Apple Walnut Cake

Once again a prolonged absence from active blogging. I have enough reasons for my being busy, the main one being that I am into a new project in my office. New work means new challenges and I'm focussed right now on getting myself acquainted to learning new things. However, I had the weekend to myself and was able to prepare for the Blog Hop. So, here goes my entry for this week's Blog Hop.

This time I got the oppurtunity to visit Jayasri's Samayal Arai. A very versatile blogger - one finds a variety of food from pastas to couscous. I find her blog a global one, with many types of food from across the world. Browsing through her recipes and reading her write-ups was a pleasant experience. She has an impressive collection of eggless baking recipes too. So, I tended towards trying one of her baked goodies.

My choice was to try the Eggless Apple Walnut Bread. But, just while preparing, I found that I had actually ran out of flax seed meal. However, I just went ahead to bake it anyway trusting heavily on the other ingredients mentioned in the recipe. I made quite a few changes to the recipe and hence I'm providing the recipe below. This is a jist of the measurements I used. The original recipe can be found here and feel free to experiment.

Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 150g (1 cup)
Whole Wheat flour - 100g (3/4 cup)
Butter - 40g
Cinnamon - 1/4 tsp
Nutmeg - 1 tsp
Apple Puree/Apple Sauce - 1 cup
Vanilla Essence - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 2 tsp
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Buttermilk - 150ml
Sugar - 100g
Maple Syrup - 4 tbsp
Walnuts - a handful (coarsely chopped)
Salt - a pinch

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Butter a pound cake tin and keep it ready.

In a bowl, sift together the two flours along with the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Keep it aside.

Take the buttermilk, apple puree, melted butter and the maple syrup in a blender and give it a pulse just to make them come together as a single thick liquid.

In a large bowl, take the blended liquid items. Add vanilla essence and sugar and whisk it for a minute with a hand blender.

To this, add the sifted flour little by little, whisking gently. Throw in the chopped nuts and fold them along.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking tin and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Verdict:
The bread's consistency and taste resembled mostly that of a cake. It was so sooo soft and fragile that it just melted in my mouth. With the apt amount of sweetness and aroma, it was an absolute pleasure to the palates. I would like to just repeat Jayasri's statement - it is the softest cake that I've ever baked.

I never felt the absence of egg or even the flax sead meal in the cake. I would definitely be baking it again and thanks a ton Jayasri for providing such a wonderful eggless treat.

A small note: The original recipe calls for about 30-35 minutes of baking. My oven took however longer. Please adjust according to your oven settings. Sending this lovely cake to Tickling Palate's Blog Hop Wednesday - V and Ramya's Recipe's ABC Series - A for Apple.