Few weeks back when Chennai experienced worst floods….we the people of Chennai are forced by nature to experience nomad life….with no electricity, no mobile signal, no milk, no running water, just few vegetables to cherish…..’Life Halted’. Cooking minimal hot meals three times a day and whole family sitting together to eat under candle light, with spells of continuous rains….was the scene for 10 days….A weak radio signal bought in news of breached lakes leaving us to panic more. The toughest of all is when you have small kids at home. All they knew is everyone is together at home…papa not going to office, mama is spending more time with the kiddo rather in the kitchen.
Though the rains stopped, it took 5-6 days to restore electricity and more days to get back mobile signals and all…Slowly when life started gearing back to normalcy…Lil’M asked me whether I can bake a cake for her….such a simple request…but without electricity how can I bake a cake….and that too most of the stored ingredients like butter, cheese, syrups, pickles, etc. got spoiled in the fridge which was on no electricity for days…
As Lil’M rarely asks anything to make and the poor little was at home since her school has been shut for rain holidays for more than 40 days…I thought of cheering the little girl by making her my grandma’s ghee cake, which she use to make on stovetop in wonder pot. Wondering what wonder pot is??? Wonder pot as you can see in the picture below is nothing but age old stove top bakeware. This is an age old bakeware which is getting rolling over generations in our kitchens. I really like the texture of the cake which is made in this wonder pot. The cake which is made in this wonder pot will look like pound cake and tastes like sponge cake. So without wasting much of time lets dig into the recipe and some yum snaps…I just tell you…the aroma which fills the kitchen when this ghee cake is being made is so mesmerizing that you can’t wait for the cake to bake out…
Grandma Style Stovetop Ghee Cake
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 ½ cups Maida/All purpose flour
- 4 Eggs
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 tbsp. Vanilla essence
- ¾ cup + 1 tbsp. Ghee, I used pure homemade ghee
- ¾ cup Milk, at room temperature
- ¾ tsp. Baking powder
- ¼ tbsp. Baking soda
PREPARATION:
- Grease the mold with table spoon of ghee and set aside. Add sand to the bottom plate (refer picture) and set this on stove on low flame.
- In the meantime take a bowl and sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda for 2-3 times and set aside. This is our dry ingredient mixture.
- In another bowl beat eggs until creamy and add vanilla essence along with milk. Beat for few more minutes. You can even use electrical beater or you can do the work in mixer jar.
- Now add ghee to this mixture and combine well. Make a well in the dry ingredients and very slowly fold in the wet ingredients until the cake batter looks like it is shown in the picture.
- Pour this into the pre greased wonder pot oven and tap gently to spread the mixture evenly. Cover with a lid and gently place this over the bottom plate (filled with sand) which we have already kept on the stove to pre heat.
- On the low flame, let the cake bake for at least 35-40 minutes. Start checking with a skewer after 30 minutes. If it runs clean then our cake is ready.
- If the skewer runs clean, turn off the flame and leave it to sit on hot stove for another 5 minutes.
- Remove the wonder pot from the stove and leave to cool for 10-15 minutes on the kitchen counter.
- Gently flip onto a plate and after 5-8 minutes, cut into pieces. Our wonder pot cake is ready to serve and indulge.
- Add love to make this cake taste ‘Yummy’.
Childhood is such a fantastic period of life….where you are unaware of the world and feel secure in the warmth of parents…May Allah SWT bless each and every child a carefree childhood….A silent prayer to the Syrian children…
Famidha Ashraf says
That is indeed a wonder pot! Where can I get it?
Lubna Karim says
You can get this wonder pot in kitchen utensils shop…you can ask for cake box and they will show you….@Famidha Ashraf
beena stephen says
Delicious cake
Rafeeda AR says
Such a beautiful cake! My B loves ghee cake, so I guess I must make it for him… My grandma used to use her idli steamer for making cakes, seeing this for the first time… 🙂
Aysha says
Great post! please post more recipes with wonder pot. Generally, can same recipe for normal oven be used in wonder pot also?
Venus Kohler says
I have been on a hunt for a loooooooooooooong time for a recipe my mom and I used to make on the stove in a pot just like this one. I don’t have it anymore I was wondering if I could bake it in the oven at 350 and substitute it with melted butter, it looks just like what my mom would make!
Lubna Karim says
I am glad that you found this recipe…Yeah you can substitute ghee with butter and bake it in oven…thank you for writing…
Aamir Wisal says
Amazing. I love your blog and articles . You give such amazing recipe .Thanks a lot