Egg-less Chocolate Pound Cake With Paneer

The end of winter makes you want to do new things. Spring rings in a new beginning. And, with this came a refreshing idea from my very close friend and co-blogger, Madhuri Kumar. She herself had been thinking about bringing in something fresh to blogosphere. Something that would bring together like-minded bloggers and get the creativity flowing in their respective kitchens. Of course it doesn't stop there. We go a step further and put across all these 'experiments', good or bad, on our respective blogs for the world to see. 

That said, she came up with a name for this group of bloggers. She christened it - Free Spirit Bloggers or FSB, for short. Yes, now you make sense of that little logo I have up on my blog. Well, the name says it all, right? Oh! Well, not quite. I'm sure you're aching to know more. Madhuri has a great write-up on Free Spirit Blogging on her site which you can take a peek at over here. Get to meet other FSB-ites and don't forget to bookmark their pages. All of them are awesome in their own ways. I am indeed honored to have been invited to be a part of such a group. Danke, Madhuri!

For those of you who want a quick piece of information right here...Be my guest. FSB is a group of eight bloggers who co-ordinate and come up with monthly themes for blogging. Something that will allow us to transcend from the mundane recipes to exciting culinary experiences. Each of us choose a theme, be it a cook, bake or something absolutely wild (in the kitchen ONLY! Ahem!) and work on it for a good 30 days before it gets presented on each of our blogs.

The whole of last month each of us were busy in the kitchen with our ovens. Why? We all decided to take up a theme based on cake baking. The month's theme was suggested by Madhuri. All of us tried different egg substitutes for a basic chocolate pound cake. I opted on trying using paneer in place of egg. You should check out what the other's used, too. Blog hop a bit over the FSB-ites pages. It's great fun.

So, in keeping with the 'spirit' I performed my experiment on one cold Spring afternoon. Here goes!

Ingredients

21/2 Cups All purpose flour (or Maida)

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Butter

3 heaping tbsp - Cocoa powder

1 Cup Paneer (I used paneer cubes)

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Baking Powder

1 tsp Vanilla essence

1/2 Salt

3/4 Cup Milk (The original recipe for Chocolate Pound Cake calls for 1/2 Cup. I found the batter too thick and added more milk. I really think it would drink in more wet ingredients)

Method

- Preheat the oven to 350 F

- Prepare baking dish by applying butter/oil and dusting with flour till well coated and set aside

- Puree paneer in a food chopper until you have very, very minuscule pieces

- Meanwhile, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl

- Repeat the sifting process thrice to get a homogeneous mixture and set aside

- Cream together butter and sugar

- Add the vanilla essence, beat well and set aside

- Add the pureed  paneer to the butter-sugar mixture and beat well till it has been incorporated

- Now, add the sifted flour mixture to the butter-sugar-paneer mixture little by little and beat well till

blended smoothly

- Add adequate milk to achieve a batter of dropping consistency. Like I said, the original recipe called for 1/2 Cup. I added more to make the batter more smooth.

- Pour batter into the prepared baking pan, and bake at 180 deg C for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake

- Cool completely before serving

Verdict

The final cake fell apart so easily that I was itching to rename this Chocolate Crumb Cake. But, I do know paneer is an egg substitute that people use. I should try this again. My suspicion is on the freshness and quality of the paneer. So, if you see another chocolate pound cake up here on SSTT soon, you know I really am working up the experimental cook in me.