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Saturday 31 December 2016

Egg-less Whole Wheat Flour Baked Doughnut Recipe Without Yeast


Before I begin with the post, I would like to wish my readers a very happy and prosperous new year. Year 2016 had been very rewarding for me as a food blogger. With few wins in various on line cooking competitions, feature of my recipe in Indian Express, collaboration with a food company and last but surely not the least loads of love from my readers.  This week,  my blog Annapurna has registered a new height of 3 lakh hits (page views). A very big thank you to all my readers for continuous support and motivation. To celebrate this milestone, I baked some yummy doughnuts today. Hope you all would love to try out this healthy version J

For those who do not know, a doughnut or donuts is a type of dessert food. This sweet snack is popular in many countries and is usually deep fried from flour dough and typically either ring shaped or without hole. Source: Wikipedia


A doughnut recipe usually calls for use of eggs, yeast and as it is deep fried, the snack is loaded with calories. To try out a healthy version of donuts was on my to-do list for quite some time, so searched for recipes on line, made changes as per my need and finally settled to this healthy and quick recipe. Let me tell you these mini doughnuts are egg-less, are baked to cut down the calories and are made using whole wheat flour and the recipe does not call for use of yeast either. Have used yogurt, baking soda and baking powder in this recipe.

After baking, I have dipped the doughnuts in a simple sugar glaze. These donuts can be served with coffee or enjoyed just liked that to satisfy sweet cravings guilt free. The doughnuts can also be dipped in chocolate glaze and topped with colored sprinklers or chopped nuts of your choice, if desired.


Serves: 8 Mini Doughnuts
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 10-12 minutes

Ingredients:

For Dough
  • 1 ¼ Cup Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1/4 cup Yogurt
  • ¼ cup milk or as required
  • 2 tablespoon Sugar
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
  • A Pinch of Salt
  • A pinch of Baking Soda

For Glazed/Coating
  • ½ Cup Powder Sugar
  • 2-3 tablespoon Melted Butter
  • 2-3 tablespoon Warm Water

Method:

  1. Take wheat flour in a mixing bowl. Add 1 tablespoon butter to it. Mix with finger tips. 


  2. Add powdered sugar , baking Soda , baking Powder , salt  and vanilla essence to the mixture. Mix well.

  3.  Add yogurt to the mixture. Mix to get a crumbled texture.


  4.  Add required warm milk little by little to get smooth dough.  Cover and set aside the dough for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven at 200 degree Celsius for 15 minutes.


  5.  Dust the working surface with little flour and knead the dough again for 2-3 minutes. Roll it into a thick circle.


  6.  Use a doughnut cutter or use a round cookie cutter or a sharp corner round glass and cut into small disk. Take a small cap/lid of bottle, press on centre of disk and make small hole to get exact shape of doughnut.


  7.  Place the doughnuts on a parchment paper lined baking tray.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown in a preheated oven at 200 degree Celsius.  I have baked the doughnuts in a microwave using convection mode. Keep an eye on the doughnuts while baking after 7 -8 minutes as temperature may vary from oven to oven.


  8. Take a small bowl for sugar glaze. Add powder sugar, melted butter, and warm water, mix it well and make syrup. Dip the baked doughnuts in the sugar syrup  to coat them from all sides with the syrup. Allow to drain on a wired rack. 

  9.  Serve the delicious and guilt free doughnuts with coffee and enjoy with your loved ones !




Monday 26 December 2016

Amla Candy Recipe / Candied Indian Gooseberry


Amla candy is a super delicious and tongue tickling Sun-dried candied gooseberry which has all the benefits of the Amla fruit . Sweet, sour and mildly spicy in taste, this amla candy is just perfect for the fussy eaters and one of the best way of preserving the gooseberries to reap its benefits all year round. Amla candy is best to conclude a meal, as it helps in digestion and serves as a good mouth freshener. It is also best remedy for nausea and travel sickness. 

What goes into this Amla Candy ?

Amla candy is a Sun-dried candied gooseberry. This vegan and gluten-free amla candy can be easily made at home using just 2 ingredients Amla (Indian Gooseberry) and Sugar. No artificial color or preservative is  used here. To add flavor and make it more healthier i have used dry ginger powder as well. You can even add black salt or cumin powder as a variation.  

Making of Amla Candy

Fresh Indian Gooseberries are used in making this Amla candy. Select a fruit that is medium to large in size, pale green in colour with shiny skin, and without any blemishes or bruises. Washed berries are 
cooked in boiling water for a while. There are 2 reasons for this step. One is to get rid of the bitter juices and the second is soften them, so that the seed can be easily removed and the gooseberries can be cut into segments. Sugar and dry ginger powder is added to the slices so obtained and they are set aside for 3 days, during which the sugar melts and the gooseberry slices get soaked up in the syrup. The slices are strained from the syrup and sun dried for 2-3 days or until all the juice dries up. Finally the candy is coated with little powdered sugar. (This last step is optional) The reserved syrup can be further cooked and reduced to give the Amla sherbet which is another delicious way of having this super fruit.


Shelf Life of Amla Candy
Sugar acts as a preservative in this Sun-dried amla candy. No artificial colour or preservative is used in this recipe. A well Sun-dried amla candy can be stored for months or even up to a year in an air tight container at room temperature.

Many ways of using Amla Candy

Rich in vitamin C, this amla candy is a great way of making  the kids eat this super fruit making it the only candy which can make both kids and mommies equally happy :) Amla candy is best to conclude a meal, as it helps in digestion and serves as a good mouth freshener. It is also best remedy for nausea and travel sickness. Apart from this amla candy can be had at any time of the day to satisfy some sweet tongue tickling cravings. It can be used in cakes and desserts as fruit candy for crunch and flavour.
                                      

Among all the seasons ,Winter is my favourite. One of the many reasons for which is the abundance of juicy fruits and vegetables during this time of the year. It is a visual delight to see the local markets flooded with colorful fresh Winter produce. Amla or Indian gooseberry is one among the winter fruits loaded with countless health benefits. 

Amla as a Superfood


Amla is an amazing seasonal fruit found in abundance in the Winter season in India. Being packed with Vitamin C and a great source of antioxidants, amla or the Indian Gooseberry contains numerous nutrients that actually help you live a longer and healthier life. It can definitely keep a number of diseases at bay as it is packed with compounds like polyphenols, minerals like iron and zinc and vitamins like carotenes and vitamin B complex. Amla has eight times more vitamin C than an orange, twice the antioxidant power of acai berry and around 17 times that of a pomegranate. The humble Indian gooseberry, commonly known as amla, truly deserves its super food status. Click here to know more about the health benefits of including Amla in your daily diet.


                                   

When in season, I try to include fresh amla in our daily diet in the form of juice and amla chutney, and to enjoy the benefits of this super fruit throughout the year, i make sure i preserve it in the form of amla jamamla pickle, and amla supari (mouth freshener) apart from this amla candy.

This is an old post which i had published in 2016 during my initial blogging days. I have updated this post today with some new pictures and written content but have not changed the recipe. I have many such old posts where the photography is dull and the recipe is not up to the mark. Such posts need to be updated with new pictures and written content. Thanks to Renu, my dear friend and a fellow blogger who came up with a Facebook group, Foodies_Redoing Old Posts as an initiative, wherein we bloggers can update our old posts with either new pictures or written content or both every two weeks. This is my 12th entry into this event (27th December)
Foodies_RedoingOldPost

You can see two pictures below. The first one is my earlier pic and the later one is the current one. You can make out the colour change of the candy. The reason is that, this time i have not coated the Sun-dried amla candy in powdered sugar. Rest of the recipe is same. So, let's get started.

                            
Preparation Time : 6-7 days ( including the time for Sun-drying)
Cooking time : 2 minutes
Serves: 1 1/2 cup amla candy
Ingredients:
  • ½ kilo grams of Amla / Indian Gooseberry ( 18-20 medium sized Amla)
  • 300 grams sugar
  • 1 tablespoon of dry Ginger powder / Saunth Powder


Method:
  1. Wash the gooseberries thoroughly in water and pat dry with a kitchen towel. In a big sauce pan bring 3-4 cups of water to rolling boil.



  2.  Add the gooseberries to boiling water and allow to cook for 2 minutes.


  3. Put off the flame . Cover the sauce pan and allow the gooseberries to remain in the hot water for 10 minutes. The color of the gooseberries changes from green to yellow.



  4. Strain the water and collect the Gooseberries. (The water can be used to wash hair).


  5.  When cool enough to handle , cut along the striations of the gooseberry with a knife to get 6 slices from each piece. Discard the seed.


  6. Place all the gooseberry slices in a big vessel. Reserve 2 tablespoon of sugar and add the remaining over them. We will powder the reserved sugar and will use it in the end to coat the candy.
Add 1 tablespoon of dry ginger powder and mix everything very well by tossing the gooseberries in the container. Set aside the container for 3 days.


  7.  After one day , we can see the sugar has dissolved in the gooseberry juices and the slices of gooseberries float in the sugary syrup. Stir it and keep covered.



  8.  On the third day the gooseberry slices soak the sugary syrup and become heavy and settle to the bottom.

  9.  Strain the gooseberries from the syrup and reserve the syrup. The syrup can be used to make Sherbet. 

  10. Spread individual gooseberry slices on a plate or a plastic sheet and sundry for 2-3 days.



  11.  Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar over the candy and mix well.  


 12. Healthy and delicious amla candy is ready to be popped in. Store it in air tight container and enjoy.


  13. To make the sherbet , boil the  reserved syrup from step 9 for 10 minutes or until it reduces to half its original volume.




  14. Let the concentrated syrup cool down and fill it in clean, dry and sterilised bottle. Refrigerate the bottle and use as per requirement. Add 3 tablespoon of this concentrate to a glass of water. Stir well and enjoy a refreshing and delicious Amla drink.



Notes:
  • Select fresh , unblemished gooseberries which are large in size and are slightly yellow in color as such fruit is juicy and less sour and hence require less amount of sugar to make the candy.
  • Do not over cook the amla as on doing so the amla will lose nutrition, turn mushy and will not retain proper shape on cutting. 
  • Along with sugar and dry ginger powder, black salt and roasted cumin powder can also be added to the cooked gooseberry slices as variation. The color of the candy will be brown in this case.
  • Sprinkling sugar increases the shelf life and makes the candies gooseberries non sticky. You can skip that step if desired.
  • The candy is very addictive and you can trust my words and make a big batch while the fruit is in season.
I hope a few of you would love to try out this recipe. If you do so, feel free to share your feedback with us in the form of likes and comments in the comment section below this post. All your suggestions are also more than welcome. If you like my work and feel it is worth following, do hit the follow button at the top right corner of this blog. Your appreciation means a lot to me. For more recipes and new updates follow us on social media.

For more Indian Gooseberry recipes, do check my following posts 



                            



                            



                            



                            


Tuesday 20 December 2016

Egg-less Christmas Plum Cake Recipe / Festive Cooking


Christmas being just around the corner, there is aroma of festive bakes in the air. After my Gingerbread Cookies came out pretty well, an egg less Christmas plum cake was on my to do list. Last year I made an Egg-less Christmas Fruit Cake for the first time and had used citrus juice and jaggery in the recipe. This time I tried making a rich fruit cake with caramel. The cake turned out to be soft , moist , aromatic and super delicious. 

Plum cake refers to wide range of cakes with either dried fruit ( such as grapes, Currants, raisins or prunes) or with fresh fruit. Source Wikipedia.
                     
A Christmas fruit cake usually calls for soaking of dry fruits in rum for days, months and even years. But this recipe is egg and butter free, calls for use of whole wheat flour, has no alcohol and does not require any prior soaking of Dry fruits. What else can we expect from a recipe?
                                  
Have used brown sugar to make a caramel sauce as it gives the cake a nice dark brown color and definitely adds in to the taste. I added the chopped nuts and dry fruits to the caramel sauce and allowed to soak for 2 hours.The added spices like Cinnamon , clove, Nutmeg and Ginger give slight spicy touch to the otherwise sweet cake. The nuts and dry fruits make it rich and healthy. The Orange and lemon zest gives wonderful aroma and taste to the cake , so do not think of skipping it :)
                   
Preparation Time: 3 hours
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Serves: A medium size Cake
Ingredients:
  •  1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 ½ cup Dry fruits (I have used Walnut , Apricot, Golden Raisins, currants , semi dried Plums, Cashew Nuts, dried Figs , Dates, Tutti frutti , glazed cherries)
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup oil
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 2 tablespoon sugar( regular white sugar)
  • 1 teaspoon spice mix (grind 2 Cloves, a small piece of Cinnamon stick, small piece of Nutmeg and dry Ginger to make the spice mix)
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon Orange Zest
  • ½ teaspoon Lime zest
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Method:
  1. Chop all the dry fruits and nuts and keep aside.


  2.  For the caramel sauce, in a non-stick pan heat brown sugar on a low flame without adding any water.

  3.  Keep stirring as the sugar melts and gets dark in color.


  4.   Put off the flame when a smooth glazy syrup is formed. Pour ½ cup water to the caramel syrup. The caramel will harden.

  5. Now put on the gas and allow the mixture to boil again until the caramel dissolves in the water. Keep stirring until it gives a dark brown color caramel sauce.

  6.  Add the chopped nuts to this sauce and cook for 1-2 minutes. Put off the flame and allow the dry fruits to soak in the caramel sauce for 2-3 hours.


  7.  Sift the flour with spice mix, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius for 10-12 minutes. Grease the cake pan and line it with parchment paper at the base.

   8.  In another bowl take milk, sugar and oil. Mix well.


  9.  Fold in the dry ingredients with the wet ones with a spatula. Add the dry fruits along with caramel sauce, vanilla extract, lemon and orange zest.

   10.  Mix everything very well. At first the batter will be thick and difficult to spoon. Keep mixing gently until the batter is without any lumps.


  11.  Spoon the batter in the greased cake pan. Tap the pan twice to remove the trapped air.

   12.  Bake the cake in a preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius for 30-35 minutes or until a tester toothpick comes out clean.

   13.  Allow the cake to cool down completely. Run a knife through the edges of the cake pan. Now keep a plate above the cake pan and invert the pan to flip the cake on the plate. Remove the parchment paper gently.


  14.  Slice the cake and enjoy it as it is or sprinkle some powdered sugar over it.

  Notes:
  • If you do not have brown sugar, add regular white sugar. Brown sugar adds to the color.

  • Do not skip the orange and lemon zest as it give nice fragrant aroma and taste to the cake.
  • Wait for at least 2-3 hours and preferably 5 hours before you slice the cake as the flavors deepen as the cake cools.

I hope you would love to try out this Christmas special cake. Would love to hear from you.

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all of you and your loved ones !!

For more egg-less cake recipes, do check my posts on


poonambachhav.blogspot.com