Black Bean Brownies

          Black Bean Brownies, I had wanted to give this a try, just to know how black beans would taste in a brownie. I checked out a couple of recipes and finally settled down with this one from here. She has not used butter but coconut oil, I have used vegetable oil and maple syrup instead of sugar. It's very simple to make, just blending together all the ingredients and baking. The brownies were on the denser side, nobody would be able to make out that it has been made with black beans. Now coming to the verdict, I would still prefer my flour brownies, and I have figured out an eggless and whole wheat flour brownies which turned out too good ( will post them soon ), but definitely these are healthy brownies, and also, I am thinking, that I can make them even better by increasing the cocoa powder a little, will try out and update..

Need To Have

• Soaked And Cooked Black Beans - 11/2 cup
• Cocoa Powder - 2 tablespoons
• Quick cooking Oats - 1/2 cup
• Vanilla Extract - 2 teaspoons
• Maple Syrup - 1/3 cup
• Brown Sugar - 2 tablespoons
• Vegetable Oil - 1/4 cup
• Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips - 1/2 cup 

Method

          Take all the ingredients except the chocolate chips in a blender and blend it well. Fold in the chocolate chips.

          Take it out in a greased baking pan ( 8 x 8 ), spread some more chocolate chips on the top and bake it at 190 C for about 20 minutes. Let it cool for about 10 minutes, then slice it and remove them.

Note
The original recipe says that a food processor would work better than a blender.
Also after baking and cooling, if you still have a problem slicing them, then it can be refrigerated and then cut, but I didn't have the problem.
These black bean brownies are gluten free, if you make sure the oats, baking powder are all gluten free.

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Eggless Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Muffins

          It's been a long time since I made chocolate chip muffins, or is this my first time, I don't remember, but when I decided to make it, I wanted to make it whole wheat and of course eggless. Now a days, I am more confident in doing eggless and whole wheat flour bakes, especially muffins have always come out well. I followed the recipe from Joy of Baking, I liked the cinnamon and sugar topping, it not only gave a nice flavor, but also gave a rustic, homemade look to the muffins. I just made a few changes to make it eggless and more healthier..

Need To Have

• Whole Wheat Flour/Atta - 1 cup
• Unsalted Butter - 2 tablespoons
• Vegetable Oil - 2 tablespoons
• Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Milk - 1/3 cup
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips - 1/2 cup
• Baking Powder - 11/4 teaspoon
• Vanilla Extract - 11/4 teaspoon
• Salt - 1/8 teaspoon
• Chia Seeds Powder - 1 tablespoon

For The Topping

• Sugar - 11/2 teaspoon
• Cinnamon Powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Method

          Sift together the flour and baking powder. Soak the chia seeds powder in 3 tablespoon warm water for about 10 minutes. Melt the butter, add the oil, soaked chia seeds, brown sugar, salt, milk and beat it well. Mix the chocolate chips with some flour, add the remaining flour to the wet ingredients and mix it gently.

          Then add the chocolate chips and fold it in.

          Mix together the cinnamon powder and sugar and keep. Line the muffin pan with muffin liners, scoop out the muffin batter, spread some cinnamon topping and bake them at 190 C for about 20 minutes. Remove, let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes, then remove them from the pan and cool them completely.

Note
Don't mix the batter too much, it'll make the muffins harder.
Since I have used whole wheat flour, the muffins were dense, we like it that way, but if you want it to be lighter, then use half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour ( maida ).
If you don't have brown sugar, use regular sugar, use 1/3 cup.
For the quantity given, I got 6 regular muffins.

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Eggless Brownies

          When browsing through my baking recipes, I was surprised to see that I haven't posted an Eggless Brownie till now, of course I have one with eggs. Then also, while just going through some brownie recipes, I found that you can make brownies with different textures, they can either have cake-like texture, or a chewy one or a fudgy one. Till now, I haven't really thought about what kind of texture my brownies came out, I prefer chewy brownies but today's brownies have a cake like  texture..

Need To Have

• All Purpose Flour/Maida - 1 cup
• Cocoa Powder - 1/2 cup
• Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
• Milk - 1 cup
• Brown Sugar - 1 cup
• Butter - 2 tablespoons
• Oil - 3 tablespoons
• Coffee Extract - 1 teaspoon
• Lemon Juice - 1 teaspoon
• Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

Method

          Melt the butter, add the oil, milk, lemon juice, coffee extract, brown sugar and salt and mix it well. Sift together the flour, baking soda and cocoa powder and add to the wet ingredients.

          Mix it in without any lumps, pour into a greased pan, lined with parchment paper and bake at 180 C for about 25 to 30 minutes, till a toothpick inserted into the brownie comes out clean. Cool it a little, then remove it and cool completely and make pieces.

Note
Oven timings vary, so keep an eye after 25 minutes, bake it a little longer if the toothpick comes out sticky.
You can add some walnuts or chocolate chips to the batter.
I had coffee extract, so I used it, you can use vanilla extract and a teaspoon of instant coffee powder mixed with the milk.
I like brown sugar, if you can't find it, you can use regular sugar or demerara sugar too.

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Eggless Banana Streusel Cake

          Again I am irregular in my blog postings, want to do at least 3 posts per week, but I am hardly doing two, something or the other comes up and the blog takes a back seat. I had made this Banana Streusel Cake, almost a month back, as usual had a bunch of overripe bananas and wanted to do something with it, other than the banana bread. Streusel Cake had always been on the do list, I love the crunchy and crumbly topping on the cake, we can have any type of cake for the base, since I had bananas lying around, I decided to do a Banana Streusel Cake..

Need To Have

• Whole Wheat Flour - 1/2 cup
• All Purpose Flour - 1/2 cup
• Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Chia Seeds Powder - 1 tablespoon
• Unsalted Butter - 2 tablespoons
• Vegetable Oil - 2 tablespoons
• Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Vanilla Extract - 1/2 teaspoon
• Bananas - 2 medium sized, mashed
• Chopped Walnuts - 1/4 cup
• Milk - 4 tablespoons
• Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

For The Topping

• All Purpose Flour - 2 tablespoons
• Butter - 1 tablespoon
• Sugar - 2 tablespoons
• Cinnamon Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Brown Sugar - 2 tablespoons
• Walnuts - 2 tablespoons, chopped

Method

          Soak the chia seeds powder in 3 tablespoons of water and leave it for 10 minutes. Take the oil, butter, soaked chia seeds, mashed bananas, sugar, vanilla extract, salt and milk, mix them well. Sift both the flours, baking soda and baking powder. Add it to the wet ingredients and mix it well.

           Add the walnuts dusted with some flour and mix.

          Now take all the ingredients for the topping and mix it up as shown in the picture.

          Pour the cake batter in a greased pan, spread the streusel topping and bake it at 180 C for about 40 minutes. Remove, cool and slice.

Note
Usually I sift the walnuts along with the flour, it'll be dusted well with the flour and then I add it.
You can line the pan with parchment paper, it'll be easy to remove the cake.

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Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes With Strawberry Filling

           For quite sometime now, I wanted to try out cupcakes with some filling inside, but being the lazy me, I didn't do it until now. Well, this time I was paired with Janani Krishnakumaar of Red Chilly Curry for the 'Shhhh Cooking Secretly' challenge, she gave me chocolate and strawberries as the two ingredients. After some thought, I decided to make these cupcakes with strawberry filling. I decided to make the cupcakes vegan and made the filling with fresh strawberries ( my next post ), of course, you can use any fruit preserve or store bought jam or jelly instead of the strawberry filling. Though I have called them cupcakes, I didn't make them too sweet, you could have a couple of them for breakfast too, they were moist, soft and delicious..

Need To Have

• All Purpose Flour/Maida - 3/4 cup
• Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - 11/2 tablespoon
• Granulated Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Oil - 1/4 cup
• Orange Juice - 1/2 cup
• Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Vanilla Extract - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt - a pinch
• Strawberry Jelly/Jam - for filling the cupcakes

Method

          Take the orange juice, oil, sugar, salt and vanilla extract, and beat it till the sugar dissolves a little. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda together and add it to the wet ingredients and mix it up.

          Spoon it into a greased muffin pan and bake it at 190 C for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes, remove the cakes from the pan and cool it completely.

          Once cooled, take a cupcake, scoop out the center part, spoon in a little strawberry filling and close it with the scooped top ( only with the top half of it ) and press it well.

          Dust some icing sugar and serve.

Note
I have used homemade strawberry filling.
Once you fill up the cake with the fruit filling, we can't leave it out for more than a day.
I have used a murukku acchu as a stencil while dusting with the icing sugar.

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Eggless Banana Walnut Bread

          I have tried making banana bread couple of times, in the past, they have all come out good, but this one, that I made two weeks back, is the best ever. The bread was moist and the texture perfect, but the best part is, I made it with whole wheat flour ( I used regular atta, used for making rotis ). I followed the recipe from here and I have replaced the eggs with chia seeds and yogurt/curd. The bread was an absolute hit at home, no more looking for another banana bread recipe, this is it..

Need To Have

• Whole Wheat Flour/Atta - 2 cups
• Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Butter - 1/4 cup
• Oil - 1/4 cup
• Mashed Bananas - 1 cup
• Roasted And Chopped Walnuts - 1/2 cup
• Honey - 1/4 cup
• Chia Seeds Powder - 2 tablespoons
• Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1teaspoon
• Cinnamon Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Nutmeg Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon
• Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
• Curd/Yogurt - 2 tablespoons
• Water - 6 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons

Method

          Mix the chia seed powder in the 6 tablespoons of water and leave it for about 10 minutes. Melt the butter and add the oil, to it add the mashed bananas, brown sugar, soaked chia seed powder, salt, nutmeg powder, cinnamon powder, vanilla extract, yogurt, honey and the 2 tablespoons of water and mix everything together.

          Sift the whole wheat flour with the baking soda and add it to wet ingredients and mix. Finally add the walnuts ( mix it with some flour ) and mix in gently.

          Grease a bread loaf pan ( 9" x 5" ), add the batter and smooth down the top with a spatula. Bake it at 180 C for 40 minutes, then cover it with a aluminium foil and bake it for another 20 minutes, do the toothpick test and remove. Cool it in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove and cool it completely on a wire rack, slice and enjoy.

Note
The original recipe used butter only, but I used a mix of butter and oil.
If you don't like honey, you can use sugar instead.

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Foxtail Millet Cookies, Thinai Cookies

          Foxtail Millet/Thinai Cookies, I should have posted this sometime last month, I was paired with Veena Shankar for the 'Shhhh Cooking Secretly Challenge', she was travelling and I was caught up in something, so by the time we decided on our ingredients, we had crossed the posting date. She had given me millets and sugar as the secret ingredients, my mind was already set on making cookies with the two ingredients, and after so much delay, I finally made them. I was debating whether to use only millet flour or a combination of flours, I finally settled on using millet flour and whole wheat flour and I also used some dark chocolate chips. The cookies turned out superb, melt in the mouth kind, the texture was like that of the Dark Fantasy cookies. Before we go on to the recipe, I don't have to tell much about Veena's blog, if some of you have not visited her space, do so, she has so many different and delicious recipes..

Need To Have

• Foxtail Millet/Thinai Flour - 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon
• Whole Wheat Flour - 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon
• Unsalted Butter - 2 tablespoons
• Oil - 2 tablespoons
• Sugar - 1/4 cup
• Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon
• Chocolate Chips - 1/8 cup
• Salt - very small pinch

Method

          Melt the butter, add the oil, salt and vanilla extract, followed by the millet flour, whole wheat flour, sugar and chocolate chips. Using your hand, mix it together to make a soft cookie dough.

          Shape it into small balls and flatten it slightly, arrange it on a cookie sheet lined with aluminium foil, bake it at 180 C for 15 minutes. Remove, let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes, remove and leave it on a wire rack to cool completely, then store it in an airtight container.

Note
I initially started with 1/4 cup millet flour and 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, but after making the dough, I felt I can add another tablespoon of each.
I have used organic sugar, I forgot to powder it, but still the cookies came out very good.

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Chocolate Pastry Rolls

          Merry Christmas, I see a lot of posts of cakes and cookies in blogs, even I wanted to try some, but this time I couldn't make. I am yet to bake in my new built-in oven ( got a demo only a couple of days back, after calling the customer care more than 5 times) and then I am going on a trip tomorrow for 10 days. I made these Chocolate Pastry Rolls sometime back with the puff pastry that I had made for our Eggless Baking Challenges, I had stored the puff pastry in the freezer. This is so simple to make, especially if you have ready made puff pastry, it just needs under 30 minutes to make these. They came out really good, with a nice chocolaty taste and coffee flavor, perfect for parties, or as an evening snack along with your coffee or tea..

Need To Have

• Puff Pastry - I have used 1/3rd of the puff pastry that I had prepared here from 1 cup flour
• Sugar - 2 tablespoons
• Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - 2 teaspoons
• Instant Coffee Powder - 1 teaspoon

Method

          Mix the sugar, cocoa powder and instant coffee powder together. Take out the puff pastry from the freezer and keep it out for sometime, then dusting some flour, roll it out.

         Roll it out to about 18 cm x 10 cm rectangle and spread the sugar and cocoa mixture as shown.

          Then tightly roll it into a log and slice it as shown into 8 or 9 pieces and bake it in a greased tray at 190 C for 15 to 18 minutes. The sugar would melt and come out as shown, you can break it and serve, but it tastes good, so I just left it.

Note
I have used organic sugar, you can use castor sugar or regular sugar.
Oven timings vary, so keep an eye after 10 minutes.

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Blueberry And Cream Cheese Muffins

          I can't believe, it's now 3 years since I started this blog, I just did it like that, though I was a regular visitor to many blogs, I never thought that I would start a blog some day. Now, this blog has become a part of my life, I am trying to be as regular as possible, in posting, visiting other blogs and also trying to present the dishes as best as I could. The comments and encouragement from my fellow bloggers and friends is my inspiration which drives me to keep doing this, I should thank you all for that. I would have loved to share a delicious multi-layered cake today, but I am a little lazy when it comes to frosting and cake decoration, so at least I thought, I shall do something sweet for today. These Blueberry And Cream Cheese Muffins are absolutely delicious, at the same time are very easy to make too and they are eggless and butterless, can have them for breakfast or as an evening snack along with your tea or coffee..

Need To Have

• All Purpose Flour/Maida - 3/4 cup + 2tablespoons
• Dried Blueberries - 3/4 cup
• Cream Cheese - 4 tablespoons
• Oil - 3 tablespoons
• Yogurt/Curd - 1/4 cup
• Milk - 1/4 cup
• Sugar - 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons
• Lemon Zest - from 1 lemon
• Lemon Juice - 1 tablespoon
• Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1 teaspoon
• Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt - a small pinch

Recipe adapted from here.

Method

          Take the cream cheese and oil and beat it well, to it add the sugar, salt, yogurt, milk, vanilla extract, lemon zest and lemon juice and beat everything together into a smooth mixture.

          Sieve together the flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix it ( reserving a little to mix with the blueberries) with the wet ingredients and finally gently mix in the blueberries.

          Spoon it into muffin pans and bake it at 190 C for 25 minutes and remove.

Note
I have used muffin liners and greased the liners as well, the muffins didn't stick at all.
Since I have lined the muffin pan with liners, I think I had enough batter for 7 muffins, since I was using a 6 cup muffin pan, I just added the extra batter equally among the six muffins, so the muffins sort of like overflowed, I think I can use just 3/4 cup flour next time.
I can't get fresh or frozen blueberries here, so I used dried ones, since the dried blueberries have some sugar in it, the sugar that I have added is enough, but if using fresh blueberries, can increase the sugar by 2 to 3 tablespoons.
Oven timings vary, so keep an eye.

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Eggless Danish Pastry Envelopes, Blueberry Jam Envelopes

          After coming back to India from the US, one other thing that I missed is the Puff Pastry that we get back there. Till date, I am not able to get readymade puff pastry here, so I was thinking of doing it from scratch, but then, kept putting it off, thinking that it was a hard and tedious job. But I was proved wrong, thanks to Gayathri and the Eggless Baking Challenges that we take up every month. Yeah, for this month we had to try our hands at making Danish Pastry, which involves ' Laminating the Dough ' and the repeated rolling and folding process. The step by step pictures might make it look like a very lengthy procedure, but it's actually not that very hard, this is the first time that I made this and I am very satisfied with the end result, the Danish Pastries tasted absolutely delicious..

Need To Have

• All Purpose Flour/ Maida - 1 cup
• Unsalted Butter - 100 gms
• Instant Yeast - 3/4 teaspoon
• Sugar - 1 tablespoon
• Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
• Curd/ Yogurt - 1 tablespoon
• Milk - 1/3 cup + 2 teaspoons
• Blueberry Jam - 6 teaspoons
• Confectioners Sugar/ Icing Sugar for Dusting
• Milk for brushing the dough before baking 

Recipe Source here and here and here

Method
          I am going to divide the process into 2 steps :
Laminating The Dough And Making The Danish Pastry Dough

          Take the flour, sugar, salt, instant yeast, warm the curd slightly and add to this. According to the instructions for the instant yeast, I had to warm up the milk and then add, so adding the slightly hot milk, bring everything together to form a sticky dough and leave it for about a half an hour to rise.

           In the meantime, take the butter ( left outside for about 10 minutes ), place it on a plastic sheet, sprinkle some flour over it, cover it with another plastic sheet. Then using a rolling pin, pound the butter, when the butter spreads, bring it together and pound it one more time, shape it up into a rectangle, cover with a plastic wrap and leave it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

          Now take the dough, roll it out into a circle, take the butter and place it on it and fold the edges of the dough over the butter slab and seal it as shown in the picture.

          Dusting some flour, place the dough ( the sealed side facing down ) and roll it into a rectangle, then fold it as shown, leave this in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes, the laminating process is done. After 30 minutes, take the dough out, roll it out into a rectangle, then fold it the same way as above ( this is called a turn ), again refrigerate the dough, do this for another 3 times ( 3 turns ), refrigerating the dough for 20 to 30 minutes between each turn.

          Now roll out the dough, divide into 3 parts, I put 2 parts in the freezer for future use and used to 1 part for making the Danish Pastries.

Shaping And Baking The Danish Pastries

          Roll out the dough to about roughly 18 cm x 10 cm and divide into 3 parts.

          Take one part, fold it into a triangle and make slits as shown.

          Open the triangle, take the 2 sides and cross over, tucking one side into the other, as shown in the picture.

           Repeat the above with the other 2 parts, arrange on a baking tray, sprinkle some water, cover and let the dough rise ( for about 2 hours ). Then, press down a little in the center to form a depression, place a little jam, brush the dough with milk and bake it at 190 C for 15 to 20 minutes, till it turns golden brown. Remove, cool it, dust it with some confectioners sugar and serve.

Note
You'll get 9 Danish Pastries from the 1 cup flour, I made only 3 since I used only 1/3 of the dough.
Whatever yeast you use, instant or active dry, follow the instructions given in the packets.
At any point while laminating and make the Danish Pastry dough, if you feel that the dough is very sticky and the butter is oozing out, keep it in the fridge for another 20 minutes, them remove and do the rolling.
The total number for Danish Pastry is 3, I made it 4 times, if you want you can make even 5 to 7 turns and see whichever works for you.
The thought of consuming 100 gms of butter in one day ( also since it's the first time, I didn't want to make too many ) between 3 people was too much for me, so I made only 3 pastries.

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