It's common to extract butter/ghee from Malai. I think all of us do it. Right? But now bake a cake with this malai.
It's amazing to see that how a wonderful n soft cake is baked using only malai without any oil or butter or curd or condensed milk or blah blah blah...
Malai cake is a soft n spongy cake made with very few ingredients. Apart from Baking Powder and Baking Soda, it has just 4 ingredients. Yes, only 4. And these four ingredients are wheat flour, brown sugar, milk and of course milk cream, that is, malai.
Some other healthy Wheat cakes you may like are
- Strawberry Muffins
- Vegan Chocolate Muffins
- Wheat Fruit Cake
- Banana Walnut Muffins
- Mug Cake
- Basic Sponge Cake in Pressure Cooker
My Experiments With Malai Cake
Last week, seeing my stock of reserved malai I was just wondering if anything else could be done with it, other than churning it out to extract butter and then Ghee from it. Frankly, Malai cake didn't strike me at all. The very next day, as if some telepathy was going on, I got a message from my cousin, Ishta Gupta, asking if I knew how to make Malai Chocolate Cake. OMG!!! I just couldn't believe it.
I immediately went to my kitchen cum lab and carried out my experiment. And the recipe? Again you won't believe if I tell you. The recipe is of my friend Arvin Sharma's MIL, which was lying still with me for the past 20 years. Somehow, I was so happy with the other recipes of mine that I didn't bother to try it out. It was also because I don't like malai. As soon as Ishta asked me, this recipe popped up in my mind. I took out that recipe and started. Fortunately, I had fresh malai with me. The recipe was very simple. And as it is difficult to digest simple things, so I tried adding some smartness to it. And this smartness was 'curd'. The recipe did not ask for any curd but as I was apprehensive of the outcome, therefore, added it. Anyways, the cake came out very good. That day only, I forwarded its recipe to Ishta and she also successfully carried it out.
After a few days, when my next stock of malai got ready, I again tried it. This time following the recipe to the T point, that is without any curd. Well. one little change was a shift from all-purpose-flour to whole-wheat-flour and hence the quantity of liquid and secondly using brown sugar instead of white sugar. And Wow!!! It was too yummy... super soft n spongy.
So, a big THANK YOU to Sharma Aunty for this lovely recipe. And another THANK YOU to Ishta. Had she not asked for it, I would have probably never tried it.
Malai Cake: A Healthy Cake
It is a completely Healthy Cake with wheat flour, brown sugar, cream (malai) and milk.
You can give it in your kiddo's lunch box or in breakfast or as an after-school snack or in the evening... anytime.
Taste Of Malai In Malai Cake
Let me share with you that this malai cake has all the goodness of malai without any apparent taste of it. No one can make out that it is made with malai.
Seriously, you need to try it out to believe it. And I am saying this as a friend and not just as a blogger.
Tips For Making Good Malai Cake
Before you move into your lab just a few pointers.
- First of all, try using fresh malai, which is a maximum of 3 to 4 days old malai only.
- For one cup flour, you need approximately 3/4th malai. Now, its difficult to have it in one day. So keep collecting it in the refrigerator.
- In the refrigerator, keep the collected malai in the Chill tray, which is the tray which is just below the freezer and is the topmost in the refrigerator compartment. Or keep it where there is maximum cooling. But not in the freezer. This is because we want soft malai and not hardened.
- Then, before starting the cake, take out the malai from the refrigerator and let it sit on the kitchen counter for 10 -15 minutes(maybe more in winters).
- And lastly, add sugar to malai and beat it using a whisk till sugar dissolves completely and all the lumps in the malai are gone.
So, now let's have a look at the recipe of our healthy Malai Cake...
Detailed Recipe With Step By Step Pics of Eggless Zebra Malai Cake
- Take Out Malai from the refrigerator and let it stand for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Grease a 6" baking pan and dust it lightly.
- Sift wheat flour, baking powder and baking soda at least 3 times, slightly from a height.
- Add brown sugar and vanilla essence to malai and beat for 4 to 5 minutes till smooth and all lumps are gone.
- Add flour mix into this malai mix in 2 or 3 instalments.
- Adjust the consistency of the mix by adding milk.
- In a bowl, take cocoa powder and brown sugar. Make a paste by adding little milk.
- Divide the cake mix into two bowls, one plain and the other into the bowl containing cocoa paste. Thus, we have 2 batters now.
- Start putting vanilla mix and chocolate mix batter alternatively in the greased baking pan.
- You can make this design by gently sliding a toothpick from the edges towards the centre. Do this 8 times from different angles.
- Without tapping, keep the pan in preheated oven and bake for 30 -35 minutes.
- After few minutes invert it and let it cool on a wire rack.
- Cut and enjoy.
Recipe Card Of Eggless Malai Cake
Eggless Malai Cake
Make a healthy cake with Malai, without using any butter or oil.
- 1 Cup less 2 Tablespoon, Wheat flour
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
- Pinch of Salt
- 3/4 Cup Malai (Milk Cream)
- 3/4 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
- 3/4 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon Milk (at room temperature)
- 2 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
- Take out the malai from the refrigerator and keep it on the kitchen counter for 10 minutes. Malai, normally has some milk with it. Do not try to separate the milk. Let it be as it is.
In the meantime, do the following preparations. Grease a 6" baking pan and dust it with flour. Tap it to remove excess flour, if any.
- Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda at least 3 times (more the better). This is a very important step in order to have light cakes. Sifting incorporates air in the flour which in turn makes the cake light. Also, sift the flour from a little height, that is, keep the sifter slightly above the bowl.
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
- Now, take malai, add sugar (3/4 cup only) and vanilla essence and beat with a wire whisk for 3 to 4 minutes or till sugar dissolves and all the lumps are gone.
- Start adding flour mix into the malai mix and mix nicely. It will be a very thick dough type mixture.
- Add milk and lightly mix everything. It should be of dropping consistency.
You can bake it as it is or follow the steps below to make thew zebra pattern.
In one bowl, take cocoa powder, brown sugar and make a paste using 1 tablespoon milk.
Now divide the cake mix into 2 bowls, one remaining as it is and the other added to the cocoa mix. So, you have two batters, one white which is vanilla and the other is brown which is chocolate.
Put one ladle of vanilla batter in the cake tin. On this, put one ladle of chocolate batter. Like this, keep on adding the two batters alternatively and you will see alternate lines of two colours.
Do not tap the bowl otherwise, the pattern will be disturbed.
Bake it for 30 to 35 minutes.
Check for the doneness by inserting a skewer. The skewer should come out clean.
After about 5 minutes, take out the cake by inverting it.
Keep it on a wire rack till cools down, otherwise heat at the bottom will make it soggy.
Once completely cool, have it with tea or use in your Ice cream Sundaes/Puddings.
Shall, I tell you one more fantastic way of having it? Serve it with ice cream and fruits. It tastes super yum.
You can store the remaining cake in an airtight container. Remains good for 2 days at room temperature or keep it in the refrigerator for longer storage (up to a week).
Variations
To make Vanilla cake, omit cocoa powder, take 1 cup flour and proceed as given above, omitting points no. 8 to 12.
To make a Fruit cake, add 1/4 cup tooti fruiti or chopped nuts in the flour after sifting and proceed as for Vanilla cake given above.
To make a Chocolate cake, take cocoa powder 3 tablespoons and sift flour with cocoa powder and proceed as given above, omitting points no. 8 to 12.
- You can use anywhere between 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup malai.
- In case the malai curdles while beating it even then no problem. You continue with the recipe and will still get a beautiful spongy cake.
- The colour of the cake is yellowish because of brown sugar. You can add white sugar if you want.
- Quantity of milk may vary from 3/4 cup to 1 cup depending upon the consistency of malai and also that different flours have different absorption capacities.
Hope you have liked this recipe of Malai Cake and will surely try it out with your next batch of stored Malai.
If you have liked this recipe or any of my other recipes then share your feedback along with pics. And do not forget to leave a comment below. As you all know, your feedback fuels my enthusiasm to post more good content. Also, join me on my Facebook page for more interesting tips and facts. You can post your creations on Instagram and tag me as #samirasrecipediary
Let’s get connected…
Happy Baking...
Samira
Thanks for this eggless cake. I love such cakes which doesn’t have eggs.
I am glad you liked it. Do try your feedback once you try it out.
Can we use butter or ghee in the place of malai
Yes, you can use either but the quantity would differ a lot. If butter or ghee, then you require only 1/4 Cup and the rest would be curd or milk.
You can try my other recipes like Microwave Chocolate cake or basic sponge cake for correct proportions.
Can I bake an alcohol free Christmas fruit cake using malai
I have not tried it using malai. But you may try that way. But make sure that malai is fresh and is smoothened well.
Instead of malai van we use amul cream
May be, but not sure of the outcome as I have never made it like this.
Forgot to mention I took a 6inch pan and I guess it’s 2inch deep but the batter was full upto d brim. Do I need to take a pan with more depth or width? For malai zebra cake.
Hi Harikavijay, I am glad that you find my recipes interesting and have started trying them out.
Coming up to your queries, first of all, the pan size is okay. 6″ pan is 2 “deep only. When we bake a cake the batter should only be upto half or 2/3 of the pan only. If you get more than this, like you got, then also fill this much only. The remaining batter can be baked as a muffin in some aluminium/steel/glass bowl. But why did it full so much? This recipe is apt for 6” pan. Did you level the cup after filling flour in it? If you have a measuring scale then the flour should be 130 g approx.
The cake cracked because of this only as it was overfilled.
Time is also slightly more but since this varies from oven to oven, so need not worry about this.
But otherwise, how was it?
Do post a pic of it if possible.
And next time please take care of these points.
Hi samira, I have gone through so many of ur recipes they look very interesting and finally today I tried malai zebra cake using white Sugar as I didn’t have brown sugar and it is still warm and looks so soft but my cake top cracked what could be d reason for this? and it took too long for me mite be 50-55mins.yet to cut the cake and taste it. I’m a beginner n bake now n then. Thanks for sharing d recipe.