Eggless Baking With Shivesh

By Shivesh Bhatia

Have you ever had to give up a favourite dessert because it had eggs? No more!

In his third book, Instagram sensation and ace baker Shivesh Bhatia tells you how to recreate classic desserts---without the eggs but with all the delicious flavour. Eggless Baking with Shivesh has a dessert for every occasion. Be it a standout birthday cake, a pina colada tart for the adventurous, or simple oat and raisin cookies to accompany your evening tea ... there is something for everyone here.

So put on that apron, bring out the flour, crank up the oven and get ready to create these delicious treats in the comfort of your home with this ultimate guide to eggless baking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9789394407077

Shivesh Bhatia

Shivesh Bhatia has a following of over 1.5 million on Instagram (@shivesh17) and YouTube (Bake With Shivesh) and has been sharing recipes on his blog, Bake With Shivesh for over eight years now. In 2022, Shivesh was awarded Food Influencer of the Year by Cosmopolitan India and Food Blogger of the Year by Travel + Leisure magazine. He is the author of Bake with Shivesh and Shivesh Bhatia's Desserts for Every Mood: 100 Feel-Good Recipes.

Book preview

Introduction

IF YOU FOLLOW my channel on YouTube, or have been reading my blog, you’d realize that more than 90 per cent of my recipes are eggless. But it wasn’t always so.

When I started baking almost a decade ago, eggs were an important part of every dessert I made in my kitchen. They were indispensable. I had grown up eating cakes with eggs, and had seen my mum and nani, who have had a major influence on my baking style, use eggs in all their baking. Even the international bakers I followed used eggs in all their recipes.

But, slowly as my blog grew and more viewers tried to recreate my recipes in their kitchen, I started getting questions about substitutions, or if one can skip eggs altogether while making desserts. Initially, my answer was always ‘no’ because I believed a cake without eggs would turn out to be a heavy, dense brick, not the soft, fluffy confection we all love. Gradually though my views about this changed, and I took it up as a challenge to try and bake beautiful desserts without a primary ingredient—eggs.

Back then, who would have thought that I would end up writing a book on eggless baking! To be honest, it’s not something that has happened overnight. I’ve spent a large part of the past few years experimenting with eggless recipes and desserts in my kitchen. It’s been a long, but rewarding, process of learning—and unlearning—a lot of things. Most importantly, I’ve realized that you can’t simply take a recipe that contains eggs and blindly replace them with whatever is at hand or just skip them entirely. It doesn’t work like that. Commonly found egg substitutes— some of which, like yogurt, flax seeds, aquafaba, buttermilk and apple sauce, I have used in this book—will work differently in different recipes.

For instance, mashed bananas might be a great substitute for eggs in a cake, but try using them as a replacement in macarons and you’ll end up with a disaster! And while yogurt has become my go-to ingredient for eggless cakes, it just does not work in cookies; instead, a flax egg does the trick. While experimenting in the kitchen, I learnt some new aspects of baking as well. For example, a sponge made with yogurt is very light and soft, so it works really well for cakes I want to layer and frost. But for loaf and Bundt cakes, I prefer using condensed milk because it gives the cake a better structure.

I believe in having reliable base recipes in place that you can play around with. My basic eggless sponge recipe, tart shells and cheesecake recipes work as strong foundations that I, and you, can build upon. Once I have a fluffy eggless vanilla sponge recipe that I know I can keep going back to, I can use that to make a pistachio cake or a strawberry cake, or even an elaborate six-layer rainbow cake! A cheesecake recipe you trust can be used to make cheesecake bars or cheesecake brownies or mini cheesecake cups. Once you have nailed your base recipe, the possibilities are endless.

As someone who grew up eating and baking cakes with eggs, I was never going to settle for anything that didn’t taste good enough. The recipes I’m sharing with you in this book are not just great eggless recipes; they’re great recipes in general! The cakes you’ll make will be as fluffy as the ones with egg, the cookies equally addictive and the cheesecakes just as creamy and delicious. And I promise you, the macarons, lemon tarts, doughnuts and cupcakes are all going to be second to none!

If you’ve ever felt restricted because you don’t use or consume eggs, I hope this book opens up a world of possibilities for you and encourages you to experiment in the kitchen, to bake memorable desserts that make you and everyone around you happy!

CAKES & CHEESECAKES

BIRTHDAY CAKE

BANANA SPLIT CAKE

BISCOFF LAYERED CAKE

VANILLA CAKE

BUTTERSCOTCH CAKE

CHAI PUDDING CAKE

CARROT CAKE

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE

CHOCOLATE OMBRE CAKE

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE CAKE

COOKIE CRUNCH CAKE

CHOCOLATE CAKE

LAVENDER BUNDT CAKE

MANGO & COCONUT LOAF

MARBLE LOAF CAKE

PINK LEMONADE CAKE

PISTACHIO, DARK CHOCOLATE & STRAWBERRY CAKE

RED VELVET CAKE

RAINBOW CAKE

SNICKERDOODLE BUNDT CAKE

STRAWBERRIES & CREAM CAKE

MANGO TRES LECHES CAKE

MOCHA TRES LECHES

LAMINGTON

BAKED CHEESECAKE

OREO CHEESECAKE BARS

BANANA BREAD

CHERRY & LEMON MADELEINES

NO-BAKE STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE

Birthday Cake

This is one of my favourite cakes from this book, and I had so much fun both baking and shooting it! I visualized this cake long before I got to making it, and I’m so happy with the way it turned out. It is absolutely perfect for celebrating a special occasion!

INGREDIENTS

For the cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups yogurt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1½ cups caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing

¼ cup confetti sprinkles

For the buttercream

1½ cups butter

3 cups icing sugar

2-3 drops pink gel

food colour

To top

¼ cup sprinkles

METHOD

1Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease three 6-inch round cake pans with oil and line them with parchment paper.

2In a bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder and set aside.

3Put the yogurt in a separate bowl, sprinkle the baking soda over it, mix it together and set it aside to foam up.

4Whisk together the caster sugar, vanilla extract and oil in another bowl until pale and thoroughly combined. Now add the yogurt and mix well.

5Gently fold in the dry ingredients and mix until everything is well combined and there are no large flour pockets in the batter. Do not over mix at this stage. Lastly, add the confetti sprinkles and fold them in.

6Equally divide the batter into the three prepared cake pans and bake for 30–35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely before filling and frosting them.

7To make the buttercream, use an electric mixer to whip up the butter till it is light and fluffy. Sift in the icing sugar in three batches and whip the mixture till the frosting becomes light and fluffy. Add the gel food colour and whisk again till it is evenly incorporated in the frosting.

8Place the bottom cake layer on a plate/cake board/ tray and spread a generous amount of buttercream over it. Place the next layer on top of this, making sure it’s levelled, and repeat. Frost the sides and top with the buttercream.

9Make a half-shell piping pattern with a small, closed star nozzle along the top and bottom edge of the cake. Decorate with assorted sprinkles.

10 Chill the cake in the fridge for an hour before serving.

Banana Split Cake

This cake is inspired by the classic Banana Split Sundae. It’s got layers of the yummiest banana cake (delicious on its own too), filled with strawberry compote and covered with whipped white chocolate frosting. Don’t you love the chocolate drip and the over-the-top retro look?

INGREDIENTS

For the cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup yogurt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1½ cups caster sugar

1 cup vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing

1 cup mashed bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the frosting

2 cups white chocolate, chopped

2 cups whipping cream

1 drop yellow food colour

For the filling

2 cups strawberry

preserve (see p. 108)

For the drip

1 cup milk chocolate, melted

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

To top

Sprinkles

Cocktail Cherries

METHOD

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease four 6-inch round cake pans with oil and line them with parchment