Celebration Chocolate cake

This is the most yummiest eggless cake I have ever eaten. It reminds me very much of the chocolate cake from Sweet Chariot in Bangalore. This awesome recipe has been adapted from DivineTaste and you can use it to make a 9" round cake. I doubled the ingredients to make a layered cake with chocolate frosting for my daughter's 5th birthday.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup All purpose flour
• 1 can (400 ml) Condensed milk
• 1 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Butter
• 1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 3/4 tsp Baking soda
• 8 tbsp Cocoa powder
• 8 tbsp Sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Sift the dry ingredients i.e. flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, cocoa powder in a large bowl. 
3. Add the wet ingredients, i.e milk, vanilla, melted butter and condensed milk and mix well. (You can use a whisk / beater to mix it well but since I dont have both, I just use my hands and it tuns out good too)
4. Pour the batter into a greased and floured (or parchment lined) cake pan.
5. Bake for around an hour or till the toothpick inserted comes out clean.
6. Cool the cake completely on a wire rack and decorate the cake if you would like with your choice of frosting. 

Suggestion / Notes

if you would like a soft wet cake, then make a sugar syrup by boiling 1/4 cup of sugar in 1 1/2 cup of water and once cooled completely, pour the syrup on top of the cake before frosting the cake.

Pongal Kootu

Happy Pongal!! This is a must have item in the menu on Pongal day.

Ingredients

• Mixed Vegetables cut into cubes- (Ash guard, Pumpkin, Carrot, Beans, Avaraikkai, Potato, Raw Banana, Chayote, Sweet potato, Green peas, Lima beans, Yam)
• Toor Dal (cooked) - 1/2 cup
• Tamarind Paste - 1 tbsp
• Salt - 1 tbsp (Adjust to taste)
• Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
• Gingelly Oil (Any cooking oil will do) - 1 tbsp
• Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
• Sambar Powder - 2 tsp
• A spring of Curry leaves

To Grind

• Urad dal - 1 tbsp
• Daniya - 2 tbsp
• Channa dal - 1 tbsp
• Red Chillies - 6
• Asafoetida - 1/2 tsp
• Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup

Method

1. Cook all the vegetables with turmeric and a little water in the pressure cooker for 1 whistle.
2. Dry roast all the ingredients to grind and grind them with water.
3. Take a deep bottomed pan and add the oil and mustard seeds till they crackle.
4. Add the vegetables and the ground mixture, toor dal, sambar powder, salt and tamarind and boil the Kootu for a few minutes till the flavor seeps into the veggies.
5. Garnish with curry leaves and serve hot with rice or Pongal.