Eggless Mawa Sooji Cake –
Iyengar Bakery Style
Eggless Mawa Rava Cake is a gorgeous tea cake full of Indian flavours. Iyengar bakery rawa cakes are pretty famous and there is a craze among bakers to recreate it at home. Making an eggless version has been in my list for a long time, and one day after so many failed attempts, I nailed it. The cake turned out amazing with so much of flavour because of the mawa added. It doesn’t remind you if cake but an Indian sweet in cake form. This is one of my favourite fusion cakes I did in these eight years of blogging.
Nailed it after two attempts at failing
I made two cakes on that day. The first cake didn’t turn out as expected and was too crumbly. So immediately I did some changes in the recipe and tried it again. I was even recording it for YouTube, so think about how much stress I was having that day. But the second cake turned out too good. I reserved the first cake for Sruti and sent away the second cake to hubby’s office. I was tempted to try it and so tasted a little of the cake and really loved it.

If you let me, I can keep describing about the cake the whole day. But let me stop here. The main reason for the success of the recipe is the addition of mawa. If you live at a place where you get mawa easily in stores, then you won’t have any problem making this cake. But if you live in a place where you don’t get mawa, then you have to make it at home. Making mawa at home needs so much patience and that is why so many stay away from it. Nowadays, I make mawa in minutes in MW and it also has the perfect texture and flavour.
Making mawa for Iyengar Bakery Style Eggless Mawa Sooji Cake can be really easy
Usually online recipes ask you to mix milk and milk powder to make mawa at home. It actually lacks the flavour. So one day I tried it with cream and milk powder, which resulted in a fantastic batch of mawa. So next time, if you are trying Inidan mawa based sweets or this mawa cake, do try my version of the mawa and you will be surprised. If you don’t have a MW, you can also make it on stove top. It takes a bit of stirring for stove top, but it is easier when compared to the traditional mawa preparation.
Make sure Rava is Finely processed
And one more thing to keep in mind, use the finest chiroti rava for the cake. Coarser rawa makes it crumbly. If you don’t get chiroti rava, then run the rava in mixer until fine and then use it in the recipe.




Iyengar Bakery Style Eggless Mawa Sooji Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- For The Mawa:
- 200 g Milk Powder – 200 gm
- 250 ml Amul Fresh Cream – 250 ml
- For The Cake:
- 275 g Chiroti Rava / Fine Sooji
- 100 ml Yogurt / Curd
- 140 g Mawa
- 100 ml Milk
- 1.5 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Cardamom Powder
- 150 g Sugar
- 100 g Butter
- Nuts – a handful
Instructions
- Making The MW Mawa:
- Mix together milk powder and cream and make a smooth batter.
- MW it on high for a minute.
- Remove and give a stir.
- Again MW on high for a minute.
- Remove and give a stir.
- Repeat these two steps until the mawa is thick and of perfect consistency.
- Cover and allow it to cool completely.
- For The Cake:
- Preheat oven to 160°C.
- Grease, line and dust a 7″ square tin and keep it ready.
- In a bowl mix together melted butter, sugar and mawa and beat until well combined.
- Add in yogurt, milk and cardamom powder and beat well.
- Add baking powder and beat until incorporated.
- Remove beater.
- Add the fine chiroti rava and mix it well with a spatula.
- Transfer batter to the prepared cake tin and top it with chopped nuts.
- Bake in preheated oven for 45 – 55 minutes.
- Check with a tooth pick and see if it comes out clean.
- Cover the cake with an aluminium foil and allow it to sit for two to three hours.
- Now flip the cake on top a chopping board, remove the lining paper and flip it back so that the nuts comes to the top.
- Slice it up into cubes and serve.
Excellent sooji cake, simple love that texture of the cake.. Adding mawa makes this cake more interesting.. Who can resist to this beautiful cake.. Inviting and extremely irresistible.
Wow!! This Sooji cake looks amazing. I have tried it with egg ones, but was not satisfied with the texture. I am planning to try this recipe.
Wow! this cake looks fantastic. I am sure with the cream in the mawa ,this cake tastes rich and amazing.I make mawa with half n half milk but making it with cream is definitely sinful 🙂
I have made this cake a few times and it’s absolutely delicious. Thanks Gayathri for this amazing recipe.
Thank you so much for trying it out.
Wow! Gayatri! I do love the cake. Looks so yum. Thanks for the mawa making recipe it is much more simple than getting the store brought one.
Gayathri, as usual the cake looks amazing and the addition of mawa must have made the cake more sinful..
How much mawa should I be using if I use store bought one? Also, I need to do some calculations since I mostly rely on cup measurements. 🙂
literally you made this mawa cake with so perfection. can see the spongy texture and so fluffy. I tried few times but my sooji cake dint came out so well. Bookmarking to try out. I am in love with this.
Homemade Mava always tastes better than the store bought one. Mava sooji cake looks delicious.
The texture looks fantastic gayathri, what a lovely one..I loved it too when I had made it and mostly make the khova in mw too..very nice one to make and enjoy!
Can i make it in a cooker
Yes, definitely. Use a smaller burner and medium low flame.
Oh my, that is such a delicious looking mawa cake Gayathri. I can totally imagine how amazing this cake must have tasted. Thank you for MW mawa recipe – will definitely try this recipe some time soon.
Wow Gayathri!!! I can absolutely relate to the frenzy of trying to bake the Iyengar bakery goodies at home….this mawa cake is such a classic dish and you have presented such a beautiful and delicious version of it. You should have continued singing praises of this one for sometime longer…totally deserves it!
Hello Gayathri.can we use idli rava for this cake?
Grind it until fine and then use.
Oh Gayathri! Don’t tempt me please. I’m not as determined as you are. This mawa cake is making me drool as I haven’t eaten a cake since ages (about 2 months now) Delicious share …Loving it
The mawa cake is just awesome and that recipe for mawa is perfect for the festival season. I do not like store bought mawa and this MW version is perfect.
That looks yummilicious gayathri!! the texture is amazing! Rich with homemade mawa!!!
Gayathri lovely receipe I have mawa bought from the shop do I need to fry the mawa to remove the rawness or add it directly
Thank you. You don’t have to fry mawa. Add it directly to the batter. It will be cooked in oven.
Wow……
This is amazing..
This sooji cakes makes me drooling… too awesome recipe.
Gayatri Mam Thanks a lot for sharing the wonderful recipe. I tried the same and cake was wonderful with superb texture and Divine taste. Also I added some Tutti Fruity to it, it became so colourful. Thank you very much Madam. Keep sharing such lovely recipes so that we amateurs can learn something from you. You are my Guru. My Namaskarams.
That is wonderful to hear Varsha. So kind of you. Thank you so much.
hii gayatri…does it will rise without baking soda???
We need a leavening. Baking powder will take care of that.
Hi Mam, Tried the receive and outcome was yummy.
One doubt the mawa which is made can it be store in refrigerator. If yes then for how many days.
Thanks for trying. I am so glad you liked it. Mawa can be stored in fridge for upto 4-5 days. If you need to keep it longer, then freeze it.
Looks amazing & yummy…need a small clarification though…if buying store bought mawa..what is the quantity that needs to be used in the above recipe..
140 gm. I have mentioned it in the recipe itself.
Hello gayathri ji. I am new to your blog. I have also joined your FB page Fun with egg free baking and love all the recipes posted. I have been making suji/rava cake. I use regular rava plus wheat flour. Although the cake comes out pretty good on its own, but some how am not satisfied with it yet as I am, too, a fan of Iyengar rava cake. So, my question is, does Iyengar cake really contains mawa?, what gives Iyengar cake it’s colour, fluffyness, and that bread like crust? Of all the rava cake recipes that I had read on the net, call for pre soaking of rava in the curd for few mins, your recipe does not asks for the same? Why did you not include baking soda in the recipe? Will the addition of cardamom and nuts make the cake taste more like sheera? Lastly, very sorry for such long post. It would be of great help if you could answer to my queries. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your appreciation. Coming to your queries, I am not sure whether they add mawa to their cake, but we bakers try to replicate recipes with easily available ingredients. As you know, bakeries use different ingredients to get that final cake. We can try to replicate it to some extent. MAwa adds so much richness to the cake. As I have used only rawa, the cake without mawa was quite crumbly. When I added mawa, the taste and texture both improved a lot. There are so many ways to make a cake. Soaking rawa is one, and mine if you notice, I allow overnight resting of the cake to improve the softness and reduce the crumbleness. As for baking powder or soda,they are similar. Baking powder is a combination of soda and cream of tartar, so even if a cake doesn’t have baking soda, it will have baking soda in the form of baking powder. The quantity is what matters finally. This cake doesn’t taste like sheera, but it is like cake with Indian flavours added to it.
Can we add dessicated coconut to it
If yes then how much quantity
You can add 1/4 cup to the batter.
I would like to try out this recipe with egg..shall I make any changes to other ingredients?
You can substitute curd in recipe with two eggs. No other changes needed.
How to cook it in a pressure cooker and for how long
Remove the gasket and whistle, heat your cooker with lid on medium low flame in your small burner for ten minutes. Keep a stand inside and place your cake, cover and bake for the given time in the recipe.
Hi mam, I’m following your blog n FB for past 1years..tried few cake n bread recipes…all turned out great..
For this recipe, ist v need to grind d chiroti rava or can directly applied?
If v make mawa on d gas stove, roughly how much time v need to get d perfect texture?
Can I replace refined sugar with jaggery powder/brown sugar?
Thanks in advance for your advice
Hi, thank you. No need to grind chiroti rava. Use it as it is. Mawa on stove top will take 10-15 minutes if you are using this recipe. Traditional Mawa will take two to three hours. And yes, you can use equal amount of jaggery or brown sugar instead.
Thanks a lot for your kind reply
If we are adding store bought unsweetened Mawa to the cake then by how much do we need to increase the sugar in the cake?
The recipe for mawa in the recipe is also unsweetened. So if using store bought mawa, use the same amount of sugar and mawa as given in the recipe.
Thank you so much for the recipe but could you please give the cup measurements?
The cake looks delish!! My question is what will be the measurements if we were to use cups ? Here in US the measurements for baking are in cups, also what will the baking temperature be in Fahrenheit? Thanks n love your Sooji cake recipe!!
There are so many cup measures available and it became too confusing. So I started making recipes in weight measures. According to your cup measure, you can easily find online conversion charts. It might help. As for baking temperature, use 320F for baking.
I found this recipe when I Googled for recipes to use up a lot of left over milk powder! Have made the cake twice now – exactly as mentioned except that I reduced the sugar a tad bit as we prefer less sweet and with a few drops of vanilla essence. Both times it’s come out beautiful brown and absolutely fantastic in taste and texture! Thank you for the recipe!!
Thank you so much for trying and sharing with us. The cake looks so delicious!
I do not have a kitchen scale, can you share measurements in cups ?
Hi, let me get you the equivalents for you to easily convert the recipe to cup measures. 130 gm flour, 200 gm sugar, 200 gm butter and 200 ml of any liquid equals one 200 ml cup. Hope this helps.