Eggless Ragi Carrot Cashew Cake/Eggless Fingermillet Cake with Palm Jaggery Syrup

I love cooking with millets, and my pantry will always have varieties of millets, millet flour etc. Its always a pleasure for me to add these nutritious wholegrains in our diet without changing anything in my usual way of cooking. Usually i'll replace half of the wheat flour in our chappathis with ragi aka fingermillet flour or with pearlmillet flour aka bajra flour. The same thing happens even with South Indian breakfasts like Idlies, dosas, pongal, upma etc. I keep on trying adding millets just to feed my family members with healthy stuffs in their daily menu. When its comes to baking with millets, i have been trying few combinations in breads, cakes since ever i started adding millets in our diet. Ragi flour works awesome in breads and cakes, many of my trials with this flour have turned out simply awesome  When you get a chance to bake a cake with carrots, nuts,ragi flour and jaggery syrup who will miss the chance, definitely not me. Today's cake is baked completely with healthy stuffs in it, its butterless sugarless and with ragi flour.Sounds interesting rite??..

I have made some changes in this cake according to my tastebuds, actually the original recipe went for 3/4th cup of ghee instead of butter, since i dont have that much quantity of ghee i simply replaced it with oil and mashed potatoes, i have already tried a rich Christmas cake as an eggless version with mashed potatoes and this mashed potatoes worked wonder in this cake very well. My cake looks like chocolate cake rite? but i didnt even add a single spoon of chocolate powder, actually my palm jaggery were very much dark in colour and that gives an deep brown chocolate like colour to this healthy cake. I just added cashews instead of walnuts, else i followed the recipe as per the original one. I didnt revealed to anyone at home that this cake is with palm jaggery and ragi, half of the cake vanished when this cake was bit warm. I finished the remaining cake as trifle with icecream and fruit custard. This cake is our this week's challenge of Fond Bites-Bake Along a weekly event by Subhashini, she suggested this healthy cake for this week.Every week we get to know about the week's challenge on sunday and the members of this group should bake and share either in their blog or with the group members before the next sunday.Sending to Bake Fest guest hosted by Nalini.

Recipe Source:HealthFood Desivideshi
2cups Ragi flour/fingermillet flour
200grms Palm jaggery
1cup Carrot (grated)
1cup Apple (grated)
1/2cup Cashew nuts (chopped)
1+1/2tsp Baking powder
1tsp Baking soda
1/2tsp Cinnamon powder
1/2tsp Clove powder
1/2tsp Nutmeg powder
1tsp Orange zest
1tsp Ginger powder
1/2cup Mashed potatoes
1+1/2cups Hung curd
1cup Canola oil/Sunflower oil

Grease a loaf pan generously and keep aside.

Add tablespoon of water to the grated palm jaggery,cook in simmer and brings boil, cook until the jaggery gets dissolves.

Strain the syrup and keep aside.

Meanwhile sieve tha flour with baking powder,baking soda, cinnamon powder, clove powder, nutmeg powder, ginger powder twice and keep aside. Add the orange zest and mix it.

In an another bowl, take the oil, hung curd, mashed potatoes, palm jaggery syrup and mix well.

Add in the grated carrot and grated apple, give a stir.

Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients gradually and mix gently with a spatula, dont overmix.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Fold in the cashews, reserve a couples of nuts for topping.

Pour the batter to the prepared tin, top it with the remaining nuts and bake for 30-35minutes until a kewer inserted comes out clean.

Enjoy this cake with your favourite drink.

Notes:
If you dont feel comfort just with ragi flour, half the quantity of the ragi flour and use half of the all purpose flour.

We loved this cake when they were still warm. Since this cake turned super moist, its tastes too good as trifle with icecream and fruit custard.