His Birthday Came Twice This Year? Shush And Bake Another Cake!

If you are thinking how can that happen, it’s a little secret that we Hindus keep – we get to celebrate our birthday once on the day we were born, following the Gregorian calendar and then again as per the Hindu lunar calendar, on the birth star we were born. How cool is that! Now the truth is not everyone in my generation keeps or knows to keep track of this, including me; I don’t even have such a calendar (back home we have calendars with consecutive year, month and star as per the Hindu lunar calendar) and so leave alone the tracking. I also think not many know these months and stars by name; well I do.  As kids we used to sit for evening prayers, usually around sun set and after the prayer we were to continue sitting on the floor with folded legs and recite the Malayam as well as English names of months, 27 stars, days of the week and multiplication tables. And ask me what I used to enjoy the most? The smell of incense from Cycle agarbathi and the taste of burnt camphor! Oh, I would do anything to get those days back. Did I make some nostalgic? :P

So, the other day my MIL rang up because she happened to see a piece of news about our locality here in the newspaper there. It was regarding heavy rain that lashed the area, which resulted in landslide and slightly severe damage. During the conversation she also happened to mention that it’s his birth star today. Not to mention, I forgot and thanks to her, she called up today morning again to remind me. So when I told him that today happens to be his “birth star wala birthday”, he demanded, let me put it in bold and in quotes again, “he demanded” a cake; I wasn't planning to otherwise. As I am writing this post, the cake is cooking in the oven. So do I have a scope to share a quick recipe here? Yes I do! :P It’s Whole Wheat Lime Yogurt Cake…tada…!

Since I have a fool proof whole wheat cake recipe in hand now, I make it pretty often. In fact he has been asking for it for a few days and I kept forgetting. Anyhow, this time I wanted it to be slightly flavourful and not the plain vanilla version. Since lime is something you can’t go wrong with, I thought of giving that a try.

So without much ado, here’s how I went about baking it. And yes, the cake is hot out of the oven – looking beautifully yellow, perfectly cracked on top and adequately lime-y. Yes, I did taste one and it’s…wait for it… f-a-n-t-a-b-u-l-o-u-s! Do give it a try. :-)

YOU NEED:

• Whole wheat flour, 1 Cup (16 tablespoons)

• Powdered sugar, ¾  Cup, you may make it 1 cup if you prefer it very sweet

• Salt, ¼ teaspoon

• Baking powder, ½ teaspoon

• Baking soda, ½ teaspoon

• Egg, 1

• Olive oil, 70 ml

• Plain thick yogurt, 8 tablespoons

• Lime juice from 1 ½ lime

• Lime zest from 1 lime

• Vanilla essence, ½ teaspoon, optional

HOW TO

Preheat your oven to 180 degree Celsius. Line a square baking dish with butter paper and slightly grease it.

Sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda, keep aside.

In a large bowl beat together egg and sugar until pale. To this add lime zest, lime juice, oil, yogurt and vanilla and mix to combine.

Add the flour mixture and mix to combine.

Pour the batter into the baking dish and bake for 40 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Once cooled completely cut into pieces and serve.

You may also give it a lime glaze.

On the lighter side, when I gave him the first slice, I asked him to guess the flavour. He stared with apple, progressed to orange and finally landed on lime. Phew!