Cranberry Walnut Bread - From The Bread Bible

Have been visiting the city library quite often these days, especially for little Adu who loves books and also the time he gets to spend at the baby section there, with other kids and truck loads of books. And then after that I get drifted towards the cookery section and get carried away by the wonderful cook and bake books there. Just can't resist myself from picking up a couple of them. And then I come home and sit with the books, adoring and admiring the recipes, the pictures, the author for all the hard work and dream about making a few of them, and note a few... And occasionally I do attempt to make one or two too, after all the drooling! And a couple of times, it so happened that I returned the books without noting the recipes that I tried from them and liked. And return back to the library again, looking for the same book, so as to note down at least the one I tried!

So this time, when I came home with the humongous book 'The Bread Bible' by Rose Levy Beranbaum, I was determined to make a few of them, and to note them down before returning! And so I tried out this recipe, as I was also looking for a recipe to make use of the dried cranberries that I had got and the pack of walnuts lying in the kitchen. The recipe is originally a Raisin Pecan bread, to which the author suggests this variation of cranberries and walnuts.

The bread turned out very nice, with a beautiful texture. The process however was a bit more lengthy than the ones I usually prefer, with the sponge and its resting time taking up extra hours, but then its not a complicated process anyway. Just needs more time, and the end result was a really beautiful loaf. I've simplified it by using a loaf pan, as opposed to shaping a free form loaf and baking on a sheet.

Here's the recipe, shortened from the version in the book...

Cranberry Walnut Bread

Preparation time: 10-15 min

Dough starter: min 1 ½ hrs, max 24 hrs

Minimum Rising time: abt 3 ½ hours

Baking time: 45 – 55 min

Source: Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Bread Bible'

Ingredients:

For the Soaked Cranberries

Dried Cranberries – 1 cup

Hot water – 1/3 cup

For the Sponge / Dough Starter

Bread Flour - 1 cup

Instant Yeast – ½ tsp

Water at Room temperature - 1 cup (Incl cranberry soaking water)

Honey / Light Corn syrup – 1 Tbsp

For the flour mixture:

Bread flour – 1 ¼ cup

Whole wheat flour – 1/3 cup

Instant Yeast – ¾ tsp

Walnuts – 2 cups, divided use

Salt – 1 ¼ tsp

Vegetable oil - 1 Tbsp

Method:

• Soak the Cranberries in the hot water for about 30 min, until soft and plump
• Drain them and reserve the water in a 1 cup measuring jar
• Add more water to make this 1 cup water to use in the sponge below
• Prepare walnuts: Toast the walnuts either on stovetop or in the over at 170deg C for about 7 minutes. Peel off the skin with a clean kitchen towel as much as possible
• Finely grind ½ cup of this along with whole wheat flour. Chop the other 1 ½ cups into fine pieces and keep aside.
• Make the Sponge: In a large bowl or mixer bowl, place the ingredients for the starter and whisk for about 2 min until very smooth.
• Scrape down the sides, cover with a wrap and set aside while making the flour mixture
• Make the flour mixture: Mix together all the ingredients except the chopped walnuts, oil, salt and a ¼ cup of flour. Spoon the mixture over the sponge lightly and cover tightly and let sit for 1 to 4 hours. The sponge will bubble through the flour mixture.
• Mix the dough: Add the salt and oil, and mix with a wooden spoon or with hands to bring the dough together. Knead for 5 minutes adding the reserved flour to prevent sticking.
• Keep covered for about 20 minutes and again knead the dough for 5 minutes till very smooth and elastic.
• Spread the dough into a rectangle and add the walnuts and soaked cranberries over it and roll it and mix it in to evenly distribute.
• Let the dough rise until it is double in volume for about 1 ½ hours, placing it in an oiled bowl, covered with a cling wrap.
• Shape the dough into a 11” long loaf on a floured counter. I simply shaped it into a greased loaf pan and spread it to fill it. Let the dough rise till double again, for about an hour
• Preheat oven to 220 deg C (400 F) and place a cast iron skillet or a sheet pan in the lowest shelf for water.
• Bake the bread: Slash the bread with a sharp knife ¼ to ½ inch deep parallel slashes on the top of the dough. Mist the dough with a little water and quickly place it on the oven.
• Toss ½ cup ice cubes into the tray at the bottom shelf of the oven and close the oven door quickly.
• Bake for 5 minutes and reduce the oven temperature to 180 deg C (375 F) and continue baking for 40 – 50 min until the top is golden, and a skewer inserted comes out clean or the bread internal temperature reads 190 F (Mine was done in 45 min)
• Cool the bread on a wire rack for about 2 hours before slicing it with a serrated knife into slices

Notes:

• This is a variation of the Raisin Pecan bread that Rose suggests in the book
• I added a mixture of cranberries and raisins.
• I reduced the cranberries and walnuts by about half a cup thinking it was to much, but then later realised the amounts given by the author were perfect. Mine seemed a little too less in the bread
  

  
  

Wacky / Crazy Chocolate Cake - Egg-free, Dairy-free, Mess-free!

You will be having a bunch of guests in the next hour and after cooking a meal for them you realize you have not made a dessert! You can fix it by serving the vanilla ice cream stocked up in the freezer, but is that enough? How you curse yourself for not having baked a chocolate cake for the dessert! But the thought of measuring, creaming, mixing, baking just before the guests arrive dreads you. Especially the washing of the numerous measuring, mixing bowls that end up in the sink after a bake. Honestly that is what scares most of us!

For such a situation, who doesn't need some easy breezy, quick and dirty, mess free recipes in one's repository? How much ever you love to bake those elaborate, hi-fi recipes, which require accurate measurements, lengthy instructions on the method, which should be followed very carefully and exactly, I bet you sometimes long for a carefree and easy recipe to bake, something that does not require weighing the ingredients carefully, not needing a mixer to mix with, something that you can dump the ingredients and mix it with a spatula and bake. And what if it is an egg-free, dairy free recipe, making it suitable with almost any kind of crowd? And wait, here comes the ultimate catch - you will not end up washing the dozen utensils after pushing the baking pan into the oven!! All you'll have is a spatula, and may be a measuring cup. Yes, you read that right!!

I came across this recipe somewhere on the net while browsing and it caught my attention for two reasons. One, the simplicity and strange uniqueness of the recipe and two and most importantly, it is egg free and dairy free, making it suitable for my little kiddo to try, as he is allergic to dairy. Wow! Of course he is too small yet to have the cake for himself, and all he got was a taste of it, and the rest of it was polished by you know who :D And of course some taste testers in the hubby's office ;)

So, as i said earlier, the procedure is very simple, and kind of weird, if you ask me! You mix the dry ingredients straight away in the baking pan - yes, baking pan, and make three indentations to pour each wet ingredient in, and pour water all over and mix with a spatula! And bake, voila! Does this not sound weird? Of course it did to me, when I read it, but many sites I looked for said the same, which managed to give me the courage to try it. But I didn't want to risk baking it half an hour before guests arrive, before testing it. So this was a test bake, and quite satisfactory. So the next time, if you come home in a short notice, you know what to expect for the dessert ;)

As for the taste, it is not bad at all. Be sure not to over-bake as it dries out pretty fast. And serve it preferably warm, with a sprinkle of vanilla sugar or a topping and some vanilla ice cream. Trust me, you will not regret for having tried it, and the recipe will get into your repository of quick fix, emergency recipes.

Since I have already tested it for you, you can straight away try this for your guests, without having to test bake it :) here you go.....

Wacky / Crazy Chocolate cake

The sources say this cake came to being during war times when there was a scarcity for ingredients and so on... whatever it is, it is a handy recipe for sure!

Preparation time: 10-15 min
Baking time: 30-35 min
Source: Sweet little bluebird

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour - 1 ½ cup
Unsweetened Cocoa powder - 3 Tbsp
White granulated sugar - 1 cup
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
White vinegar - 1 tsp
Vegetable oil - 5 Tbsp
Water - 1 cup
Pure Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 deg C (350 degrees F).
• Mix first 5 dry ingredients in a greased 8" square baking pan. I used an oval tray.
• Make 3 depressions in dry ingredients - two small, one larger (see the collage pic below).
• Pour vinegar in one depression, vanilla in the other and the vegetable oil in third larger depression.   
• Pour water over all.
• Mix well until smooth.
• Bake on middle rack of oven for 35 minutes.
• Check with toothpick to make sure it comes out clean. Cool.
• Top with a frosting or just sprinkle some vanilla sugar and serve with an ice cream like I did and enjoy!

Notes:

• Make sure not to over bake this cake as it turns out drier.
• Once cool, cover the cake in an airtight container and it stays good for 3-4 days

Date and Almonds Muffins

Dates are packed with an impressive list of essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Dates are an excellent source of iron, contains 0.90 mg/100 g of fruits. Iron, being a component of hemoglobin inside the red blood cells, determines the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood. It is highly recommended for vegetarians to counter anemia. 

If you are someone like me, you find dates are a tad too sweet to eat as is. It is with great difficulty that i manage to eat a couple of them, and then get really saturated with it! So, I'd rather like to add them as sweeteners to my milkshakes, smoothies and so on, which will have an added benefit of reducing sugar! And then another nice way to use up these fruits are in bakes... as there would be less guilt for using much less of the bad-sugar and sneaking a good-fruit! 

In this case, it is paired with another ingredient filled with nutrients - almonds. And the almonds, along with giving a nice nutty taste and texture, helps in reducing the amount of fat that goes in. It was a perfect recipe for my baking itch.

It can be baked as a cake, as in the original recipe, but i chose to bake them as muffins/cup cakes. I'd rather call these as muffins than cup cakes owing to the oil used, the mix-n-bake preparation and the final texture. They make a nice snack or breakfast item. 

Date and Almonds Muffins

Preparation time : 15 min

Baking time : 5 min

Adapted from  : Versatile Kitchen

Ingredients:

Almonds - 1 cup (Remove the skin if you want a lighter color, I didn't)

Dates - pitted 15

All purpose flour - 3 cups

Salt - 1 tsp

Baking powder - 2 tsp

Baking Soda - 1 tsp

Cardamom powder - 1 1/2 tsp OR Vanilla - 1 1/2 tsp

Sugar - 1 1/2 cups (I reduced the sugar by a couple of tablespoons)

Vegetable or Canola Oil - 2/3 cup

Method:

• Soak almond and dates in warm water to cover them for about 4 hours. 
• Grind into a smooth paste in a mixie/blender. Use enough water so that the resultant liquid/puree is 2 1/4 cups.
• Preheat the oven to 180 dec C or 350 F. 
• Grease and line the muffin tray with paper liner cups and set aside. I used silicon cups.
• In a bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom powder. 
• In another bowl whisk together the date and almond puree with oil and vanilla if using. 
• Dump the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine. Do not over mix. 
• Pour into the prepared cups. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Cool on the wire rack in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning it on to the wire rack to cool completely. 
• When completely cool, glaze or just sprinkle with powdered sugar. It tastes good as is, without the additional sugar or glaze.

Notes:

• I halved the recipe and made 8 cup muffins.
• If baking in a cake pan, bake for 50-60min.
• I increased dates by 3-4 and reduced the sugar and it was just fine.

Coffee Walnut Cookies

The first time I made these cookies was late one Saturday night when we were watching movie after movie and I suddenly felt like munching something! Went into the kitchen during a couple of commercial breaks and Ta-Da! It was ready! Had used the food processor then and it was such a breeze to bake them! And well, the batch I baked that night got over even quicker ;) But i did have more of the cookie dough saved up in the fridge, which I baked again a couple more times and they didn't last long enough either, to take some decent pics!

Being coffee lovers that we are, we literally fell in love with these cookies. But then the amount of butter that goes into it restrained me from making them quite often :). But then it is Okay to indulge once in a while, right? Some solace is that it is also loaded with healthy fat from walnuts. So made another batch of these recently and made sure we get some pics this time!

I had bookmarked this recipe from Suma's Cakes and More, which is originally from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert. It is a breeze if making in a food processor; making it by hand is not very tedious either. And the best part is the dough can be stored in the fridge as logs for a few days and when needed, all the work needed to be done is pull out one log, cut it into discs and bake! 

Since it makes quite a huge batch, this is a blessing, rather than having to make all the cookies at once, and rolling them on palms! I chose to make rather small cookies and got about 25-30 cookies from each log and there were 5 logs! Shared them with friends also, after devouring them enough. The cookies also stay fresh for quite a long time - about a month in an airtight container, that is if you can resist it that long! 

Coffee Walnut Cookies

Preparation time: 15 min (if using food processor; slightly more if making by hand)

Baking time: 10 - 17 minutes (See below for details)

Makes: ~100 small cookies / 50-60 medium ones

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour – 2 cups 

Walnuts – 1 cup (roughly chopped)

Sugar – 3/4 cups

Salt – 1/4 tsp 

Unsalted butter – 3/4 cup ( 170 grams) / chilled and roughly cut up (I reduced it by 2-3 Tbsp and added some milk instead)

Milk- 1.5 Tbsp (Added this to replace part of butter; not needed if using the entire amount of butter)

Instant coffee- 3 teaspoons (Divided use, original recipe has fresh ground coffee beans)

Coffee Essence – 1 tsp (skipped this)

Vanilla Essence - 1 teaspoon

Coffee beans –  to put on top (I didn't use this)

Method: 

• Put the walnuts, flour, sugar and salt if using, in the bowl of a food processor and pulse till the walnuts are finely ground. (If not using food processor, do this step in batches in a mixie jar.)
• Pulse again with 2 teaspoons of coffee till well blended. (If not using the food processor, continue with a hand mixer or even by hand in a large bowl). 
• Add chilled butter and pulse again till breadcrumb like mixture forms (or mix with a large fork)
• Add the coffee extract and vanilla essence; pulse just until the dough begins to form lumps around the blade. (Mix the dough together either by hand mixer or even by hand till it roughly comes together.)
• Take out the mixture; pull together to form a dough; add milk if you feel there is a need for binding; knead briefly to make it smooth. 
• Roll into logs (I made 5 small round logs) wrap in cling wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.

To bake the cookies:

• Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C / 375 degrees F.
• Take logs out, slice 1/4″ apart. I made them thinner as I wanted smaller cookies. If slicing as 1/4 inch, they spread out more too.
• Push a coffee bean firmly in the center of each cookie, if using. 
• Roll the edges of a few in the remaining coffee if you wish. 
• If the cookies do not get a good round shape when sliced, just shape it holding it gently but firmly against your palm.
• Place the cookies slightly apart on ungreased pan and bake.
• If making small cookies or using milk in place of butter, they get done in 9-10 minutes. If making larger cookies or using the entire butter, they take about 15 to 17 minutes.
• The edges will be slightly starting to brown, and the cookies will still be soft when done. They get crisp once they cool.
• Cool completely and store in air tight container or just finish off a batch... nothing like warm cookies just out of the oven ;)

Notes:

• The first time I used a food processor and the next time made the dough by hand. If making by hand, make sure you mix pretty fast before the butter starts to melt due to your body temperature.
• Replacing part butter with milk didn't change the taste much.
• I baked the 5 logs in 3 batches, just when needed - they stayed in fridge for 3-4 days and were fine.

Apple Pie!!!

After I fell in love with the Baked Apple-Cinnamon combination with my Apple Streusel cake, it was time to experiment the ‘King of Apple-recipes’ - the Apple Pie! To be honest, I had not tried an apple pie, being from a South Indian city - Bangalore. Even though we get all sorts of international cuisine in the IT hub Bangalore from a few years now, somehow apple pie had not made to my list. May be I was apprehensive of my taste towards apple-cinnamon in a baked goodie.

After starting to blog, the apple pie featured in many blogs and caught my eye, but never made it to my kitchen for the huge amount of butter that goes in! But now, with a new pie plate and a bag full of farm-fresh apples, I had to make it. And a small get together during the week, was a great excuse to make it - and feel less guilty about the butter - the sin will be shared by many more people, you see!! :)

I have, however, been myself of being stingy with the butter - I did reduce it a bit - but the crust was still flaky and nice, in spite of it.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

Here’s the recipe…

Apple Pie

Preparation time: 40-50 min

Cooking time: 50-55 minutes

Makes: A 9” pie; enough for 8 generous servings

Adapted from: Joy of Baking; making lattice crust from other sources on net

Ingredients:

For the Pie Crust:

All-purpose flour - 2 1/2 cups (350 grams)

Salt - 1 tsp

Granulated white sugar - 2 tablespoon (30 grams)

Unsalted butter - 1 cup (226 grams), chilled, and cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) pieces [i used about 3/4 cup]

Ice water - 1/4 to 1/2 cup (60 - 120 ml)

For apple filling:

Apples  - 1.1 kg (about 6 large or 10 small), peeled, cored, and sliced 1/4 inch thick (about 8 cups (2 l))

Granulated white sugar - 1/4 cup (50 grams)

Light brown sugar - 1/4 cup (55 grams)

Lemon juice - 1 tbsp

Ground cinnamon - 1 tsp

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Unsalted butter - 2 tbsp (28 grams) [I used salted butter and so skipped salt]

Cornstarch (corn flour) - 1 1/2 tbsp (15 grams)

Method:

Making the Pie Crust:

• In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, and sugar. Add chopped, cold butter and mix with a fork till the mixture resembles coarse meal (Or process in a food processor for about 15 seconds).
• Add about 1/4 cup water and continue mixing till the dough just holds together when pinched. If necessary, add more water. Do not over mix.
• Turn the dough onto your work surface and gather into a ball. Divide the dough in half, flattening each half into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about one hour before using. This will chill the butter and relax the gluten in the flour. 
• After the dough has chilled sufficiently, remove one portion of the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured surface.
• Roll the pastry into a 12 inch (30 cm) circle. (To prevent the pastry from sticking to the counter and to ensure uniform thickness, keep lifting up and turning the pastry a quarter turn as you roll (always roll from the center of the pastry outwards).) 
• Fold the dough in half and gently transfer to a 9 inch (23 cm) pie pan. Brush off any excess flour and trim the edges of the pastry to fit the pie pan. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. 
• Then remove the second round of pastry and roll it into a 12 inch (30 cm) circle. Transfer to a parchment lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator. 

Making the Filling:

•  In a large bowl combine the sliced apples with the sugars, lemon juice, ground cinnamon, and salt. Let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes or up to three hours. 
• Then, place the apples and their juices in a strainer that is placed over a large bowl (to capture the juices). 
• Let the apples drain for about 15-30 minutes or until you have about 1/2 cup (120 ml) of juice.
• Spray a 4 cup (960 ml) heatproof measuring cup with a nonstick vegetable spray, and then pour in the collected juices and the 2 tablespoons (28 grams) of unsalted butter. 
• Place in the microwave and boil the liquid, on high, about 5 to 7 minutes or until the liquid has reduced to about 1/3 cup (80 ml) and is syrupy and lightly caramelized.  (Alternatively, you could place the juices and butter in a small saucepan and boil over medium high heat on the stove.) 
• Transfer the drained apples slices to a large bowl and mix them with the cornstarch (corn flour). Then pour the reduced syrup over the apples and toss to combine.
• Pour the apples and their syrup into the chilled pie crust.

Making the lattice crust for the top:

• Remove the top pastry crust from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes so it has time to soften.
• Moisten the edges of the pie shell with a little water. 
• Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, cut the top pastry into long strips of about 3/4 - 1 inch width depending on how thick you want your lattice strips.
• Lift the middle two strips and place it on the pie in the middle, one each horizontally and vertically, forming a plus mark at the middle.
• Start lifting the strips next to the middle ones, one from each side and place them next to the first plus mark you made. While doing so, if placing the horizontal one, lift the already placed vertical one up and insert it below, so that the strips are interwoven.
• Repeat the same, vertically and horizontally making sure you lift up the alternating strips in the opposite orientation, leading to a complete inter-woven crust, till you reach the edges.
• Tuck any excess pastry of each strip under the bottom crust and then crimp the edges using your fingers or a fork.
• Cover the pie with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill the pastry while you preheat the oven.

Baking:

• Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Place the oven rack at the lowest level and place a baking stone or baking sheet on the rack before preheating the oven.
• Place a piece of aluminum foil on the stone (or pan) to catch any apple juices.
• Set the pie on the stone or pan and bake for about 45 to 55 minutes or until the juices start to bubble through the slits and the apples feel tender (not mushy) when a toothpick or sharp knife is inserted through one of the slits.
• Cover the edges of the pie with a foil ring to prevent over browning after about 30 minutes.
• Remove the pie from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 3-4 hours before cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or softly whipped cream.
• Store at room temperature for 2 to 3 days.

Notes:

• Use slightly toasted nuts. To toast walnuts, place them in microwave for a few seconds and crush them into pieces
• Fresh juicy and crisp apples work the best. If sour, it also adds a nice tang to the cake.
• Making the lattice top is quite easy - much easier than it appears to be - takes about 10 minutes, that’s it! So don’t deter from trying it, thinking it is too complex. You’ll be more than satisfied, once you try it :)

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar Preeti Deo and Jayasri.

Baked Nippattu

So this was the second item I sent home with the friend travelling. Something savory is sure to please my in-laws’ palette and deep frying was not my thing that day. So baked nippattu, it was.

Nippattu is a savory, crisp disc like snack, traditionally deep fried. And of late the Iyengar bakeries in Bangalore do have the baked version as well. And they are equally relished at home. 

There are so many nippattu recipes around, but I was looking to make the Iyengar bakery version. So tried out this recipe and it was pretty close. May be a little more fat would have made it exact the same, but it was crispy never the less.

Here’s the recipe…

Baked Nippattu

Preparation Time: 15 min

Baking Time: ~30 min

Makes: About 30

Source: Multiple sites on net with my own adaptations

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour / Maida – 1 Cup

Wheat Flour – 1 Cup

Baking Soda – 1 tsp

Onion – 1 big, finely chopped

Green Chilies – 2 or 3, finely chopped (adjust acc to taste)

Fresh Coriander Leaves – a handful, finely chopped I omitted this and added curry leaves

Sesame Seeds - 1 Tbsp

Roasted peanuts - 1/4 Cup

Salt – 1 tsp

Sugar – 1 tsp

Oil – ½ Cup

Warm Water – ¼ Cup

Method:

• In a wide bowl, add the flours, salt, sugar, sesame seeds and baking powder. Mix well.
• If using peanuts and curry powder, run them in mixie once to crush coarsely. Add to the flour mixture
• Now add the finely chopped onion, green chilies, and coriander leaves. Mix well.
• Add the oil and mix again, until the oil is well incorporated.
• Now add water little by little and knead into smooth dough.
• Cover with a damp cloth and rest the dough for about 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
• Pinch out lime-sized ball out of the dough.
• Place it between 2 thick plastic sheets and roll it with rolling pin, to make about 4” diameter circles
• To form neat circular discs, use a stainless steel lid of suitable size, and cut out the flattened dough.
• Gently remove this disc on to a greased baking tray.
• Continue with the remaining dough in a similar way.
• Poke the discs with a fork to avoid fluffing up.
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, flipping once after 10 minutes. I used two plates at once and mine took about 23 minutes.
• Cool completely and store in airtight containers.

Notes:

• Roll out discs of uniform thickness for uniform baking
• If using multiple trays, flip the trays once in between

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.

Cornflakes Cookies

When a friend here was travelling back to Bangalore, we decided to send with him some goodies to folks at home. Chocolates and candies were bought for little niece Hima, a hand knitted woolen hat was packed for FIL. And then I felt I needed to send something else too… they are missing us at home, and something else, home-made, would probably cheer them up a bit… so it was decided that I’d be baking something!

Cakes were out of choice as it’d reach them after at least 3-4 days. The next best thing was cookies. So there it was, I set about baking a large batch of cookies - cornflakes cookies it’d be. I started out with Racheal Allen’s basic cookie dough (which I've tried a couple of times with great success) but realized it had way too much of fat in it. Of course it’d taste good, but it’d take almost half of my half a kilo pack of butter!! Oh well, that seemed too much!!

My mom used to make these cookies, but I didn’t want to trouble her as she was touring some place with her friend. So I dared to make my own recipe!! Voila!! It did come out good… Crispy too, as I added baking powder, and reduced the butter by about half. The corn flakes also add to the texture. And I was glad I could experiment something myself!

Here’s the recipe…

Cornflakes Cookies

Preparation Time: 15 min

Baking Time: ~20 min

Makes: About 30

Source: Self experiment

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour / Maida – 2 Cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup (increase to 1 cup if you like it very sweet)

Butter - 100 g at room temperature

Baking Powder – 1 1/2 tsp

Corn flakes - 3/4 Cup, crushed

Salt – 1/8 tsp

Milk – 3-4 Tbsp

Vanilla - 1 tsp

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
• Mix baking soda and salt to flour and sieve a couple of times for even distribution
• Cream butter and sugar till creamy
• Add in flour mixture and mix well; the mixture will be crumbly
• Mix in 1/2 cup of crushed corn flakes
• Add milk little by little and gather to form a firm dough
• Pinch in big marble sized balls of the dough, roll it between your palms to a sphere and press it to flatten
• Press it on the remaining corn flakes mixture to coat the top of the cookie with it
• Repeat with the rest of the dough
• Arrange on a lined and greased baking sheet leaving gap between the rows
• Place in the preheated oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes
• Cool completely and store in airtight containers.

Notes:

• Roll out cookies to uniform thickness for uniform baking
• If using multiple trays, flip the trays once in between

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.

Apple Streusel Cake

This was the first fall for me. Being from a tropical Indian climate, it was delight to watch the trees turn to golden hues here in Sweden. And just before that, the delight of watching Apple trees filled with Apples, in almost every house around! It was practically raining apples, of every kind.

Whenever I sow those beautiful apple trees, I felt like having a bite of those juicy apples plucked right from the tree. We did pluck a few from wild apple trees and they weren’t as tasty as I had expected. And unlike what I’ve heard about the US, we didn’t find apple farms around to go apple-plucking. I’d silently envy those trees, whenever I walked past one of those trees in someone’s compound!

And as if they heard me, one fine evening, one of our neighbors gave big bag full of apples! A few kilos of freshly plucked apples! I was delighted. Along with it, they had a note as well, with a description of the variety of apples and the taste of it! It was apparently a little sour and juicy of course, and more apt for baking. What a nice gesture - to write a note along with the goodies!!

Ok, with so many apples, I started searching for some good recipes - wasn’t sure if we’d actually like apple in baked goodies, I first tried out an Apple Streusel Cake from Joy of Baking but with quite a bit of modifications. And lo and behold, did we love it! Loved the taste, texture, aroma of cinnamon with apple, the crunchy streusel topping, and all of it! I was glad that we loved it - I could try more and more stuff with apples now!

  

Streusel is a crumb topping of butter, flour, and sugar that is baked on top of muffins, breads, pies, and cakes. Some recipes add spices and chopped nuts as well. Although the topping is of German origin, it is sometimes erroneously referred to as Danish or Swedish. [Source Wiki]

I made the cake eggless and butter-less with some modifications. Here’s the recipe…

Apple Streusel Cake

Preparation time: 30 min

Cooking time: 45-50 minutes

Makes: An 8” round cake

Adapted from: Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

For Streusel Topping:

All Purpose Flour / Maida - 1/2 cup (65 grams)

Ground Cinnamon - 1/2 teaspoon

Unsalted butter - 3 tablespoons (40 grams) cold, cut into pieces

Brown Sugar - 1/4 cup (70 grams)

Hazelnuts (or walnuts or pecans) - 1/4 cup (20 grams) toasted and coarsely chopped - I used walnuts

Cake Batter:

All Purpose Flour - 1 cup (130 grams)

Baking Powder - 1 tsp

Salt - 1/8 tsp

Oil - 1/4 cup (In place of butter)

White Sugar - 1/2 cup (100 grams)

Yogurt - 1/4 cup (In place of 1 large egg)

Vanilla Extract - 1/2 tsp

Milk - 1/3 cup (80 ml)

Apples, peeled, cored, and cut into thin (1/8 inch) slices - 2 large or 3 medium sized - about 1 cup slices

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Butter an 8 inch (20 cm) spring form pan and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper

Streusel Topping:

• In a large bowl, mix together the flour and ground cinnamon.
• Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or fork until it resembles coarse crumbs.
• Stir in the brown sugar and chopped nuts. Set aside while you make the cake batter.

Cake:

• In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• In another bowl mix oil and the sugar well.
• Add the yogurt and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
• Add the flour mixture, alternately with the milk, and beat only until combined.
• Spread the batter into the bottom of the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula.
• Evenly arrange the apple slices on top of the cake batter and then sprinkle with the streusel topping.
• Bake for about 45 - 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly.
• Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or softly whipped cream.

Notes:

• Use slightly toasted nuts. To toast walnuts, place them in microwave for a few seconds and crush them into pieces
• Fresh juicy and crisp apples work the best. If sour, it also adds a nice tang to the cake.

This post is for the Bake-A-Thon event by Champa. These are the other co-bloggers baking with me... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.