Eggless Carrot Cake

After making a cake from the mix and using eggs, I wanted to make a something without eggs and with something that I have at home, without any artificial flavours. With this intension I started my search with Google as usual. There were several versions of the cakes one with dates (I shall try that later though), with carrots, strawberries and so on. I picked up the carrot versions, looked at about 4-5 different reciepes and came up with my own. I tried it a couple of times to get to a recipe that gives a cake that is as soft as any other cake with eggs. And here is the final version that I reached:

Ingrediants: 2 cups All-purpose flour 11/2 cup sugar 1 cup milk 1/2 cup orange juice (or 1 tbspn lemon juice) 3/4 cup oil 1/2 teaspoon orange zest 11/4 cup grated (or finely chopped) carrots 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup of chopped nuts (I used cashewnuts and resins) seeds of 2-3 cardomons (powdered)

Procedure: First prepare sour milk by mixing orange or lemon juice in the cup of milk. The first time I made this cake, I added only leamon juice. But in the later versions I used th orange juice, since I buy an orange to make the orange zest, and in order not to waste it, I make orange juice out of it and added to the milk. If the orange is not sour enough, I added some lemon juice and kept the milk for about five minutes.

I used navel orange for the zest. This type of oranges generally give good amount of zest and rough enough to grate with a small grater. While making the zest make sure you grate only the orange part of the skin. If the white part gets into the zest, the cake does not taste good.

In a mixing boil, I mixed the orange zest and oil, later added the sour milk to it. I mixed it well until the oil mixes with the milk. Later I added the sugar. When I used icing, I added only 11/4 cup and I felt that it would be better to add more sugar. 11/2 cups is fine. You can add more sugar if you would like it sweeter but do not add more than 2 cups or else the cake becomes too sticky.

Slowly, I added the all-pupose flour and the baking powder. Mixed it well without lumps. In fact I used the food-processor so that it would be grinded smoothly. If the batter is too thick, we can add some milk, but one thing is that once the carrots are added, it does not stay so thick if the carrots are juicy. Finally, before baking, add the nuts and carrots and the powdered cardomon. Bake it for an hour at 350F in a pre-heated oven. This cake must be baked longer than the regular cakes because it takes some time for the carrots to cook well.