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Eggless Chocolate & Bottle Gourd Cake

Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 8
Author Shireen Sequeira

Ingredients

  • 1 cup 125gm all purpose flour (maida)
  • 6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder I used Hintz dark cocoa * see notes
  • 1/2 cup+2 tbsp powdered sugar *see notes
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp instant coffee powder
  • 1/8 th tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup odourless oil olive or canola
  • 1 tsp white vinegar diluted
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
  • 3/4 cup approx water
  • 1 cup grated bottle gourd dhoodhi or lauki in Hindi/sorekai in kannada/boblein in Konkani

For the chocolate sauce:

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup warm dairy milk or soy milk
  • 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 tbsp maida/all purpose flour

Instructions

For the cake:

  • Preheat oven at 180 degrees C for 10-15mins.
  • Grease a 7" round cake tin with oil and line it with parchment paper - or just grease it well & dust it with flour. Keep aside.
  • Sift all the dry ingredients - flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, baking soda & coffee powder together in a large bowl
  • Make a small well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients - oil, vinegar, vanilla & water. Mix well.
  • Squeeze out excess water from the bottle gourd and add to the mixture and combine. Pour the contents into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30-35mins or till the skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
  • Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin for 10-15 after which you can gently invert it onto a wire rack and leave it uncovered to cool completely.
  • Serve as it is with a cup of tea or served with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Or slather with sauce and enjoy!

For the chocolate sauce

  • In a saucepan combine all the ingredients and whisk so remove lumps if any. Bring the mixture to a boil and stir to avoid burning at the base. Boil for a couple of minutes till the mixture appears to thicken. Remove from the heat. The sauce will thicken as it cools.
  • Pour the sauce over the cake and spread using a spatula. Cover sides too. Decorate as desired and serve.

Notes

For the cake, increase the sugar with upto 3/4th cup if you are using dark unsweetened (Dutch processed) cocoa like Hintz. My cake turned out a wee bit bitter. If you are using regular unsweetened cocoa like Cadbury's in India, the above mentioned quantities are just fine