It’s officially the best time of the year! Yes, the festive season is upon us and as usual, lots of festive baking has been happening in my studio kitchen. It’s so wonderful to be able to do what I do during this time of the year as the kitchen is full of creative ideas and of course, aromas of freshly baked desserts!
Making a Malai Cake sounded like the perfect opportunity to try out something new and festive this year and I am super happy with how delicious it turned out! Since many of you don’t consume eggs during the festive season, we make an eggless saffron sponge for this recipe and top it with a rich malai topping and chopped mixed nuts. I don’t think it could get any more festive than this! So let’s get into the recipe.
Components of Eggless Malai Cake
For most people, this eggless malai cake might sound like a difficult challenge and you must be thinking, why on earth would I combine malai and cake? But trust me, you would actually love this cake as much as I do once you try this recipe –
1. THE SPONGE
As it is the festive season and most of you won’t be consuming eggs, this recipe consists of an eggless sponge! Traditionally, a cake which is being doused in milk is made with eggs as it incorporates a lot of air in the cake and helps in the absorption of the liquid. But since it’s the festive season and people in India usually don’t consume eggs during this period, I’ve made an eggless version which is equally better! I make this sponge using yogurt and baking soda- which acts as a perfect substitute for eggs! It is light, fluffy, and is the base of this dessert, it takes the softness to another level!
2. THE MALAI TOPPING
This malai topping is the true essence of our eggless malai cake. We infuse our saffron sponge with two types of milk and the goodness of saffron. Then we allow all the goodness to be absorbed and what you get is the softest eggless malai cake ever!
Ingredients used in making eggless malai cake
To make the sponge, we mix your yogurt and baking soda like we would do to make a traditional eggless vanilla cake. But to make it festive, we incorporate some saffron. What it does is give an absolutely delicious yet festive taste in the cake.
The malai liquid is made with two types of milk- whole milk and condensed milk. This is what adds so much flavor to the cake and gives it the texture needed for malai cake. I infuse the two milks with saffron to give it all the festive feels and flavors of malai. It’s important to use warm milk while making this liquid. A good quality sweetened condensed milk are then added to this milk and whisked well. Don’t get intimidated by this and add all the liquid, I promise it’ll be worth it.
Process of making eggless malai cake
- First, we bake our eggless sponge following the recipe.
- While the cake is baking, we make our malai topping.
- After taking the cake out of the oven, we prick the cake with a fork and pour the malai topping, making sure it covers the entire cake.
- We set the cake in the pan for almost one hour.
- After one hour, we demould the cake and serve!
Tips for making eggless malai cake
- Before making the eggless sponge cake, make sure you grease your baking dish with oil properly.
- Make sure all your ingredients, are at room temperature when making the sponge. This is important because room temperature ingredients emulsify better.
- The malai topping needs to be added to the cake while it is still hot and don’t forget to prick the cake before adding the liquid!
- After pouring the malai topping, make sure you tilt the tin from one side to another so that the entire cake is covered with the milk.
- Don’t be afraid of using all the milk mentioned in the recipe, that’s what makes the cake taste divine!
- Set the eggless malai cake in the fridge in the cake tin itself and it has to be demoulded only when it has set!
Other festive recipes on the blog
Eggless Malai Cake Recipe
- 2 + ¼ cup (270gms) all-purpose flour
- 1 + ½ teaspoon (6gms) baking powder
- 1 cup + ½ (428gms) yogurt
- ¾ teaspoon (2gms) baking soda
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp (224gms) castor sugar
- ¾ cup (180ml) vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla
- ⅛ tsp cardamom
- 7-8 strands saffron
- 2 cups (480ml) milk
- 7-8 strands saffron
- 1 cup (324g) condensed milk
- ¾ cup (38g) mixed roasted nuts
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree C and grease a 11x6 inch glass dish with oil.
- In a bowl whisk together flour and baking powder and set a side.
- In a separate bowl add the yogurt and sprinkle baking soda over it and set it aside to foam up.
- Once it becomes foamy, add cardamom powder, saffron and vanilla extract. Combine everything together.
- In this yogurt mixture, add castor sugar and oil and mix well.
- Sift in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Gently fold in the dry ingredients and mix until everything is well combined and there are no large flour pockets in the batter. Do not over mix at this stage.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared glass dish.
- Bake at 180C for 30-35 minutes or only until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
- While the cake is baking, make the malai topping by cooking your milk in a saucepan over medium heat till it reduces to half the quantity. It should take 8-10 minutes.
- After 5 minutes, add in the saffron and keep cooking the milk.
- Once the milk has reduced to half, add condensed milk to this milk mixture and whisk well. Cook this for another 2-3 minutes.
- Add in the chopped nuts and combine everything well. Take it off the heat.
- After the cake is baked, prick it with a fork while it's still warm.
- Pour the malai topping on the cake and tilt the pan so that the milk covers the entire cake.
- Let it set in the fridge for one hour.
- After one hour, demould the cake from the pan and serve!
If you happen to make this recipe, do share pictures with me on Instagram / Facebook using #bakewithshivesh. Happy Baking!
Can I make 1/4th of the recipe to make it in a 6” loaf tin mould…..would love to get a rply