Coffee Almond Cake [Egg-less]

Now, when there are back-to-back birthdays in the family, there ought to be back-to-back cake posts here right? :) So, here I am with my second cake recipe that I created for a birthday... this time mine! :D Yeah, a week after my Grandpa's 100th year celebrations, it was my turn to celebrate my birthday! 

I always get excited when my birthday arrives. I don't know what it is about birthdays but I love it when they come by. I am not a party person, so no major plans or parties or any of that sort. I just like feeling special and happy about that day being my very own special day amongst rest of the days of the year! :) 

And what is a birthday without a cake, right? 

In the last few years, ever since I began baking, I have baked cakes for my parent's anniversary, brother's, sis-in-law's, hubby's and mother-in-law' birthdays and more recently a special Zebra cake for my Grandpa too. I realized, I hadn't baked a cake specially for myself yet! As I said, birthdays are special to me and I believe in celebrating it in my own simple way. Oh, I am not talking birthday pastries here. My forte is egg-less tea cakes and I love experimenting with various combinations and seasonings. No icing, no cream. 

I wanted to bake the cake on the previous day to my birthday and I had the final look of the cake ready in my head while at office that day! I simply could not wait to get home and begin baking! Haha, these baking urges I tell you!! :D

So, what cake did I want? I had various options swaying in my head. But coffee and almond kept dancing in my head until I simply had to surrender and allow them to be the core flavouring agents in my cake! So, Coffee Almond Cake it was :)

The batter was delicious! Yes, I licked the last bit left after filling in the cuppies!! Tee heee :P 

The smell was divine! This is one of the most fragrant cakes I have baked till now. The home was filled with the beautiful smell of coffee, while these little guys baked away in the oven. And the next day, when I opened the box in which I stored the cup cakes, we were welcomed with a whiff of that lovely coffee flavour again! So, if you are a coffee lover... you just do not want to miss this one! :)

Makes: 5 big cup cakes

Ingredients

All purpose flour (Maida) - 1 cup
Cocoa powder - 1/2 cup
Instant coffee powder - 1 tbsp
Curd - 1 cup
Powdered Sugar - 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/4 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Oil - 1/2 cup
Vanilla Essence - 1/2 tsp
Chopped Almonds - 1/2 cup
Almond Slivers/flakes - for garnishing

Icing Sugar - a little (optional)

Method

• Pre-heat the oven at 180 deg for ten minutes.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat together the curd and sugar until the sugar dissolves in the curd.
• Add baking soda and baking powder and mix well.Set aside for a few minutes till small bubbles start to appear on top.
• Add in the vanilla Essence and oil. Mix again.
• Combine together Flour, Cocoa Powder and Coffee Powder in a separate bowl.
• Slowly add in the flour mix into the wet mixture little by little and fold in the batter to combine the dry and wet ingredients. 
• Continue doing this until you have tossed in all the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and formed a creamy batter.
• Toss in some chopped almonds and fold into the batter.

• Line a cup cake tray with liners and scoop the batter into the liners until just over 1/2 the capacity. I used some sturdy cup cakes liners which need not be placed inside cup cake trays. I could just place them on a baking tray and bake.
• Sprinkle almond slivers/flakes on top.
• Bake at 170 deg. for 20 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake.

Now, to make this simple cup cake look a little more festive and fancy, I sprinkled some icing sugar on top. Well, it was birthday cake after all! :D It was delightful to watch the fine particles of the icing sugar come dropping down and settling on the cake, as if it were a snow fall! :) Pretty pretty!