Baking

Dry Fruits Cookies

Cookies made out of almonds, cashews, raisins, dates and with a hint of cinnamon

Eggless Apple Upside Down Cake

A base of carmalized apple slices topped with a tasty crunchy cake... Did you read eggless? Yes, you are right eggless and very tasty ..
I could not wait until it cooled down a bit, I cut a piece for myself to taste and the nutmeg flavour was awesome ...

Eggless Orange Layer Cake

Orange cake layers with Orange cream filling in between and covered with creamy orange frosting ... Divine smelling orange but not too overpowering .... Hope my friends attending the Bake Sale today will enjoy a piece of this ...

Eggless Banana Walnut cake

Soft Inside and crunchy in between the bites... yumm!!! .. A quick recipe when you have ripened bananas that you dont know what to do with ...Pour the glaze over it and its even more tastier

Eggless Yellow fruit cake

Ingredients

Cake flour 2 cups + 4 tbsps

condensed milk - 1 cup

1 stick unsalted butter - room temperature

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup milk

1 cup mixed fruits - usually called tutti-fruity

Method

Turn the oven off to 350 F 

Mix milk and vinegar together and allow it to curdle.

Sift the dry ingredients. 

Combine together the wet ingredients and add the dry ingredients in batches and mix well so they are well incorporated. 

Pour the mixture to a buttered cake pan and bake for about 22-25 mins or when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Eggless Peanut butter cupcakes

My daughter had her friends over for brunch for the labor day weekend. I made peanut butter cupcakes/muffins. It was overly appreciated and done in minutes... This is an adaptation from the vegan cupcakes book. It is high in protein and also has fiber hidden in it... I would say wonderful for kids

Wanted to see how it looked, when it smelt sooo good

Ingredients
Milk - 3/4 cup
Apple cider vinegar - 2 tsps
Peanut butter - 1/2 cup
Vegetable oil - 1/3 cup
Sugar  - 3/4 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Flaxseeds ground - 1 tbsp
All purpose flour - 1 cup + 2tbsps
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp


Method
Preheat oven to 350 and line the muffin pan with liners
Mix milk with vinegar and allow it curdle. 
Cream together all the wet ingredients. Then mix the milk mixture until incorporated.
Sift the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and add it to the wet ingredients until combined. Do not overmix
Fill the liners with 2/3 full and bake for about 23-26 minutes. Drizzle chocolate syrup if required on the top after the cupcakes have cooled and transferred to a cooling rack. There is also a peanut butter ganache that you can use for frosting. Let me know if anyone is interested I can add the recipe here.

100% Whole wheat Sandwich Bread

With slight modification in the flour measurement, this website here, provides excellent step by step process of making a sandwich bread loaf at home. Can you imagine the satisfaction it gives?

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/16345/whole-wheat-sandwich-bread

Eggless 'Banana - Nuts' muffin

Here is an eggless recipe of banana nuts muffin

Ingredients

• All-purpose flour / Self-rising flour - 1 cup
• baking soda - 1 tsp
• baking powder - 1/2 tsp
• ripe banana - 1
• nuts - cashews and raisins
• Orange juice - 3/4 cup
• any fruit jam - 1 tbsp
• butter - 3/4 stick

Method

• Pre-heat oven to 350F ..
• Melt the butter. Mash the banana and keep it aside.
• Sieve together the flour, soda and the baking powder. 
• Add all other ingredients to the flour and make a smooth batter free of lumps
• Grease the muffin pan with butter and pour the mixture into the muffin slots.
• Bake in the oven until the muffin is cooked. Pierce with a knife and if the knife comes out clean, then the muffins are done. At this point, the muffins are dark brown in color. 

 

Eggless Vanilla cake

I am a vegan by birth and by choice..and hence always looking out for a good eggless cake recipe. I tried this recipe for my daughter and niece. They just loved it and enjoyed every bite of it.
Sharing the recipe with you. The decoration was done by my daughter and niece to the cake and hence too colorful :-) .. But trust me the cake is delicious..
I personally dont like the smell of vanilla essence in the cake and hence have used lemon juice.

Ingredients 2 1/2 cup of all purpose flour 1 stick butter 2 tsp baking powder 1tsp baking soda 2 tsp of vanilla extract / lemon juice 3/4 cup of sugar or 1 can condensed milk mix it with milk 1/2 cup of milk (or add milk according to the consistency of cake)

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350F
• Melt the butter in microwave slightly.
• In a mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, butter and mix...
• Add the lemon juice and the condensed milk and mix.
• Now keep adding milk and mixing up to form a thick consistent mixture. there should not be any lumps.
• Grease a baking dish and pour the mixture in the pan. Bake the cake for 40 -45 mins.
• Insert a knife and if the mixture doesnt stick to the knife, your cake is done..

Eggless Black Forest Pastry

Black Forest pastry is a well textured cake, decorated with cherries and cream frosting. There might be many variations of this recipe out there, but here is my:

Ingredients

For the cake

• All purpose flour or cake flour or self-rising flour - 1 cup (if using cake flour, make it 1 cup + 2 tbsps)
• Sweet condensed milk - 1/2 can
• Coke - 1 can
• Cocoa powder - 3 tbsps
• Good Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
• Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
• Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
• butter (room temperature) - 4 tbsps
• Cherries - I used canned you can also use fresh for better taste. If using canned, do not throw away the water. Dilute the cherry water by adding a lil more water and sugar and keep it aside. Will be using this to moisten the cake. 

For the icing - Beat together the two ingredients until icing consistency is reached.

• Heavy whipping cream - 3 cups
• powdered sugar or confectionery sugar - 1 1/2 cups

Method

Start with the wet ingredients first. Using a hand blender, blend together condensed milk and butter. I use a lil' more than 1/2 can for more sweetness. When the mixture is free of lumps and smooth keep it aside.

In another bowl, sift together flour, soda, cocoa powder, baking powder and keep it aside. 

At this point, pre-heat oven to 350F.

To the above condensed milk and butter mixture, add lil' flour mixture and small amount of coke. Blend together. Do this until all the flour mixture and coke is used up. Finally add the vanilla extract and blend. 

Grease the cake pan and pour the mixture to it. I usually use cooking oil spray for greasing the pan. The proportion listed above makes 1 9" cake. I make 2 such cakes and assemble the pastry. 

Bake the cake(s) for 20 mins. Before taking out from the oven, place a knife or skewer in the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, your cake is done. 

Cool the cakes on a cooling rack. Sprinkle the diluted cherry water on each of the cakes. Do not overuse the water mixture. 

Assembling the pastry

On the sheet of wax paper on a flat surface, place the first cake. Add a thick layer of icing and chopped cherries. Then place the second cake. Start adding the icing uniformly over the cake until the entire cake is covered. You can decorate the cake using icing pipes and with grated chocolate and stemmed cherries.

Veggie Pizza

After months of speculation, I finally dared myself to make pizza at home. It definitely turned out better than I expected, but next time, I will lay out the dough thinner and make a bigger round

Method
Pizza dough - Adapted from Alton Brown's recipe.. I did not use a mixer but kneaded in hand for 10 minutes. Here is Alton's recipe
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pizza-pizzas-recipe4/index.html

Cook the hard veggies ahead of time.. I had used brocolli which needed to be cooked before I began assembling the pizza. All other veggies can be used as is.