Ingredients for making the bun: ( for 8 burger sized buns)
Plain flour (maida) – 3 cups
Salt – 1 tsp
Dry yeast – 15 ml (1.5 tbsp)
Brown sugar – 1 tsp
Warm water – 1\2 cup
Warm milk – 1\2 cup
Oil – 1.5 tsp
Milk for brushing
Method:
1. Seive the flour and salt.
2. Mix sugar, oil, warm milk and warm water. Add yeast. Mix well. Allow the mixture to stand in an undisturbed place for ten minutes or until it has become frothy. If the water or milk is not warm, the yeast will not be activated. On the contrary, hot water or milk will kill the yeast. So use warm water and milk.
3. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and knead it for a few minutes and make it into a ball. Sprinkle some flour on a plain working surface. Place the dough ball on it and knead it again. Place your left hand at the corner of the ball that is closest to you. Hold the diagonally opposite side of the ball using your right hand and pull the portion away from you. Now fold the pulled portion back into the rest of the dough. Turn the dough a little and repeat the pulling and folding. Keep doing this until one clockwise motion incorporating the whole of the ball is achieved. Repeat until the dough becomes smooth, soft and elastic. It should take around 10 minutes.
4. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, brush oil over the dough, cover the bowl with a plastic wrap or kitchen towel. Leave the bowl in a warm undisturbed place for an hour.
5. The dough would have now risen to double its size and the texture on top would be oily. Now punch into the risen dough to release the air.
6. Place the dough back into the floured working surface. Knead again for a minute. This would make it easier for cutting the dough into desired shapes.
7. Roll the dough into a long cylinder. Cut into 8 equal portions.
8. Knead each of the portion again and roll them into balls or any other desired shapes 
9. Place the balls in a floured baking tray leaving enough space in between them as they will rise again. Cover loosely with kitchen cloth and allow them to rise for another 20 – 30 minutes. They would again double in size.
10. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius.
10. Once the buns have doubled in size, brush the top of the buns with milk to get a glazed texture.
11. Place the baking tray in the centre of the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the top surface of the buns turn golden brown. It is better to remove the buns at around 15 minutes and tap the bottom of the buns. If a hollow sound is heard, they are done.
12. Cool them for about 10 minutes. The buns will be a little hard (like the ones they give in Indian airlines!) Spread butter and eat. Yummy!
Tips:
Ingredients for making the veg patties: ( for 8 patties)
Toor Dhal – 1 cup
Potato – 1 (Boiled and mashed)
Carrot – 1 (grated)
Mint leaves – 3 tbsp (finely chopped)
Curry leaves – 1 tbsp (finely chopped)
Coriander leaves – 1 tbsp (finely chopped)
Red chillies – 2
Salt – as required
Method:
1. Boil toor dhal with little salt and turmeric powder.
2. Add all the remaining ingredients to the toor dhal paste and mix well. Add a little water if required.
3. Divide the dough into balls, flatten them a little to make 8 burger size patties.
4. Either toast them on a pan like cutlets are done, or bake the patties in a preheated oven (180 degrees Celcius) for 20-30 minutes.
Burger arrangement:
1. Take a bun, cut horizontally in the middle.
2. Rub some pickle over the cut surfaces. Place some lettuce leaves and a cheese slice on the bottom half. Place a patty followed by another cheese slice and lettuce leaves on top. Cover with the top half of the bun. Microwave for a minute until the cheese melts.
3. Eat with tomato or chilli sauce!
Get creative and make any amount of variations to get different patties!
Ingredients:
Potatoes – 2 (cut into thin slices)
Onions – 2 (cut into thin rings)
Grated cheese – 1 tbsp
Garlic pods – 4 (finely chopped)
Oil – 3 tbsp
Small cinnamon stick – 1 small stick
Star anise – 1
Bay leaf – 1 small leaf
Thai red chillies – 2
Thai green curry paste – 1 tbsp
Kasoori methi – 1 tbsp
Salt – as required
pepper – as required
Method:
1. Take a mortar and pestle. Roughly mince the following – oil, 2 pods finely chopped garlic, red chillies, star anise, bay leaf, cinnamon and kasoori methi. The smell is heavenly!
2. Take a mixing bowl.Add the sliced ptatoes, the minced paste, green curry paste, salt and pepper. Mix well.
3. Grease a baking tray with oil. Arrange the sliced potatoes evenly on the tray.
4. Sprinkle across the remaining chopped garlic.
5. Arrange the onion rings over the potato base.
6. Sprinkle grated cheese, salt and pepper.
7. Bake in a preheated oven (180 degrees Celcius)for 20-25 minutes or until the potatoes turn light brown.
8. Remove from oven and serve hot.
Tip:
In case you dont like tasting the cinnamon stick, bay leaf or star anise, pick them out from the minced paste and place them in the middle of the baking tray while baking. Once the dish is taken out of the oven, scoop them out and discard.
Ingredients:
Bread slices – 4
Oil or butter – as required to toast the bread
Cooked maggi noodles / any other noodles – 1 packet
White sauce – 4 tbsp (Check this website on how to prepare white sauce – http://www.bawarchi.com/cookbook/italian3.html)
Tomato sauce – 4 tbsp
Onions – 2 (sliced into thin rings)
Capsicum – 1 (sliced into thin rings)
Oyster mushrooms – 1/2 packet
Grated cheese – 1 tbsp
Salt – as required
Pepper – as required
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Slightly toast the bread with butter or oil. Remove the edges and arrange them on a greased baking pan. I used an 8 inch square pan. So I needed 4 bread slices to cover the base of the pan.
3. Use readymade tomato sauce or prepare as follows. Heat oil in a pan. Add 1 finely chopped tomato, some salt and pepper. Saute well until the oil starts to leave the pan.
4. Check this website on how to prepare white sauce – http://www.bawarchi.com/cookbook/italian3.html.
5. Saute the chopped mushrooms in oil with little salt and pepper.
6. Spread half of the tomato sauce over the bread slices.
7. Spread the maggi noodles now.
8. Spread the remaining tomato sauce over the noodles.
9. Pour in the white sauce.
10. Sprinkle the sauted mushrooms. Arrange the onion and capsicum rings. Sprinkle the grated cheese, some salt and pepper.
11. Place the baking pan in the centre of the preheated oven. Bake for about 40 minutes. The base wont be very crisp because of the noodles and tomato sauce. So just remove from the oven when the onions start browning.
12. Serve it hot.
Ingredients:
Date sauce:
Seedless dates – 1 cup
Light brown sugar – 1/4 cup
Water – 1/2 cup
Boil water in a saucepan. Add sugar and dates. Bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. A thick smooth date syrup would be ready. If it is too thick, add more boiling water.
Oatmeal mixture:
Instant oats – 1.5 cup
Plain flour – 1 cup
Cocoa powder – 1 tbsp
Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Salt – 1 tsp
Honey – 3 tbsp
Butter – 1\2 cup (melted)
Method:
1. Sieve together oats, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
2. Mix butter and honey.
3. Add the butter mixture to the oats-flour mixture. Mix well in one direction. Add little milk if the mixture is too thick.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
5. Spread one half of the oats mixture in a greased baking pan. On top this, spread the date sauce. Again spread the other half of the oats mixture over the date sauce.
6. Bake for about 35 to 45 minutes.
7. Remove, cool and cut into pieces.
Ingredients:
Plain flour – 2 cups
Baking powder – 1.5 tsp
Baking soda – 1 tsp
Thinly sliced almonds, chopped cashwes, pistachios and raisins – 1/2 cup
Brown sugar – 1 cup
Water – 1 cup
Butter (salted/unsalted) – 1/3 cup (at room temperature)
Salt – 1/4 tsp if using salted butter; else 1/2 tsp
Almond essence- 1 tsp
Milk – 1 tbsp
Sprite or coke – 1 tbsp
Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Grease the baking pan with butter or oil or use a non-stick cooking spray. I used a 8″ square pan.
3. Dry mixture: Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the broken nuts and mix.
4. Wet mixture: Mix butter, sugar and salt. Add hot water to the mixture. Transfer the mixture to a pan and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes.Switch off the gas and allow the mixture to cool.
5. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture while beating well in one direction. Add essence. Keep beating until the entire dry mixture is fully incorporated. If the mixture seems too dry, add the milk.
6. Now add the coke or sprite and beat for a minute.
7. Pour the mixture into the greased pan. You do not have to spread the mixture using a spoon, if the mixture is of the right consistency. Tap the cake tin to release any trapped air bubbles.
8. Place in the centre of the pre-heated oven and bake for 45 minutes. The temperature and baking time can vary from oven to oven. Hence, test the cake at around 35 minutes to see if it is done. To test, insert a toothpick inside the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, the cake is ready.
9. Remove the pan and let the cake cool for 10 minutes. Invert it.
10. Cool the cake well before doing any icing.
Decoration:
Basic buttercream icing:
Ingredients:
Butter (preferably unsalted) – 250 g
Icing sugar – 500 g
Vannila essence (optional) – 1 tsp
Hot water – 1 tbsp
Mix all the above ingredients together. The basic white icing is ready! By using different edible colors, colored icing can be prepared. For chocolate icing, mix 1 or 2 tsp of cocoa powder with a little hot water to make a paste and mix this into the basic icing. For my cake, I used chocolate, pink and white icing. Use a cake decorator fitted with different nozzles and get creative! Sprinkled chopped pecans over the icing. The icing tasted like Ferrero Rocher! 
Ingredients:
Plain flour – 150 g
Unsweetened cocoa powder – 50 g
Fine sugar - 100 g
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Cold water – 150 ml
Lemon juice or vinegar – 1/2 tbsp
Oil – 4 tbsp (Any oil would do; I used soy oil)
Sprite or coke – 1 tbsp
Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celcius.
2. Grease the baking pan with butter or oil or use a non-stick cooking spray. I used a 8″ square pan.
3. Dry mixture: Sift all the dry ingredients except sugar together - flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
4. Wet mixture: In another bowl mix water, lemon juice, oil and sugar.
5. Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture while beating well in one direction. Keep beating until the entire dry mixture is fully incorporated.
6. Now add the coke or sprite and beat for a minute.
7. Pour the mixture into the greased pan. You do not have to spread the mixture using a spoon, if the mixture is of the right consistency. Tap the cake tin to release any trapped air bubbles.
8. Place in the centre of the pre-heated oven and bake for 30 minutes. The temperature and baking time can vary from oven to oven. Hence, test the cake at around 25 minutes to see if it is done. To test, insert a toothpick inside the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, the cake is ready.
9. Remove the pan and let the cake cool for 10 minutes. Invert it.
10. A rich moist yummy eggless chocolate cake is ready! Serve it with icecream and fruits! Yummmmmy!
Shown in the picture is the guitar chocolate cake baked for one of my friends. I made two 8″ cakes and joined them together. This was my first time with icing and wanted to make eggless fondant based decoration but ended up messing it . Planning to decorate my next cake with buttercream icing! Hope it goes well! Will let you know soooon.
