Savoury Urad Dhal Cake/ Dahi Vada Cake

Dahi Vada Cake to celebrate our Anniversary – 2015. It has been 11 years since I became Mrs PPK. And this has been a fun filled journey with lots of laughter and tears. When I look back, I see how much my life has changed in all these years. One of the best turning point in my life is my wedding day. So I decided to celebrate it just like I plan every year. I even sketched a beautiful cake to be made but my hubby was stubborn.

Yes, he didn’t want a cake for our anniversary. But my daughter wanted a cake so badly. She wanted us to cut a cake for celebration. Even I wanted a cake. So I was wondering what to do. What if I made a cake which hubby liked? He hates sweets so the usual cake is out of question. He likes medhu vadas and I was racking my brain on how to turn it into a cake.  Trust me, I was thinking about this for two whole days before this idea stuck.

Dahi Vada Cake planning

I decided to bake the urad dhal vada batter in cake pans and thought of filling it with curd. Just like dahi vada. Then came the preparation part. To frost a whole cake I needed a lot of hung curd. Buying curd in stores was a bad idea as I wanted to do everything at home. So I bought 1.5 litres of milk, made curd out of it and then poured it in a cloth lined sieve, placed it in fridge to get hung curd.

I decided to make vegetable vada batter and got hold of all the vegetables. I was ready to make it on our anniversary. I even stitched a dress for Sruti, I prepared my saree and finally the day came. I was so excited in the morning but at 4:00 am when I heard Sruti cry, I know something was so wrong. She had high temperature and I didn’t feel like doing anything today.

After 11 am, the fever decreased and she slept peacefully. Now I decided to do the cake and soaked urad dhal. The dhal takes only 15 minutes to soak and the grinding takes a lot of time. It takes nearly 45 minutes to get that fluffy smooth batter. As she was sleeping, I prepared the onions and green chillies while the batter was in the grinder. I decided to make a simple batter and left out all the vegetables.

By the time the batter went inside the oven, Sruti woke up and to my surprise, she was feeling good, without fever and I felt happy for the first time today. She was quite excited about the cake. and stood with me throughout assembly and she even helped me with the photo shoot. Now the cake is in fridge waiting for hubby to come home and I couldn’t wait to share with you all. So read on for the whole recipe and step wise pictures so that you can make it for any party or celebration.

Dahi Vada Cake with mixer grinder

If you don’t have wet grinder and only a mixer grinder, then you can still make the batter. You don’t have to grind for 40 minutes in a mixer grinder as the speed is quite fast when you compare it with a wet grinder. Also it gets heated up easily. So it take around 7-10 minutes to grind using your mixer. Run the mixer for a minute, let it rest for a few seconds, then run again. Giving rest in between will solve your over heating problem. Also, don’t add too much of water while grinding. For the final run, use your pulse mode to fluff up the batter and incorporate air into it.

Dahi Vada Cake Recipe

Gayathri Kumar

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Course Appetizer

Cuisine Indian

Servings 8 Persons

Ingredients

  

Ingredients

• Urad Dhal-1 cup
• Salt-to taste
• Baking Soda-1/2 tsp
• Onion-2
• Green Chilly-3-4
• Coriander Leaves-3-4 tbs
• Salted Hung Curd-1 1/2 cups
• Chat Masala Red Chilly Powder
• Boondhi – For Topping
• Carrot grated-1 for topping

Instructions

 

Procedure

• Wash and soak urad dhal for 15 minutes.
• Grind in a wet grinder for 40 to 45 minutes until soft, fluffy and thick.
• Add very less water so that the batter turns out thick.
• Add chopped onion, green chillies, salt, baking soda and coriander leaves.
• Grease and line two 9″ pans.
• Divide the batter equally between two tins.
• Preheat oven to 180°C.
• Bake the cakes for 50-60 minutes or until the top is nicely browned. The top will have cracks and it will not rise much. The tooth pick may not come clean as urad dhal is sticky when hot. It becomes fluffy once cool.
• Remove tins from oven, gently remove the cake from the tin on to a wire rack and allow them to cool completely.
• Mix equal amounts of curd and water to make buttermilk. Use it to soak the cakes.
• Once the cakes are cool. place a cake upside down on a serving plate and use a pastry brush to brush the cake with butter milk.
• Once the cake is nicely soaked, add half the hung curd and spread it evenly.
• Now place the second cake, again upside down and soak it with buttermilk.
• At this stage, you can cling wrap the cake and refrigerate. You can do the remaining steps at the time of serving so that boondhi stays crispy.
• Place the remaining curd on top and spread it evenly.
• Arrange, grated carrot, boondhi as per your design.
• Sprinkle red chilly powder and chat masala.
• Garnish with coriander leaves and serve immediately.

Keyword Dahi Vada Cake