Trials & Triumphs - Eggless Date Cake

I prefer a piece of simple, basic cake now and then. However, I believe visually stunning and elaborately made up cakes are pretentious and are here to ruin our diet plans, if at all we have them. :) Somehow, my appetite literally dies down when a calorie-laden cake is offered. Needless to say, I therefore bake pretty basic cakes. I mark down such cake recipes whenever I find them, especially the egg less ones. 
Shilpa's 'Eggless Date Cake' happens to come under this category and this delicious cake has been baked several times with great success at my home. The texture and the taste are just perfect. It is such a fool proof recipe that it is hard to mess up and this particular cake has been a hit in our family. So far, among the 'tried and tested recipes' from other virtual kitchens, this one tops.
I usually cut down the quantities of sugar and fat by more than half from the original recipe but it turns out excellent in spite of that.

Ingredients: (For 12 cupcakes)
Dates - 18
Milk - 3/4 cup
Sugar -  5 -6 Tbsp
All purpose flour / Maida - 1 cup
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Ghee / Melted butter / Oil - 4 Tbsp (I always use ghee.)

Any chopped nuts can also be added. I have tried this cake with almonds / cashews / walnuts.
I always use pitted dates. If using the softer ones, I ground them directly. If the dates are a little harder, I microwave them with little water for about five minutes for easy grinding. 
I have always baked this cake in a muffin pan instead of a cake pan for individual servings. The above ingredients make a dozen cupcakes.

Baking:
* Preheat the oven at 350F.
* Sieve together flour and baking soda.
* Grind the dates and sugar to a smooth paste adding milk. Add ghee and mix.
* Add the flour mixture slowly to the ground paste and mix well.
* Pour the batter into a greased cake pan and bake. If using the muffin pan, divide the batter equally among the muffin cups. Pour the batter only halfway through so that that there is place for the cupcakes to raise.
 * Bake for 35-40 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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