Oats & Wheat Flour Brown Bread – A Sweet Punch for December

I’m BACK… Yes It’s me again!!

I’ve been MIA for last 2 months… food had become my worst enemy with me retching up with just thoughts of food, cooking or baking was out of question. Though I’ve been feeling ok for last 15 days but getting back into the tempo of kitchen was also proving very difficult. Finally I kicked myself 1000 times & got to baking a simple brown bread which I’ve tried before this as well.

I’ve been told to stay off all yeast goods some time ago. Though I haven’t been able to follow it strictly as breads available in market are made with yeast only. When this baking bug bit me, I decided to use this opportunity to bake yeast free bread for myself. I haven’t come across many recipes for yeast free bread online. However, there are many available with choco-chip & banana in yeast free version but I didn’t want sweet bread as a recipe to bake frequently.

Oats & Wheat Bread

Then I came across this post on my blog & voila, I had the perfect yeast free bread and that too a healthy version with oats & wheat flour. I still had to wait to buy a loaf pan before I could try it – you can’t imagine the process (in my mind) which went into making this. As a rule in a typical family, anything new with sweet is readily accepted but anything else is always fret with critical evaluation… one can put real food connoisseur to shame here. So with all this apprehensions, I ventured into bread making. I halved the recipe & kept everything else same. V ate the whole bread in one go on top of dinner & couldn’t stop singing praises for it. I couldn’t believe it & bit into a slice (especially left for me, how thoughtful!) tentatively… mmm mmm mmm. I felt that the bread was real nice & healthy, way ahead of breads available in supermarket as brown bread.

Oats & Wheat Flour Brown Bread –

Recipe Source – minimally adapted from Sensitive Economist

Ingredients –

• 3 Cups – Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 tsp – Baking Powder
• 1 tsp – Baking Soda
• 1 Cup – Oats
• 1/2 tsp – Salt
• 1 Tbsp – Honey
• 1 1/2 Tbsp – Butter, softened
• 2 Cups – Milk

Method –

1. Preheat oven to 200 C. Grease & dust a loaf tin.
2. Combine all dry ingredients. Then mix in butter using your fingers.
3. Add milk & honey, until well combined.
4. Pour batter in prepared pan, sprinkle some oats on top & bake for 45-50 mins.

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   Oats & Wheat Bread

I made only slight changes to the original recipe as I felt it didn’t need any changes though I intend to make versions of it soon. I skipped salt as I used salted butter. Also I needed to add 1 Tbsp milk extra as the consistency was a bit more dry.

Though I need to mention that this bread won’t be like a market-bought spongy bread as it is made without yeast. But this bread tastes delicious straight out of oven. I love it with Orange Marmalade. Enjoy warm bread with butter plain or toasted. 🙂

Oats & Wheat Bread

Though it is a bit late but this is my entry for Sweet Punch – December, which was about baking what we like.

Chocolate Truffle with Cherry Pie Filling Tart – Sweet Punch for October

Wishing all bloggers a Happy Dussera, end of Navratras & Dandiya Ras. Hope you all had wonderful celebrations yesterday. I made the Dussera special meal along with matar pulao, aloo phool gobi & kheer. These recipes for some later posts.

Today being the 7th of month, it’s time for some Sweet Punch. And I made my first tarts which have been on my Baking Wishlist. I usually plan & make my posts much in advance & never wait for the last day, however last 15 days saw too much baking & sweet in the household with Eggless BFC, Eggless Checkerboard Cake & Cream Cheese Cupcakes, so I kept postponing this recipe till the last day almost!

Upon researching I realized that the most essential part of tarts is to ensure that butter is chilled. I guess this is as easy as baking can get. Though Ria had chosen Jam Tarts, I had just too much tid-bits leftover from all the above experiments, I decided to use them & finish. For a change this is a recipe in which I didn’t need to worry about assembling lot of ingredients or replacing egg! Thankfully the crust of the tart is eggless, phew!!!

Chocolate Truffle with Cherry Pie Filling Tart

Chocolate Truffle with Cherry Pie Filling Tarts –

Recipe Source – adapted from Ria’s Collection

Ingredients –

• 115 g – All Purpose Flour (1/2 Cup + 1 Tbsp)
• 60 g – Chilled Butter
• 1/2 tsp – Baking Powder
• 4-5 drops – Water
• 1/2 Cup – Cherry Pie Filling
• 12 – Chocolate Truffles, tiny ones
• Whipped Cream to serve

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  Chocolate Truffle with Cherry Pie Filling Tart

Method –

1. I used a melon scooper to make chocolate truffles from leftover chilled ganache & quickly rolled them in cocoa. I placed them in an airtight container on a parchment sheet & refrigerated till further use.
2. Pre-heat the oven at 180 C. Lightly grease the tart moulds.
3. Mix flour & baking powder together.
4. Add the butter & rub the flour & butter together using fingertips to create a dough resembling breadcrumbs.
5. Divide the dough into 12 equal parts & line the tart moulds.
6. Place one truffle per tart mould. Then top it with 2 tsp of cherry pie filling.
7. Bake for 15 mins or till done. Remove from oven
8. Allow to cool completely on wire rack in the moulds. Do not de-mould when hot as you can scald yourself.

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   Chocolate Truffle with Cherry Pie Filling Tart

    

I served it topped with whipped cream. With every bite, you feel molten chocolate with plenty of cherry pie filling & whipped cream. Mine didn’t de-mould very well so I let them be in the mould. 😦

Chocolate Truffle with Cherry Pie Filling Tart

Sending these tarts to Kalyani’s 100 day Global Fest at Sizzling Tastebuds which is a part of My Mother’s Kitchen. Hop on to her blog to get some interesting global dishes

‘Only’ – Sweets & Desserts guest hosted by Gayathri of Gayathri’s Cook Spot & started by Pari.

Eggless Chocolate Almond Biscotti – Sweet Punch for September & Happy B’day Didi

For this month’s sweet punch, they chose Chocolate Almond Biscotti from Joy of Baking. Biscotti was totally new for me, to tell you a secret, for the first time I’d consciously became aware of something called Biscotti. And again the challenge of substituting eggs came up. Everytime I divert from the given recipe, I’m quite apprehensive & excited about the outcome. I chose to replace eggs with Flax Seed as it works well where the dish has nutty flavour. I also used Milk compound Chocolate as that was available at home with me. My oven doesn’t have 165 C so I chose the closest to it (160 C) & increased the time by 2 mins. It worked fine for me.

Eggless Chocolate & Almond Boscotti

1 egg = 1 Tbsp Powdered Flax Seed mixed in 3 Tbsp warm water

Eggless Chocolate Almond Biscotti –

Recipe Source – minimally adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients –

• 110 gms – Blanched Whole Almonds, toasted & chopped coarsely
• 135 gms – Granulated Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Flax Seed Powder
• 6 tbsp – Warm Water
• 1 tsp – Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp – Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp – Salt
• 225 gms – All Purpose Flour
• 110 gms – Semi-sweet Chocolate, chopped into 1/2″ pieces or choco-chips

Method –

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Toast almonds for 8-10 mins or until golden brown & fragrant. Allow them to cool & chop coarsely. Set aside.
2. Mix flax seed powder & warm water. Mix well & allow to stand for 5-10 mins.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or butter paper.
4. In a medium bowl, beat together flax seed egg & sugar till thick & fluffy on high speed. This should take about 5 mins.
5. Add in vanilla extract & beat well.
6. In a separate bowl sieve flour, baking powder & salt. Whisk together.
7. Add flour mixture to flax seed mixture. Beat till combined
8. Slowly fold in the chopped almonds & chocolate.
9. Transfer the dough on the lined baking sheet & make a log of about 12″ long & 3.5″ wide. You might need to dampen your hands as dough would be sticky.
10. Bake for 25 mins at 180 C or till firm to touch.
11. Remove from oven & cool on a wire rack for 10 mins.

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   Eggless Chocolate & Almond Boscotti

2. Transfer to a chopping board & diagonally cut the dough into slices of 3/4″ thickness.
3. Reduce oven temp to 160 C. Place the biscotti cut side down on the baking sheet & bake again for 12 mins. Turn over the slices & bake for another mins.
4. Remove from oven & cool on a wire rack.

V as usual couldn’t wait to come back & enjoy them with some warm milk before bed. I was also busy nibbling on all the left overs from each baking cycle. 🙂 I felt that my slices were not as thin as they should have been. This is a keeper recipe for me & I’ll surely improvise on the thickness. Till then enjoy with a hot cuppa!

Today is my sister’s birthday. Wish you a very happy birthday with these biscottis & a promise that I’ll surely bake these for you when I meet you next. Love you Didi! Hope you enjoyed your b’day gift.

Sending these wonderful Eggless Almond Biscotti to Cook.Eat.Delicious-Desserts – Almonds guest hosted by Anu of Anuz Healthy Kitchen. This event was started by Raven of Cook.Eat.Delicious. There is a random giveaway. Hop on to their blog to know more.




Eggless Banana Peach Muffins – A Sweet Punch for August & my first Food Photography Lesson

7th is here and time for our July Sweet Punch to be posted. In July, Sweet Punch Members got together to make Strawberry Banana Muffin inspired from an amazing online resource on everything about baking – Joy of Baking. To all the food bloggers this site needs no introduction and has come to our rescue or aid on innumerable occasions.

Since this is not a season for fresh strawberries, atleast in Pune (the reason I write ‘atleast’ is that I see many bloggers posting recipes of fresh strawberries or frozen ones in this season) I had two substitutions to make – one to make the recipe eggless & second to replace strawberry with another fruit. Substituting strawberry with nuts would have been easier but I decided to keep 2 fruits in the recipe and finally chose peach as my second fruit as it was fresh & readily available.

Eggless Peach & Banana Muffins

For egg substitution more deliberations were required.I realized that eggs are used for their binding properties in muffins and most common substitutes were either banana, apple sauce, flax seed egg or tofu in them. Banana was already an ingredient and I didn’t want an overdose of it by adding it as a substitute as well. Use of apple sauce would make it too fruity – apple, banana & peaches. I discovered flax seed eggs tastes best in a nutty recipe and I may not appreciate the flavor otherwise. Tofu is out for me as I avoid consuming products made from soya. So this left me with hardly any options.

After much deliberations, I decided to use starch as a replacement. Starch in most cooking recipes is used as a binding and thickening agent. So I decided to use that myself. I substituted 1 egg with 2 Tbsp cornstarch + 2 Tbsp warm water + 1 tsp oil.

Eggless Peach & Banana Muffins

Lastly I had to reduce the quantity by 1/2 as I had only 8 muffins cups and that too of different sizes – this is a purchase I made when I had no knowledge of baking and had gone a shopping spree. Please don’t laugh at my naiveté or stupidity. 😉

I’m loving being part of Sweet Punch as I get to learn so much in every bake – this time I learnt the basic difference between a cupcake & a muffin – more specifically the difference in making the batter. As a layman I assumed them to be similar in making. Muffins are from quickbread family and do not require heavy mixing using a hand-held mixer as in a cake or cupcake. I feel so enlightened from my ignorance! 😀

So here goes my version of Strawberry Banana Muffins –

Eggless Banana Peach Muffins –

Recipe Source – adapted from Strawberry Banana Muffins from Joy of Baking

Ingredients –

• 150 gms – All Purpose Flour
• 55 gms – Unsalted Butter
• 2 Tbsp Cornstarch+2Tbsp warm water+1tsp Oil – to replace 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp – Vanilla Extract
• 1 – Large Ripe Banana Mashed
• 1/2 cup – Peeled & Pureed Peach
• 100 gms – Brown Sugar*
• 3/4 tsp – Baking Powder
• a pinch – Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp – Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp – Salt

Method –

1. Pre-heat the Oven to 180 C. Line the muffin tray. Since I had individual muffin cups, I greased them and put them in my baking tray. I didn’t use liners.
2. In a saucepan, melt the butter & allow to cool too room temp.
3. Mix together cornstarch, warm water & oil in a small bowl. Keep aside.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together cornstarch mixture, vanilla essence, banana & peach.
5. Add the melted butter & stir to combine.
6. In another large bowl, combine together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon & salt.
7. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir only until they are just combined. Overmixing the batter results in tough muffins.
8. Divide the batter evenly in cups and bake for about 20 mins. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Eggless Peach & Banana Muffins

These muffins came out great with delicate flavors of banana, peach & cinnamon. They were soft, moist & just the right bit chewy. These muffins were perfect eaten warm for breakfast with hot cuppa of coffee.

* I increased the sugar to 100 g (instead of 80 gms) as my peaches were on the tart side & felt they needed more sugar.

I sprinkled some chocolate chips on top to prop up for my first photo shoot. I was desperate for revamping my photography skills & I set myself to task. V googled and suggested a Food photographer in Pune – Ronit Dalvi. He doesn’t conduct classes but he very graciously agreed to teach me the basics and help out as and when I require. If I do a ‘before & after’ project, you will see what tremendous difference this 1 class gave me. The best part of the deal was Ronit teaching me for even more risky fee – my food 🙂 He asked to be fed what he helps in shooting and I happily obliged! God bless him! I would like to acknowledge & thank him through this post.