When I returned to blogging after a long break I visited my favorite blog haunts and one of them happened to be Saffron Trail with amazing clicks and write ups that I always found so engaging. The recipe that invited me was this recipe which I found staring at for a long time. The cake sounded so simple and yummy that I decided to give it a try immediately.
Also this cake happens to be the first one that I made with whole wheat flour and If I had any doubts about its taste and outcome I need not have worried much as it turned out to be so yummy and aromatic. It is really a keeper and my family loved it so much. Here is the recipe for the cake which I had tweaked a little to suit my taste.
Cottage Cheese Cake
You’ll Need:
To make Cottage Cheese / Paneer:
Milk – ½ litre
Vinegar – 1 tbsp
For the cake:
Whole wheat flour – 1 ½ cups
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Sugar – 1 cup
Cardamoms / Elaichi – 3
Condensed milk – 4 tbsp
Oil – 2 tbsp
Vinegar – 1 tbsp
Nuts – ¼ cup (I used walnuts)
Tutti frutti – 2 tbsp (for topping)
Milk – ¼ cup (if required)
Method:
To make Cottage Cheese / Paneer:
Bring the milk to a boil and add the vinegar and stir till milk splits. Pass it over a muslin cloth to filter the paneer from whey water. Save the whey water.
To make the Cake:
Preheat oven at 180 C. I used two small tins for this recipe which I greased it with oil.
Sieve the flour with the baking soda and baking powder. Powder the sugar. Pound the seeds of the cardamom roughly. Toast the walnuts lightly.
In a large bowl, mash the paneer well with the oil and condensed milk. Add 1 tbsp vinegar, powdered sugar, cardamom and half the whey water.
Add the flour mix little by little into the wet ingredients. Use the reserved whey water and extra milk if required to get a thick batter consistency. Fold in the toasted nuts and mix lightly.
Pour the batter in the greased loaf tin and sprinkle the tutti frutti on top.
Bake for 30 minutes (in case of two small tins) or 45-50 minutes for loaf at 180 C reducing the temperature after 20 minutes to 160 or so in case of square tins to prevent excessive browning of the tops.
Remove, cool in the tin itself for 15 minutes and remove. Slice and serve warm.
Note: It took me 40 minutes to bake which may vary as per your oven. I left it in the oven itself after switching off for another 10 minutes before taking the tins out. Also The whey water itself was enough for me to mix the dough and I did not need milk. In fact I had some whey water left which I used to knead chappati dough later.
Verdict: I did not grind the cardamom seeds along with sugar as mentioned by Nandita but thought of using cardamom essence but so glad that I did not. The explosion of taste when you take a bite is too good to miss with the dominant cardamom flavor.
I would like to thank Nandita for sharing this amazing recipe. This is my first entry to my event CBB ~ Celebrating Bloggers and Blogging.
Bon Appetit and have a great Week end.
Perfect bake! luks very sponge…
Lovely cake… so good… If I am making storebought paneer how much should I use?
http://krithiskitchen.blogspot.com
really nice recipe…looks awesome n healthy
Have a great weekend..:)
Tasty appetite
Wow, never had a cottage cheese cake- perfectly baked!
Wow.. that looks delightful and spongy… thanks a lot for stopping by my blog… i can’t believe i never came across ur blog until now.. u have such an amazing space here… 🙂
Am following u too 🙂
Radhika,loved the fact that you used whole wheat flour to make this cake,also I noticed there is just 2 tbsp of oil,so it makes this cake double healthy and yet it is an explosion of flavors….It also look very soft and spongy:) It is always such a delight to read healthy recipes on desserts:)
Krithi you could use 100 gms of store bought paneer. But U see I tried with store bought paneer the second time and did not like it because of the rubbery quality and it also had a saltish tinge.
Wow… perfect and yum….
This looks so soft….I really liked it…Would try it some time….
Nice cake.. you have an award waiting at my blog please collect it.
wow that looks awesome, paneer used in this way sounds so good, very interesting cake…loved it..beautiful clicks radhika..
Never had paneer in a cake.This looks too good to resist 🙂
very healthy and delicious cake … love the texture and softness
Super Yummy Recipes
Yummy and cute cheese cake..loved tutti fruitty in it:)
never heard of paneer cake, very nice texture!
Lovely cake. Kids will surely love this
Hi want to make this healthy cake. My husband has diabetics so I dont’ want to use condensed milk as it is very healthy. Can I replace with something else. Can u please suggest. Thanks