Easy, Eggless, Ovenless, Yummy, Inexpensive – Cake!!!

Quote for the day:

You don’t need oven or refrigerators to prepare cakes. 😛

My blog, A few handpicked things in life is hungry. So, I decided to give her some food.

*Grumble*

That was her tummy!

I have been intending to share this wonderful information for a long while. But before that, let me warn you. Since mine is not a food blog, I really don’t know the terminologies. Plus, I also can’t give you the exact quantity since I prepare this with approximations. And trust me, there is only one way this recipe could go wrong. That will be pointed out soon.

We are going to prepare a cake!!! A yummy one, certified by my sister. The highlights are –

• As I indicated initially, you don’t need an oven.
• All the Ingredients are easily available in that shop next to your house.
• Hardly takes much time.
• The entire thing costs very less.

Like all the professional foody blogs, let us get to business. 😀

*Serious face*

Ingredients

1. Hide & Seek biscuits – 2 packets

   

   Or any choco chip biscuits. I prefer this one.

2. Marie Gold or similar biscuit – Half from this ↓ long packet.

   

   Wheat biscuits of any company would do.

3. Dairy milk or any similar chocolate – 2 100 g packets

   

   I’m talking about the Rs. 10 ones.

4. Milk – In a tiny bowl. Just enough to solidify the cake.
   Probably a little more than this. ↓↓↓

Method

1. Break the biscuits (Both packets of Hide & Seek and half packet of Marie Gold) into smaller pieces. Put them all in a Mixer Grinder and make fine powder out of them.
2. Break one chocolate into smaller pieces.
3. Heat the milk in a bath, add the chocolate pieces and keep stirring until the chocolate melts in. Leave the mixture to cool. (The only thing that could go wrong in this recipe – Getting the milk & chocolate mixture burnt.)
4. Move the powdered biscuits to a bowl. Add milk little by little and knead the mixture. Keep kneading and adding the milk until you feel the mixture is thick enough to qualify for a cake. (It would feel similar to the dough for rotis).
5. Use a circular, square or any shape of mould you’d want the cake to be in.
6. Line the mould with Aluminium foil or butter. This would help if your mixture has become extra loose or extra tight.
   
7. Transfer the contents to the mould and push it in to fill it completely. Since the mixture is very thick, it will not take the shape of the mould on its own. You’ll have to help a bit. Close it & leave it. In 15 minutes, the mixture would have thickened due to the biscuits.
8. Invert the mould and set the cake on a tray.
9. If you have any leftover milk & chocolate mixture, use it to heat up & melt the other packet of chocolates. This mixture should be really thick & chocolaty.
10. Once the entire chocolate melts, pour it over the cake until it drips through all the sides. You can also pour milkmaid & chocolate syrup alternatively so that you get an alternated brown & black tempting look.
11. We used to decorate the top with Cadbury Gems. I’m sure you all know various types of decorating a cake. You may do as you please.

Whatever you do, I guarantee that the cake we make tastes lovely even without any additional toppings or icings. It is easy to make and inexpensive as you can see.

For this lovely recipe, I’d like to thank my college. This is our college legacy. I have no idea who introduced it in there. But, this was such a blessing for us. Because, we neither had cooking facilities, nor any plug points. We did not have refrigerators.

This is what we did:

-Powdered the biscuits without opening the covers with the help of a stone. 😛

-We lit a lamp using oil & wick and placed 2 bricks on either sides. We balanced a vessel on the bricks using them as a stove and then heated the milk.

So, if you’re ever in a situation where you’ve low funds, no oven, no electricity and no complicated ingredients, do try this out and LET ME KNOW. 😀

PS – I do have snaps of the cakes we made. Will post it here when I find them.

7 Ready to make & eat ideas

Hi all foodies out there! I have come up with this for you all! 🙂 3 situations helped me come up with this post:

1. I had my CA exams a month back. I used to study for around 10-12 hours and I must say, every two hours I felt hungry. But being a choosy person, I wanted to eat something different every third day.

2. I have stayed in hostels where our rooms never had plug points. Hunger never asked if our rooms had plug points. And so, we had to be equipped with some or the other magic potion.

3. I have felt bored, due to which I felt hungry :P, and I didn’t want any rice or noodles but wanted something different. The difficult part is, I was lazy to cook, but desperate to eat.

These things led me into being innovative or some of my friends helped me put certain things together and I ate different type of goodies when I was hungry. Here are some of them I can recollect. You all may not approve of everything I put up here. But some of them may come in handy at times. Let me warn you in advance that there are some really weird combinations down there. 😉 (I am sure many of you may know all these already.)

1. Jam biscuit:
Ingredients – Marie biscuit & Jam (any flavor)
Method – Our homemade cream biscuits. Just spread some jam on your Marie biscuit and make a ‘jam biscuit’ of your own. All the sweet lovers would love this for sure. Easy to make & ready to eat! 🙂

Jam biscuit

2. Choco pie:
Ingredients – Marie biscuit, chocolate syrup or nutella or chocolate bar
Method – This wouldn’t taste like the real choco pies available in the market. But it will definitely caress your taste buds. Just use the same Marie biscuits. Spread them on a plate. Melt some chocolate and pour over the biscuits. Keep another biscuit on top of the soak biscuit & pour the chocolate syrup again. Wait for half an hour. Eat when it gets soggy. The chocolate flavour & the biscuit make a great combo! 🙂

Choco pie at home 🙂

3. Bread & Bournvita:
Ingredients – Bread & Bournvita
Method – Many of my friends were revolted when I said this combo. But frankly, it isn’t as you think. It is as great as bread and Nutella. It tastes the same. Give it a try next time you are in short of nutella. Spread some bournvita on your bread and take a bite.

4. Bread and cheese-spread:
Ingredients – Bread, cheese-spread, tomato sauce, Aloo-bhujia/Oregano/Spaghetti mix
Method – I just try new stuff. So even you can. Buy Amul cheese spread. They have pepper flakes in it which makes it all the more yum. Spread this on bread, and top it with tomato sauce. It is perfect. I once tried aloo bhujia on this mixture. I don’t like the mint taste of aloo bhujia and so, I did not like it. But you could try. Here is the picture of the same.

Bread-cheese spread-sauce-aloo bhujia

If you have some oregano available, it would add great taste to the cheese and sauce. Always go for it, if you have it. It is way better than aloo bhujia.
Additional tip: Don’t tell mummy 😉 the spaghetti mix powder too adds a great taste instead of oregano. 😛

5. Banana chips & chammanthi podi (Coconut chutney powder):
Ingredients – The powder, banana chips, coconut oil
Method – This is particularly directed at Keralites since these are the 2 things we get in abundance here. But if you happen to lay your hands on them, try it. Break the banana chips into smaller crumbs and put lots of chammanthi podi on it. Lots means as per your taste buds ;). Also pour some coconut oil and mash the mixture well with your hands. I loved it. Let me know if you did. 😛

6. Fruits & milkmaid:
Ingredients – Cut fruits, milkmaid, mango juice
Method – This was my friend’s innovation at college. So all credits go to her. Take a bowl, pour 100 ml milkmaid, pour some mango juice (Maa or frooty as per the amount of mango essence you need), add some cut fruits to this mixture. A yummy fruit salad is at your disposal! 😀 The best part of this is the mango juice. Since the mango essence completely mixes with the milkmaid, it adds an extra zing to the recipe.

7. Cooked cabbage:
Ingredients – A full cabbage (uncut), ghee, salt, pepper
Method – Cut the cabbage into four. But not fully. Just until the end. Leave the tips joined. Cook it as it is in a pressure cooker. Pour ghee through the center and around. Sprinkle salt and pepper too. The ghee can be replaced with cheese if you want. My sister and I never used to like cabbage. But now we do. And making this is easy for our mom. 🙂

Hope you all will try these little handy recipes. If there is anything you want me to clarify about or give any suggestions, more ideas, your feedback etc, feel free to leave me a comment below. 🙂 I’ll definitely reply!

Photo courtesy: http://www.cakechooser.com/
http://www.thasneen.com/
http://www.rituscooking.com/