oil but I used olive oil as I had it in hand. Olive oil gives a great texture to the cake.I didnt find any difference here while adding olive oil, its the same as the normal cooking oil cake.

• You can use the same recipe to make carrot cupcakes/muffins and bake them for 15-20mins.

• Baking time again differs from oven to oven, depends on the tin too... mine took around 30 mins flat for the cake to bake fully but what I would suggest is check at 20mins then proceed accordingly.

• The cake keeps well at room temperature for 2 days then refrigerate it. While serving may be you can just warm it up in oven and then serve it.

• I was skeptical whether to saute the carrots for a while and then add it to the batter but I was short of time so added it raw. But the carrots did not leave the raw smell at all...so go ahead adding them raw itself.

• I used homemade yogurt, you can use Nestle set dahi too.

• Walnuts give a great crunch to the cake so dont skip it and I recommend adding them in the batter itself.

• I wanted to add wheat flour so added 1/4 cup, but you can skip that and add 1 cup maida fully also.

• The cake is normal sweet and it was just right for us. You can increase sugar to 3/4 cup if you want your cake to be more sweeter.As carrots doesnt give a unique flavor, vanilla essence is a must.