Cucumber wheat jaggery tea cake

This is not the first time I tried to bake using cucumber. I have tried cucumber cupcake/ muffins earlier, which turned out to be soft & great. This time it is tea cake with cucumber, wheat and jaggery. I added 'coconut flour' too along with basic main ingredients.

The idea of using coconut flour is new to me and I learnt it from my blogger friend Shri Kripa and from her blog. Until then I used to throw the by-product after extracting coconut milk. Coconut flour is nothing but dried coconut meal produced after extracting milk. I used to throw it with the guilt of wasting food which is very rich in fibre. Now, I have this technique of storing this meal drying. I dry it in oven (convection mode) for 15 minutes and refrigerate it until next use. Usually finish it in a week’s time. Thanks Shree Kripa for such a nice idea.
Find other cucumber recipes like Cucumber kottige/ kadubu, Cucumber spicy dosa, Cucumber Idli, Cucumber neer dosa... Also look for my recipe of eggless pumpkin cake.

Now let us come back to the topic that is making of this cake. Please find the recipe for the tasty eggless tea cake which resembles suttavu/ cucumber guli appa in taste.

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Baking time: 30 minutes

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

Grated cucumber – 1 - 1.5 cup

Wheat flour – 1 cup

Fine semolina/ Chiroti rava – ½ cup

Coconut flour – ¼ cup (optional), if not using it add additional ¼ cup of small rava

Jaggery powder – ¾ cup, adjust to your taste

Baking soda – ½ tsp

Baking powder – ¼ tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp

Fresh curds – ½ cup, or (¼ cup milk + ¼ cup curds)

Ghee/ coconut oil – 3-4 tbsp

Method:

• Grease the baking pan with little ghee or oil, keep aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, take cucumber gratings, jaggery powder and ghee/ oil. Mix well.
• Now add rava/ semolina, wheat flour, coconut flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
• Prepare a batter adding curds (milk + curds) as required. Battery consistency should not be runny.  Add little curds if it looks very dry. If cucumber is dry, then it may require little more of fluid to be added. It should be as shown in the image below.

• Keep the batter aside for 5 minutes.
• Now, preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.
• Pour the batter in the greased tray and bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until inserted fork comes out clean. Check it after 20 minutes of baking, not before it!
• Serve the warm cake with tea or coffee.

Notes:

• Jaggery can be replaced by sugar. Adjust the measurement as per your requirement.
• Coconut flour is an optional ingredient. It can be substituted by fine semolina.
• Grate cucumber along with core & skin if it is tender. Else, remove the outer skin and core. It can be used to make tambuli.
• Dry fruits can also be added for enhanced taste.