Eggless date cake

I know many of you might have tried out this date cake from shilpa's blog. i am joining you lately. When Nupur mentioned about the date cake in her last post, i could not resist to lay my hands on it. it was so easy to prepare, no tricky stuff's. and the outcome of the cake is just amazing. I shared the cake with my neighbors and friends. almost everyone wanted to go in for a second slice, after hearing its name"Eggless Date Cake". 

I tell you what, if you serve this cake topped with ice cream, then this will be the winning dessert. before clicking pictures, i took a warm slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoyed it to the core. to my surprise this resembled much like an chocolate cake only in its look's. i used both seedless brown and dark dates. when my hubby and another friend tasted and told it tasted like adhirasam, i was surprised, yes it tastes like adhirasam. 

if i had to give a name, i would call it as Eggless non sticky date cake. the cake was moist and was just perfect!

I just followed shilpa's recipe. 
Referred sharmi's blog for step wise pictures.
Yields about 8 slices.

Ingredients:

• Dates - 18 ( brown or black seedless)
• Milk - 3/4 cup
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Maida / All Purpose flour - 1 cup
• Oil - 1/2 cup ( i used sunflower oil)
• Baking soda - 1 tsp
• Cashews and Badam - 5 each (chopped)

Method:

1. Bring the milk to boil. remove the milk from flame. after 5 or 10 minutes, when the milk is still warm, add in the dates. let the dates soak in milk for about 1 hour. you can also leave it soak overnight in your fridge.


2. Transfer the soaked dates along with milk into your mixie jar, add sugar and blend well into a smooth paste. add oil and blend again. pour the mix into a large mixing bowl.


3. Sieve the maida flour along with baking soda twice so that the baking soda mixes evenly with the flour.


4. Now add the sieved flour to the mixing bowl, which has grounded date-milk mix. add the flour gradually and keep mixing with a spatula or a wooden spoon. make sure you do not create any lumps. the finally add in the chopped nut's and give a mix with spatula.


5. Line in your baking tray or a round tin with butter paper. grease the butter paper with little butter and add 1/2 tsp of flour to dust the greased. pour in the cake batter to the baking tin.


6. Pre-heat your oven to 180C / 350F for 10 minutes. put the baking tin into the oven and bake for about 35-45 minutes, till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.


7. Once the cake is done, let it cool for 5-10 minutes and slice it and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Notes:

1. I turned over enthusiastic while preparing the cake batter and totally forgot to line in my baking tin. end result, the cake sticked to the tin. so line in your baking tin with butter paper.


2. You can use olive oil and brown sugar in place of oil and sugar to make the cake more healthier.