Oats & Banana Loaf (Eggless)

Ingredients
1 cup oats
 ½ cup honey
½  cup ripe banana (mashed)
1 cup wheat flour
1 cup milk
½  cup buttermilk or curd
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
pinch of salt
Method
Grease a baking tray or line it with a baking paper.
preheat it at 180°C.
In a mixing bowl mix the dry ingredients i.e. (oats, wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda & a pinch of salt). Keep aside.
In a separate bowl add the mashed banana, curd or buttermilk, vegetable oil, milk & honey. mix well until all are incorporated.

Now mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and with the help of a wooden spatula gently mix it.
Pour the batter into a baking tray and sprinkle some oats on the top.
Bake for 30 mins or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
When the loaf comes to room temperature remove it and serve with coffee or tea.

Coffee & Cinnamon cake

My Recipe in Thursday Magazine in Oman

Ingredients
1 cup wheat flour
½ cup self-raising flour
3 eggs½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup milk (room temperature)
2 tsp coffee powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar (use more if the sugar is less sweet)
few drops of vanilla essence
½ tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees, Grease a baking tray (i used a round tray) & line it with a wax paper.
Sieve the flour, baking soda, cinnamon powder & salt. keep aside.
in a seperate glass mix coffee powder in the milk.
Beat the eggs until fluffy, add butter,  vanilla essence & sugar beat again for 2 minutes. Add the flour little at a time mix properly, At the end add the milk with coffee. combine the batter, it should be smooth. Add it into the baking tray.
Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Remove the tray from the oven & cover it with a kitchen towel. After 10 mins demould the cake on a wire rack or a plate and cover it with the same baking tray to retain moisture.

Coffee & cinnamon Cake recipe on SpiceWok, Pune
Here's the link: http://www.spicewok.com/recepie_detail.php?id=317&cuisine=Easy%20desserts

Wheat flour & Curd cake (Eggless)

Ingredients
1½  cups wheat flour
½  tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
4 tsp cocoa powder (sieved)
1 1/4 cup thick curd
1 cup powdered sugar (Add more if the sugar is less sweet)
½  cup clarified butter (melted) or ½  cup butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
little icing sugar while serving
Method
Sieve flour & cocoa powder in a dry bowl. keep aside
Preheat oven to 180 C.
With the help of whisk, cream the sugar & yogurt until all lumps of sugar have dissolved. now add baking powder & baking soda. let it rest for 5mins. You will find that mixture have become fluffy & bubbles will appear.
Add clarified butter, vanilla essence and combine well. Now add the wheat flour mix thoroughly with a whisk.
Pour into baking tray.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Try to de mould after 10mins on to a wire rack. cover with the baking tray to retain the moisture.
While serving sieve a tsp of icing sugar on the top.

Car logo cake & muffins

3 cheers on my son's 3rd birthday. I baked car-logo cake to celebrate his birthday. As you can see he is totally into cars & he asked me to bake his fav "folkwagen" (as he calls it) cake. 
recipe - chocolate cake with buttercream frosting

add 4 tsp of cocoa powder in the above recipe to make a chocolate cake. Slice the cake into 2 parts spread chocolate sauce on both side to make it moist. decorate the cake with butter cream frosting

for the kids-
Chocolate Muffins with butter creamfrosting

Date & Walnut Loaf

Sharing my recipe of date and walnut loaf (because the shape resembles to a bread).I often bake this one because my toddler son is a fan of this one. He loves carrying a few pieces at school, most importantly I am happy that the lunch box is polished within no time. I'm sure most of the mothers would have the same to say. I usually love having a piece (a bit warmed and served) with a strong brew or tea.A perfect coffee-tea time snack I say.Here's my recipe....

Ingredients

½ cup walnuts

1½ cup dates deseeded & chopped

2 cups wheat flour
½ cup unsalted butter (room temperature)

½ cup sugar

1½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup boiling water

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence
Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C & place rack in center of oven. Put a wax paper inside the loaf pan, lightly toast the walnuts for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant. Let cool and then chop coarsely OR dry roast on a pan.

In a large bowl mix the dates with the baking soda and a pinch of salt. Pour boiling hot water (1 cup) over the dates, stir, and leave to cool to room temperature

In another mixing bowl add wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Combine the mixture, then add the butter. this mixture resemble to breadcrumbs, then stir in the chopped walnuts.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg with the vanilla essence

Now fold the dry mixture and beaten egg mixture into the cooled dates along with the water.

Pour this batter into the Loaf pan and bake until the bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, this take about 55 to 60 minutes. leave it to cool on a wire rack

Makes 18-20 pieces of ½" thickness.This can be stored in the freeze for a week in a air tight box.

Rawa Cake (Semolina cake)

I have fond memories associated with this cake, my grandmother and mother used to bake this one when we were kids and we used to love the simplicity of this cake. No baking in the oven or microwaves (of course we didn't have one at that time), Simple but yet very tasty and delicious. My grandmother baked these a few times on our birthday and used to decorate this with icing sugar and butter and she did a great job then. She also added a lot of candid fruits (home-made dried orange peels) and some times gave it a marble effect just by adding some cocoa powder into it while baking.We used to have this cake with cold milk and relish it! Now a days microwave/oven has become skeleton of our kitchen. At least I cannot think my life without one. Here's the recipes for baking on both oven /gas stove! Enjoy

Ingredients

1 cup Rawa (Barik rawa)

1 cup buttermilk

¾ cup sugar (I used brown sugar, therefore the rich brown color, white sugar is absolutely fine)

1 spoon clarified butter (melted)

1 pinch of salt

2 drops of vanilla essence

1 pinch baking soda

2 pinch baking powder
1 tbsp of clarified butter residue ( तूप बेरी) (Optional)

Method

1. Mix the buttermilk, semolina& baking powder and keep aside for 2 hours
2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and place a rack in center of oven.
3. grease a baking tray keep aside  & in the bowl of semolina & buttermilk mixture add the sugar, ghee, salt, vanilla essence & powder into this batter, give it a mix and pour it into the baking tray and bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean
4. I normally bake this cake when I made clarified butter and use the residue in the cake.

Baking on a gas stove

1. Mix the buttermilk, semolina & baking powder and keep aside for 2 hours
2. grease a baking tray & in the semolina & buttermilk mixture add the sugar, ghee, salt, vanilla essence & baking powder into this batter and pour it into the baking tray  and keep the tray on frying pan (or tava) and cover with a heavy plate(or tava) (so that heat is evenly spread)
3. Please heat both the tava's before you star baking the cake. so that heat is evenly spread.
4. bake on low flame for 30-45 minutes
5. you will know the cake is done once a toothpick inserted inside the cake comes out clean, also the whole house will smell heavenly :-)
6.  Allow it to cool before cutting it into pieces.
7. I normally bake this cake when I made clarified butter and use the residue in the cake.

 Check out the cake made by my sister, such a cute looking cake. She added chocochips in the batter. 

Its Christmas time !!

Special thanks to my dear friend Supraja for contributing these Christmas Special recipes for my blog ! I had the "Death by Chocolate " & "Sugar Cookies" made by supraja and I asked her to share these for my blog..The cake and the cookies were out of this world.


Gingerbread men recipe:

Christmas baking at our home wouldn’t be complete without a batch of these cute little gingerbread men. When we were kids we would each take turns decorating our gingerbread men with a happy smile, grumpy look etc. A lovely aroma of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves fills the whole house while baking these cookies. It’s truly an experience. The original recipe calls for molasses but since I couldn’t find it here in the stores (in muscat) I substituted it with brown sugar.

INGREDIANTS:

3 cups all purpose flour

¼ tsp salt

¾ tsp baking soda

2 tsp ginger powder

1 tsp cinnamon powder

¼ tsp nutmeg powder

¼ tsp clove powder

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

1 large egg

2/3 cup [160ml] molasses

[Substitute for molasses:

1 cup molasses =1 cup honey OR

=¾ cup brown sugar plus ¼ cup water. Boil water and add the brown sugar. Stir till sugar dissolves]

METHOD:

Sift flour, baking powder, salt and all spices in a separate bowl

In another separate bowl beat butter and sugar till fluffy

Add egg and molasses [brown sugar + water or honey] and beat till well combined.

Add flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix till well incorporated and it forms a dough.

Divide the dough into small parts and cling wrap them and refrigerate for about 2 hours or so.

Preheat oven to 180 deg cel.

Place rack in the centre of oven

Roll out the dough on a well floured flat surface to ¼ inch thickness and use a well floured cookie cutter to cut the desired shape.

Place them on the baking tray about an inch apart.

 Bake for 8-10 minutes till the edges start to brown.

Remove from oven to and transfer the baked cookies to a cooling rack

Basic Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are one of the easiest and simplest cookies to make, especially since all the ingredients are right there in your kitchen. You can have them either frosted or plain. Although they were once made during the holiday/Christmas season only they are now a year round favorite. Decorating them can be fun as well :-). You can have them at birthday parties as well where you can ask the kids to decorate their own cookie [just something to keep them all entertained and occupied :-)]

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups (390 grams) all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Method

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes). Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have smooth dough.

Divide the dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about one hour or until firm enough to roll.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven

Remove one half of the chilled dough from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch (1 cm). (Keep turning the dough as you roll, making sure the dough does not stick to the counter.) Cut out desired shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to the prepared baking sheet.

Bake cookies for about 8-10 minutes (depending on size) or until the edges are just starting to brown.

Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

You can either frost the cookie using a simple sugar glaze or have it plain.

Makes about 36 - 4 inch cookies

Sugar glaze:

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

2-3 tbsb milk

1 tbsp light corn syrup [the corn syrup adds an extra glossiness to the frosted cookie. You can do without it as well]

1 tsp vanilla essence

Food colouring of your choice

METHOD:

• In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and vanilla extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup/milk and if it is too thin add sum confectioner’s sugar.

• Don’t let the icing get too runny. The proper consistency is when you lift the spoon, the ribbon of icing that falls back into the bowl remains on the surface of the icing for a few seconds before disappearing.

Divide into separate bowls, and add food colourings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or flood them with a spoon/knife.

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

The first time I had this was at “The Corner House” ice cream parlour in Bangalore. The moment I tasted it, I knew I was in love - in love with the combination of rich chocolaty cake and the yummy chocolate sauce. It goes really well with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. I always wanted to recreate this at home and I finally found a recipe of a cake which did taste like the one they have in corner house.

This recipe is a sure guarantee to make your heart sing and your stomach happy. The actual work involved in this is very less. After u finish making the chocolate ganache, you will realise that you should have made double the quantity as it is so yummy, you couldn't stop tasting it :) (You can also make double the quantity and keep half of it to be used as a sauce along with the cake and ice cream).verdict: my little family loves it…..SO there’s no better way to enjoy this holiday season than to treat yourself with a nice rich piece of chocolate cake and chocolate over again……and oh don’t forget the ice cream.

INGREDIANTS:

225 grams dark semi-sweet chocolate

140 grams butter

210 grams [1cup] sugar

4 eggs

4 heaped tablespoons of all-purpose flour

4 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

4 tbsp sour cream [I couldn’t find sour cream here in the super markets so I substituted it with 4 tbsp yoghurt and 1 tsp baking powder]

METHOD:

Pre-heat oven to 180 deg.cel

Prepare baking tin [8X2 inches]

Break chocolate pieces and melt along with butter in a pan over hot water.

Beat eggs with sugar till they turn pale yellow

Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and vanilla essence.

Add the sour cream [or yoghurt with 1 tsp baking powder]to the above mixture and mix well

Finally add the melted chocolate-butter mixture.

Pour it in the prepared cake pan.

Bake for at least 40-50 minutes or till the toothpick inserted in come out clean

Cool cake to room temperature.

GANACHE:

2/3 cups heavy cream or whipping cream.

260 grams semi sweet chocolate

METHOD:

Heat 2/3 cup of heavy cream or whipping cream in a sauce pan.

Remove it from the heat and add the semi-sweet chocolate pieces. Keep stirring it until it becomes smooth and let it cool till it thickens.

Pour it evenly over the cake, and keep some aside for the topping to go with ice cream as well.

I used an ice cream cone to make the christmas tree on top the cake….it just adds an extra touch to the cake….piped it with a regular buttercream frosting using the STAR tip.happy baking and wishing you all a merry christmas and a happy new year :-)

Pound Cake

Pound Cake or Sponge cake is a basic sponge with a wonderfully rich & buttery cake with the golden brown crust. Pound cake is called so because each of the main ingredients like sugar, flour, butter & eggs are used in a proportion of 1 pound. Though this recipe is different from the original one, it will have the same taste & texture that of a pound cake. Pound cake goes well with tea or coffee.

Pound Cake

 
Ingredients

1. 1¾ cups wheat flour i.e atta
2. 2 teaspoon baking powder
3. ½ teaspoon salt
4. 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
5. 1 cup powdered sugar (use more if the sugar is less sweet)
6. 4 large eggs, room temperature
7. 2 teaspoons pure vanilla essence
8. milk as required
9. 1 tbsp butter for greasing the tray

Method

1. Butter baking tray or line the bottom of the pan with wax paper
2. In a large bowl add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition, add the vanilla extract & beat the eggs well. Keep aside.
3. In another large bowl, add the unsalted butter & sugar- cream the butter & sugar until the mixture turns white & turns fluffy, Use a hand mixer to mix the butter & sugar, if you don't have a hand mixer you can use the wire whisk. 
4. Sift the dry ingredients & add them to the sugar & butter mixture, Add half of the egg mixture and incorporate the mixture until the batter turns moist.
   
5. With the help of a spatula, scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
6. Gradually add the remaining egg mixture, to make a smooth batter, see to it there are no lumps remaining in the batter.
7. If the batter becomes too thick add 1 tbsp milk or more as required.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. 
9. Preheat oven to 180°C and place a pan in centre of oven.
10. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 
11. Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Baking Tips-

1. Cover the baking tray with a kitchen cloth until the cake cools down to retain moisture
2. All the ingredients used must be at room temperature.
3. If the cake turns brown on the top, while baking you may cover the pan with an aluminium foil and continue baking until the cake is completely baked.