Egg biriyani recipe

Egg biriyani

Biriyani is one dish which the majority of the population look forward for, for its taste simplicity, variance and a bag full of flavours.Each region has a recipe of its own with various combinations of spices. Also its one dish which is one pot and yet full of flavors due to the various spices used in its preparation. For some, preparing biriyani is very easy and quick but I confess its not so for me. I have to concentrate a lot while making biryani than other regular dishes. More than effort biriyani has a sequence of process to be followed else the taste gets altered. You have to be careful from the right level of cooking of the rice, mixing and flavouring of the dish at every possible level.

I have been doing this recipe for quite some time but every time i make I forget to click a pic... So today decided to click and blog it.

The recipe follows

Ingredients

Onions – 3-4 med ones

Saffron – a pinch

Milk – ¼ cup

Eggs – 4-6 no.s (I use small country eggs)

Ginger, garlic, green chilli – 2-3 tsp. (crushed)

Mint leaves and coriander leaves – 2-3 tbsp. (chopped

Pepper powder – ½ tsp.

Chilli powder – 1 tsp.

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp.

Coriander powder – 1 tbsp.

Whole cumin (jeera) - ½ tsp.

Fennel seeds (saunf) – ½ tsp.

Cloves – 2-3 no.s

Cinnamon - 1 small stick

Cardamom – 2-3 no.s

Bay leaves – 2

Curd – 1 cup

Salt - as required.

Method

• Finely chop onions and fry and keep aside (you could deep fry or shallow fry to your preference).
• Soak the saffron in ¼ cup of warm milk and keep aside.
• Boil eggs and keep aside, for boiling eggs you can wash and put the eggs in a pressure cooker, add water until the eggs are half emerged, switch off the stove after one whistle, and open the cooker once the pressure is released on its own.
• Using a knife make slits on the eggs or you could simply cut each egg to half, add the turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder and pepper powder and mix well. 
• Add the crushed ginger garlic and green chilli to it. Make a powder of cumin, fennel, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and add to the egg mixture, add salt too… finally add the curd and the coriander and mint leaves and also half of the fried onion. Mix all this well and keep aside for 30 minutes.

For cooking rice

Basmati Rice – 2 cups

Hot water – 4 cups

Ghee – 2 tbsp.

Cinnamon – 1 stick

Cardamom – 2-3

Clove – 2-3

Bay leaves - 2

Cashews and raisins – as per your preference.

Salt.

Method

• Take a pan and add the ghee, fry the cashews and raisins and remove from the pan.
•  Add the rice to the pan and sauté well for about 5 mins (this is to keep the rice separate and not leaving it sticky once cooked). 
• Once the rice is well sautéed add the whole spices and salt. 
• Slowly add the hot water to the rice and close the pan with a lid and let it cook in med flame. Open and check after few minutes and let it cook until the water is absorbed by the rice and rice is almost cooked.  
• Remove the pan from the flame.

Assembling

• Keep another pan (I used a wide cast iron pan/skillet) on the flame and add a teaspoon or two of ghee/oil. 
• Bring your egg mixture and remove the eggs and keep it upside down (the yolks touching the base of the pan. 
• Once all the eggs are arranged along with a bit of masala mixture spread half a portion of the cooked rice. Spread the remaining masalas on top along with a quarter portions of the fried onions and also the saffron and milk mixture. 
• Spread the remaining rice and level the rice out and sprinkle the left over fried onions.

Let it sit covered on the low flame for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes sprinkle the fried cashews and raisins on top and gently mix well. You don’t want to make a mess of the biriyani, mix gently so that the colour stands out yet there is a mix of flavours J

Serve hot with raita, pickle and papad.

Note: You could any other deep thick bottom pan for assembling the rice and egg mixture.

Enjoy!!

Chocolate genoise cake recipe

It was that day when a friend posted  the above pic on Facebook and the chocolate cake took all my attention... lol  I shared it on my Facebook wall as well. Few of my friends hinted about baking a cake. And it was a time when I have not baked a indulging cake for a long time. And decided to go ahead with my gut, don’t waste time when you want to bake a chocolate cake :)

I wanted a rich, soft and moist cake and I checked into my reference book which is nothing but ‘Joy of cooking’ oh I treasure this book like anything. I thought of baking a black forest cake but I dint have cherries in stock. So instead I thought of making the genoise and layer it with chocolate whipped cream. The whole effort was so worth as the cake turned out delicious and my son kept asking for his second helping, he dint even stop at his fifth helping …yes trust me on this. I happened to share it with my neighbours too and they loved it.

Ok without delaying much let me get into the recipe

Ingredients for the cake

All-purpose flour -¾ cup+1 tbsp.

Cocoa powder - ½ cup + 1 tbsp.

Sugar- 1 cup

Eggs- 6 eggs

Butter – 1/3 cup

Vanilla extract – 1 tspn

Method

• Sift the flour and cocoa powder together and keep aside.
• Melt the butter and keep aside.
• Set the bowl of eggs and sugar in a skillet of barely simmering water and whisk constantly until the mixture is warm to the touch (about 110 degrees F). Remove the bowl from the heat and beat on high speed until the mixture is lemony coloured, has tripled in volume and has  reached the stage where when the batter dropped from a spoon  should flow like a continuous flat ribbon, approximately 10-15 mins if using a hand held mixer. In 3 additions, sift the flour mixture over the top and fold in very gently with a rubber spatula.
• Add in the melted butter mixture and also a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the batter and fold gently.
• Scrape the batter and pour in a 9 inch pan and bake for about 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and remove it from the tin to a wire rack. Let it cool.

Ingredients for moistening syrup

½ cup sugar

1/3 cup water

• Mix, cook stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

Ingredients for the chocolate whipped cream

100 gms of cooking chocolate

3 tbsps. Of boiling water

One cup of fresh cream

2-3 tbspns – icing sugar

• Whip fresh creaming keeping the bowl of fresh cream over a bowl of ice or cold water and whisk until puffed up and form soft peaks. Don’t over whip as it might split.
• Pour the hot water over the chocolate and wait for it to melt and whisk well until the chocolate is smooth.
• Fold in the chocolate mixture slowly into the whipped cream and mix gently.

Assembling the cake

• Slice the cake into two discs.
• Take one disc and place on a board or a plate and sprinkle the moistening syrup.
• Spread the chocolate cream over the moistened cake.
• Moisten the top of another layer with the syrup and place the moist side down to the chocolate cream. Press to level.
• Moisten the top of the layer. Spread the remaining chocolate cream over and sides of the cake.
• You could decorate or pipe rosettes.

Tip. You can use the same recipe for black forest cake by filling the layers with cherries and decorate the cake with cherries and chocolate shaving.

Refrigerate the cake for at least 12 hours before serving.

Happy Baking :)

Thanks

Chaithanya

Whole wheat Swedish almond cake recipe

Was in a mood to bake a cake and browsing through my fav recipe books. Couldn’t wait to bake this cake and indulge :)... One of such days when you really want to dig in some yummy stuff. And thankfully the kitchen had all the required stuffs and a jar of slivered almonds was sitting in my refrigerator... Woo... Didn’t wait, just baked !

 

The recipe follows

Ingredients

Eggs – 3 (I use country eggs)

Sugar – 2/3 cup

Whole wheat flour (I use organic hand pound) – 1 1/3 cup

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Vanilla extract – 2 tsp

Milk – 4 tsp

Butter – 75 gm, melted

For the topping

Butter – 50 gm

Flaked almonds - 100 gm

Sugar – 50 gm

Flour – 2 tsp

Milk – 2 tsp.

Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease the base and sides of an 8 inch cake tin with butter and dust with flour.

Whisk together the eggs and sugar until it looks pale and thick.

Sift in the flour and baking powder and pour in the vanilla extract, milk and melted butter, then fold everything in until combined.

Tip the mixture into the tin and bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

While this gets baked we’ll make the topping, take another bowl melt the butter and add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

After the cake has been cooking remove it from the oven and spoon the almond mixture evenly over on top. Place it back in the oven and bake for about 10-15 mins or until the topping is golden.

Leave the cake to cool for 10 mins and slowly remove it from the tin.

Please let the cake cool to cut it since when I tried cutting it as soon as it was baked, the d topping crumbled but when I cut the cake after waiting for an hour it was cut beautifully J

 The recipe is adapted from cakes by Rachel Allen with minor alterations.

Bake and enjoy

Thanks

Chaithanya

Brown poha ( brown beaten rice) pancakes recipe

This may not be a typical pancake recipe; frankly speaking this has been made to make my daughter consume eggs. Yea she finds it difficult to consume eggs in any form. Sometimes I feel I should stop serving her eggs.  But still, yet another attempt. So this time I added poha and I was delighted to see her happily eating and hence this post.

I use brown poha in our diet and for this pancake I powdered the poha and sieved it. Mixed it with few eggs and milk and served it with honey, can’t wait to share the recipe.

Ingredients

Eggs ( I use small country eggs) – 3 no.s

Milk- ¾ cup

Water - ½ cup 

Sugar and salt - as required

Vanilla essence – a drop (optional)

Poha – ½ cup- finely powdered and sieved

Method

Mix in all the ingredients and leave it in a bowl, it will look watery but leave it for 20 minutes  to see the poha absorbing the liquid and batter turning out to be a thicker pancake batter.

Heat up your cast iron skillet and add a little butter/ghee and pour a ladle full of batter, once you see once side brown, flip it and remove from the skillet.

Serve it with any jam/syrup, I served with honey

Easy Broccoli and egg burji recipe

I should confess this is kind of a cheat recipe :D

Me and my husband loves sauteed/ stir fried brocooli but our kids doesn't accept that way, so usually I make parathas which they happily eat and another one is burji. Tho' my kids knows it has broccoli they accept and enjoy this way. Its a very simple dish to make with min ingredients. The recipe follows!

Ingredients 

Finely chopped broccoli - 1/2 cup 

Eggs ( I use country eggs) - 2 

Finely chopped onion ( optional)

Finely chopped garlic- 2 tspn

Salt and pepper - as required

For seasoning a pinch of oregano and chilli flakes

Olive oil - 2 tbspn

Method

Heat the kadai /wok and add the olive oil and throw in the finely chopped garlic and broccoli, onion too if you are using it . Once it is semi cooked move the contents to the side of the wok and break the eggs in the middle and scramble it quickly . Mix it with the rest of the contents in the wok and bring it together.

Add the seasoning and mix well again. Switch off flame and serve hot!

I do a pre cleaning of the broccoli florets by immersing in hot water with a pinch of turmeric powder and salt. Drain , rinse and strain and use for cooking.

Easy broccoli and egg burji recipe right :)

Whole wheat double chocolate chip cookies

A cookie which is  made a little less sinful by using whole wheat flour :)

Been long  I have baked something rich with a lot of cocoa and chocolate, but have baked this cookies a couple of times and really loved the recipe and the cookies are really yum

I love baking cookies as the method is very simple and you see the result also very soon :) and ofcourse there is numerous variations you can do with these cute little ones.

Ingredients

Whole wheat Flour - 1.5 cups
Cocoa - 1/3 cup

Sugar - 3/4 cup ( powdered)

Butter - half cup

Baking powder - 1/2 tspn

Baking soda - 1/2 tspn

Egg - one 

Chocolate chips / bits - 125 gms

Vanilla essence - few drops

Milk - 1/3 - 1/2 cup

Method 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Throw in all the ingredients except milk and chocolate chips in a large bowl and mix gently with the fingers, once all the ingredients comes together if you feel the dough is not soft enough  add milk using a spoon and gently mix again. Add more milk if required. Gently add the chocolate chips and incorporate in the dough. Once the soft dough is formed scoop out spoonful of dough and place it on a greased baking tray and bake for about 15- 17 mins until you see the cookies puffed up and of course you get a nice aroma of the chocolate, butter and vanilla ..reminds me to write something .. when my kids walked in after school my daughter said  .. chocolate as it was told in the movie  'Frozen' :) . So I hope you get the hint :)

And yea back to the recipe, remove the cookies from the tray to the wore rack and let it to cool. Store it in an airtight container and enjoy eating it too :)

Original recipe source is here , made few alterations of using wheat flour and addition of milk :) 

Bake and enjoy :)

Whole wheat chocolate crepes

I am a habitual customer of  an online shopping site, checks on the deals on books every now and then and to my surprise I saw 'Joy of cooking' on an offer of 50 percent. I was happy and without thinking much ordered it through.
And this morning I was thinking of making something special for kidoos and then suddenly remembered about the long forgotten recipe of crepes :) I jumped to check in thro the book and there it is .. I made a sweet crepes which was filled with powdered chocolate. And for sure kidoos loved it. I served it with sliced banana.


Here goes the recipe
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Milk - 1 cup
Luke warm water - 1/2 cup
Large eggs - 4 
Butter ( melted) - 1/4 cup
Salt - 1/2 tspn

Method
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk well and let stand for 30 minutes.
Pour a ladle full of batter and make thin crepes, flip it over, sprinkle with chocolate powder, roll and serve it 

Recipe courtesy : Joy of cooking

Walnut and hazelnut wholewheat brownies

Its been sometime that I have not baked cake/brownie, the reason being I am becoming a little averse when it comes to adding the raising agents in the bakes. I am sure a person who loves baking cannot have such expectations but seriously speaking I hold back my selves from it. As it is there are a lot of unwanted things going into ours and ours kids body, so why more , got to wait and see as to how long it goes :)
You would have noticed that I love baking cookies, reason being we can bake cookies with min or no raising agents. But when last week when my son pleaded me to bake something I just couldn't say no to him and I started googling and found this wonderful recipe. I did give some slight  modifications but totally worth it. This recipe is worth saving with or without the changes, as the original recipe says it the best ever brownies..So here it goes

Ingredients

Butter - 185 gms
Cooking chocolate - 185 gms
Whole wheat flour +cocoa powder (3 tbspn)- 1 cup
100 gms - white chocolate bits
Half cup of hazelnuts and walnuts - coarsely chopped.
Vanilla essence - 1 tspn
Eggs- 3 
Sugar - 3/4 cup

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and prepare a wide square pan and keep aside.
Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler, once melted keep the mixture aside and let it cool.
Sieve the flour and cocoa and keep aside in the sieve.
Break the eggs and add in the sugar (powdered) and beat until soft and fluffy for around 5-7 mins. Add vanilla essence.
Gradually add the cooled chocolate-butter mixture and stir slowly with a spatula, making sure that you don't break the air in the beaten eggs.
Now gradually sift the flour-cocoa mixture into the batter and slowly fold in the batter using a spatula.
Finally add the white chocolate bits and the nuts bits and fold in again.
Now pour the batter in the pan, spread it out evenly and bake in the preheated oven for about 30-40 mins or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
I bet this brownies are yum!!!

Instant Chocolate Fondant

That was a weekend and I wanted to have something like this and also surprise the kids too. Hence made this after lunch. Have to tell you its very easy, quick and tasty tooo.

Following is the recipe

60g (2 oz) butter, plus more for greasing

80g (2 1/2 oz) dark chocolate

2 eggs

60g (2 0z) sugar

40g (1 1/2 oz) flour

Confectioner' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 210ºC (410ºF). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Grease two medium ramekins with butter. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar, then add the flour. Pour the chocolate-butter mixture over the eggs-mixture, whisking constantly.

Divide the mixture into the ramekins and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the edges have set and a crust has formed on the top of the cakes, and the centers have risen, but are still very jiggly.

Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve immediately.

Banana butterscotch cake

 

It was such a day when I had loads of over riped bananas in my fruit bowl and scratched my head as to how to use it off. being a weekend thought of baking a quick banana muffins with it , but dint have the patience to even arrange the muffin moulds and whole of the experiment resulted with a cake in the shape of a foccacia bread :) . Anyway it tasted lovely and so all was fair!!

Here goes the recipe which is quite simple and I did the mixing in my food processor bowl , so it was all the more easy, nevertheless the texture of the cake was good

            

                         

                               

  

Ingredients

Eggs  - 2

Mashed bananas - 1 cup

Raisins - 1 cup

Sugar - 2 tbspns

Whole wheat flour - 1 cup

Refined oil - 1/4 cup

Baking powder - 1 tspn

Baking soda - a pinch

Butter scotch - a handful

Method 

Mix everything in a food processor or in a large bowl whisk it up and pour the batter in a pan . Top it with a handful of butterscotch and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for about 20 - 25 mins or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean

The butter scotch gives a very nice crunchy crust for the cake !

Lychee cake with butterscotch

Ok now I know you got a hint that I try to make cake out of anything, and tell you all the truth I have realised that the world and the nature is so versalite that it does listen to us if we respect them. Ok so here where have I given the respect to the lychees to turn it into cakes .. I will tell you how :)

Being a mother I wish my kids eats all the good things specially seasonal fruits and being a south Indian have never tasted lychees before, and being privileged  to live in a big city  u get variety of seasonal fruits available across the country. And since my kids take only selective fruits my crazy mind worked in a cakey way :) and the result is a lychee cake. Though the cake was sold at home I would frankly tell you that the cake dint have much flavour of lychee, since lychee itself has a very subtle taste. Anyway still if you want to know the recipe here it goes

Whole wheat flour- 1 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup ( powdered)
Butter - 1/4 cup
Lychee puree - 2/3 cup
Eggs - 2 no.s
Baking powder - 1 tspn
Butter scotch - a handful (optional)

Method
Sift the flour with the baking powder and keep aside
Beat the eggs till fluffy and then add the sugar and beat again
Add the flour mixture to the egg sugar mixture little by little by adding lychee puree in between and make sure the wet and dry ingredients are well incorporated . Make sure you dont over mix the batter and finally throw in some butterscotch into the batter.
Pour the batter into mould and bake at a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted come out clean. Let the cake sit outside for about 5 minutes and then turm to a wire rack and slice when it cools down.
Done .. Bake and enjoy!

Avacado cake with blue berries

Have been venturing out with avocados for sometime now, and this time its cake since I also had some fresh blue berries with me and wanted to try it out too in cakes. 

Following is the recipe

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour - 1 cup

Eggs - 2 no.s

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Baking powder - 1 tspn

Butter - 2 tbspn

Milk - 1/2 cup

Avocado - 1 ( remove the pulp and mash and keep aside)

Blue berries - a handful

Chocochips - a handful

Method

Sift the flour with baking powder and keep aside

Melt the butter in milk and mix the avocados and keep aside

Take a big mixing bowl and break in two eggs and beat till fluffy and then add in the powdered sugar and beat again. Now slowly add in the flour mixture and avocado- butter- milk mixture alternatively and fold in the egg mixture, starting and ending with flour. Throw in the blue berries at this stage and also throw in the choco chips.

Bake in a loaf tin in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Bake and enjoy :)!

Simplest cake with no butter

Have a major cake in agenda, reason being my son's b'day and on my shopping to procure some stuffs , I found this beautiful butterfly silicon mould. I cudnt stop myselves from buying it , I know many would agree with me in that aspect of 'shopping' :)

Ok anyway that same afternoon my daughter was quite restless missing her brother who started with full day school and hence we both decided to bake a cake which is really really simple. I have heard this recipe before and just last week my friend also told about it and so thought of giving it a try and also to try out my new mould :)

Following is the recipe

Eggs - 3 no.s ( I took country eggs)

Flour- 1/2 cup ( whole wheat )

Sugar - 1/4 cup

Vanilla essence - 1/4 tspn

Milk - 2 tbpsn

Choco chips

Method

Beat eggs with an egg beater till fluffy and double or even the triple its quantity. Slowly add in the powdered sugar and whisk again and also add the vanilla essence. Fold in the flour and and also add the milk. Finally throw in the choco chips ( this is only for the sake of being fancy :) ) and pour in the mould and bake at 170 degrees celsius in a preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

 

Remove from oven and let it cool.. Serve !

Pretty easy na.. and no butter or oil too...

Bake and enjoy!!!

Chocolate eclairs

My son has been behind me to make this chocolate eclairs ever since I bought the book Sanjeev Kappor's cakes and bakes, but have been prolonging due to some or the other reasons and finally I decided to make it today. I just started to make the puffs for the eclairs and it started disappearing quickly and I really saved the second batch of puffs to make the eclairs and voila that was also disappeared in minutes.Yes it is surely irresistable with the fresh cream fillling and the chocolate coating.

Following is the recipe

Pastry

3/4 cup Whole wheat flour

a pinch of salt.

75 gms butter

3 eggs , beaten

Filling

1 cup fresh cream whipped with 3 tbspns of powdered sugar

Chocolate icing

50 gms dark chocolate

25 gms unsalted butter

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius

Sfit flour with salt. Place the butter and one cup of water in a non stick pan and stir over low heat until the butter melts. Add in the flour and stir along till you see that the flour has come together into a ball and started coming out of the pan. Remove from the pan and place the mixture in a bowl. Add in the beaten egg one by one and mix well to the mixture until the dough becomes smooth and soft. You can either spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a wide nozzle and squeeze in a greased baking tray or simply scoop the mixture with a spoon in a baking tray in a line or in a shape of sausage.

Bake in the oven till the mixture puffs up and browns on the top, remove and slit open one side of the puff to let the steam open to prevent the eclair from being soggy ( mine became soggy tho') it doesnt matter if it is soggy too.. will tell you the secret why later.

For the filling whip the cream in a bowl until it is just thick enough. I used fresh cream , hence it was not thick , but again doesnt matter :)

Also temper the chocolate in the meanwhile.

Fill the eclairs with the whipped cream using a small nozzle piping bag ,. Dip one side of the eclair in the tempered chocolate and leave the eclairs on the wire rack until the icing sets. Once the chocolate sets the sogginess of the eclairs disappears and the chocolate holds the eclairs fine!

If you want to taste it please do it soon, else you might not get even one if you have kids at home. Experience speaks!

Ginger sponge cake

SPONGE GINGER CAKE


Ingredients 
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup jaggery
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 tablespoon ginger
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda


Method 

Beat together the jaggery, butter, egg, buttermilk and ginger. Stir in the flour and finally the baking soda, dissolved in a tablespoon of hot water.
Bake in greased and floured shallow square cake tins or muffin pans at 350°F until cake tests done (about 35 minutes). 


Old picture again :)

Oats moong dal patties

Oats moong dal patties.


Ingredients
Oats  - 1 cup
Moong dal - 1/2 cup
Eggs- 2 
Oregano , chilli flakes
Cheese cube- one  ( more if you want it more cheesy)
Salt
Poppy seeds
Olive oil


Wash the moong dal thoroughly and add in the oats to it. Break in two eggs and add the rest of the ingredients except the poppy seeds and olive oil and keep aside the mixture for about 10 minutes .Put the  poppy seeds in a flat plate.  Keep the tawa on the stove and smear a little olive oil . Make small balls from the mixture , flatten it between your palms and  roll out in the poppy seeds and keep the patties on the hot tawa. Follow the same procedure for the rest of the mixture too. Flip the patties and remove from the tawa when it is cooked. 
Serve hot


Serving suggestions
You can use this patties for burgers
Can be eaten as a healthy, fibrous dinner
Can be served with any chutney or simply with ketchup


Note : Alternatively you can bake in the oven too.
For pure vegetarians you can use water instead of eggs.


OR if you are not comfortable using oregano, chilliflakes and cheese combination, you can adopt the Indian style using turmeric powder, pepper powder, garam masala, green chillies, onion , mix and follow the same procedure.

Whole wheat jaggery cake

I know this picture looks bad , but nevertheless its quite close to my heart as its one the early pic I took when I had just started the journey of my culinary experiments :) . By now you would have seen that I stay away from using white flour for my bakes and experiment with other flours and this was the first among the few first experiments.

I have got positive feedback from quite a lot of people who tried this cake . So following is the recipe for the same . Try making it , I am sure you will fell less guilty of having a cake and eating it too!!!

Ingredients
1 cup cooking oil
2 cups jaggery ( powdered)
1 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Method
In a large mixer bowl blend oil and jaggery in an electric mixer until smooth. Add vanilla; beat in eggs one at a time. In another bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder (1 teaspoon of salt optional). Add to egg mixture until well blended.

Pour batter into a greased and lightly floured pan. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 50-60 minutes until the cake tests done. Cool in pan, then invert on serving plate. Optional to sprinkle powdered sugar on top.

Whole wheat waffles

Waffles:

Ingredients 

1 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1 large egg , lightly beaten
1 cup (240 ml) milk
2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter, melted

Method 


Waffles: In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. In a separate bowl whisk together the egg and milk. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, all at once, and stir just until combined. Stir in the melted butter.
Depending on your machine's instructions, you may need to lightly spray the grids with a non stick vegetable spray. Spoon about a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of batter (or amount that is recommended in your waffle iron's instruction book) onto one side of the hot iron. Take a knife or small metal spatula and smooth out the batter. Close the lid of the iron and bake until brown and crisp. It is best to serve the waffles immediately along with butter and maple syrup. These are also wonderful when served with fresh berries and whipped cream as a dessert.

Fatless sponge cake

Basic fatless sponge cake


Eggs -  4 no.s
Powdered jaggery - 3/4 cup OR 1/2 cup sugar
Vanilla essence - 1 tspn
Whole wheat  flour ( atta) - 1 cup
Almonds 1/2 cup ( powdered)
Baking powder - 1 tspn


Method


Preheat the oven to 180- degrees celsius
Beat together the eggs , powdered jaggery and the vanilla esssence till light and creamy. Gradually fold in the flour stirring with a light hand in one direction only.
Add in the powdered almonds and fold again.
Pour the batter in a prepared pan and bake for 20-30 minutes or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean.