275 meters swimming, 16km bike riding over our hilly town and a 5K run.
Finally, completed my first triathlon! 🙂
Now, the embarrassing part- I was one of the lasts to finish.(*sheepish look*)
While my swimming and run timings were pretty decent, everyone dusted me off in the cycling round. Before you make fun do understand, for me, the cycling part was the toughest. I only started cycling a month and half back, after more than a decade of not getting on a cycle. And it was a real task for me to do uphill cycling, which was almost 50% of the entire route. One of the roads we biked on is actually called Mountain road (not even Hill road- its called mountain!). So it wasn’t easy for me. And that’s why it took me a lot of time. And the wind didn’t help either when climbing uphill on the cycle.
Anyway, the idea this time for my first triathlon was to complete it. Next time I’ll probably think of actually competing!
To celebrate my completion of the triathlon, I decided to bake a cake.
A few weeks back, one of my juniors from college had messaged me on Facebook asking for good eggless cake recipes. This other friend of mine had tried this eggless cake recipe from Passionate About Baking (originally published by Barbara from barbarabakes.com) and had highly recommended it. Before trying this recipe, I tried another one that I had copied from one of my mom’s recipe books. While that recipe produced a really moist and spongy cake, I had baked the cake in a bundt pan and while removing it, it broke at several places. Also, it wasn’t as chocolatey as I wanted it to be.
Since I knew this recipe was tried and tested, for my next attempt at baking eggless cakes, I decided to use Barbara’s recipe. Plus, this one was vegan as well.
This cake is very simple to make. It doesn’t require any beating of butter with sugar. Heck, there is no butter in the recipe. It uses oil- maybe next time I’ll try subbing applesauce to see if that works as well. Nor does it require too much work. While the oven is pre-heating, you mix your dry ingredients and wet ingredients in two different bowls. Mix them together till just combined. Add any chopped walnuts and chocolate chips if you like and pour the batter into the prepared tin. Meanwhile the oven has preheated and you just pop it in the oven and bake for 35-40 min (it took mine 45 minutes- probably because of the different pan). I had some problem with the mixing- a tiny part of it didn’t mix, and that’s why you see a portion of white on the cake, though some if the white spots are actually walnuts. That aside the cake was spot on- moist, chocolatey and spongy.
While I followed the recipe to a T, I made a few changes. One of them- instead of using 2 9-inch round pans, I used a Bundt pan. In spite of my last bundt cake tragedy, I decided to bake it in a bundt pan and this time I made sure to grease and flour the tin well. And it came out beautifully.
I also added a few chopped walnuts to the batter. Next time I would probably add a few chocolate chips as well. Just for fun!
I didn’t frost it like Barbara or Deeba, keeping it simple. Sometimes, that’s all you want in life- a simple chocolate cake.
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups sugar*
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used KA Double-Dutch Dark Cocoa)
- 2 teaspoons baking soda*
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups hot water*
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350º with rack in the center. Spray and flour a bundt pan really well, making sure you get all the nooks and corners. Or you could use two greased 9×2 inch round cake pans.
- Whisk the dry ingredients except instant coffee together in a large mixing bowl. I suggest sifting all the dry ingredients except the sugar in the large bowl and then whisking in the sugar.
- Combine the wet ingredients- water, oil, vinegar, instant coffee, and vanilla in a large measuring cup.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold together with a wooden or rubber spatula or a hand whisk just until combined, a few lumps are OK.
- Pour batter into the well greased and floured bundt pan, or divide batter between pans.
- Bake until a tester comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. For me, it took 45 minutes.
- Let the cake cool in pan for 10 minutes. Run a skewer or knife around the edges to loosen the cake. Do not forget to run the knife/skewer around the center of the bundt pan. Invert on wire rack. If you have greased and floured well, the cake should pop out immediately. Let the cake cool completely before cutting yourself a slice.Yo could do a chocolate ganache glaze, if you like or just keep it simple
The Triathlon sounds like quite a feat to me, don’t think I’ll ever attempt something like that. Good for you!
Nice cake, looks quite chocolaty. And the pics make me want a bundt pan more than ever.
Did you whisk the dry and wet ingredients together with an electric whisk?
indugetscooking recently posted..Vada Pav
No, I just used a rubber spatula to mix everything. That’s the best part of this recipe – no electric mixer required!
Shumaila recently posted..Garam Masala Tuesdays: Chicken Tikka Pizza
congrats on completing the triatlon…….thats quite an achievment…..love the cake…looks super moist and I’M always on the lookout for new eggless recipes…this is perfect for today(tuesday).
BTW, what camera and lens do you use?
indugetscooking recently posted..Vada Pav
Indu, I use a Nikon D7000 and for most photographs use my 50mm F/1.4 prime lens.
Shumaila recently posted..Garam Masala Tuesdays: Chicken Tikka Pizza
congrats on completing the triathlon….that sounds awesome and I love the choco bundt ..it sure looks yum !!!
Shema George recently posted..Homemade Wholegrain Pancake Mix
Wow — doing even one of the three parts of a triathlon is pretty amazing, never mind all three in one day! Well done!
Thank you everyone for the wishes! Feels good to have participated in the triathlon and was a good motivation to get out and exercise!
Shumaila recently posted..Garam Masala Tuesdays: Chicken Tikka Pizza
Well done on your tri — the effort is definitely worth-while 🙂
ANd I love this vegan chocolate cake. Perfect for celebration!!
Kiran @ KiranTarun.com recently posted..Pumpkin Coconut Cream Trifle
Hey this looks delish..can u reccommend a good bundt cake pan?
Hi Deepa, I use a bundt pan from Nordicware and have had good success with it. With any bundt pan you use, just be sure to grease and flour it well (making sure you get all the cavities). That ensures a smooth removal of the cake from the pan.
Nice recipe! I made for son’s vegan girlfriend but the omnivore’s liked it too. I reduced the sugar to 1 1/2 cups and used hot coffee for hot water. I made a glaze with unsweetened almond milk, vegan choc chips and a tsp of coconut oil. I Also baked it in a bundt pan. It is very dense but moist. Next time I might replace half the oil with unsweetened applesauce and since I am not vegan I might throw couple eggs in or try baking powder instead of the soda and omit the vinegar( although my aunt used bkg soda for years as a levener and made very moist, tender chocolate cakes)
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Please tell can this recipe be used in ur black forest cake as the Base chocolate cake..as I need to make an eggless cake….will it be good..??
Hi Shivani, I think it should work well. Just make sure you soak the layers well. let me know how it goes 🙂
Wanna hear my feedback? I can’t. My stomach is groaning at the moment. Haha!
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Thank you for sharing this recipe. Turned out great for me. I have tried and noted many eggless Chocolate cake recipes including vegan ones. This one will go down as a favourite too.
So glad you liked it Smita 🙂
Can we use apple cider vinegar instead ? And is there anything we can substitute the coffe granules with ? I don’t do coffee on anything
Hi Maggie, so sorry for the delay. Yes you can and you can skip out the coffee granules. The coffee accentuates the taste of chocolate, without really making much adding an espresso taste to the cake, but if you are allergic to coffee or don’t do it for whatever reason, skip it out!
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I’ve been making this cake for years and it’s a hit every time! love it!!
So glad to know that! 😀
This cake looks delicious! I’m wanting to make a layered birthday cake for a friend, so I’m wondering what size cake tins I should use for this recipe?