Low fat Fruit and Nut Cake ~ Christmas Cake - Butter-free, Eggless cake :-)

Nowadays, I am inclined towards fat-free baking. True, we cannot avoid sugar in cakes, but we can minimize them by adding natural sources of sweetness. What do we do for butter? Substitute with natural sources of fat, that are good for your heart.

Guilt-free Fruit & Nut Cake 

Here's my Low fat Fruit & Nut cake that absolutely delicious and nobody can tell its butter -free or has no plain flour.

I've adapted the recipe from maria's menu but made it healthier by using Avocados and 100% whole wheat flour in place of Maida / All purpose flour/Plain flour. Read on ...

Ingredients:

2 Avocados - ripe (dark green in color)
Whole wheat flour - 1.5 cups
Brown sugar - 1 cup
Dry fruits (like raisins, tutty fruity, apricots, figs, ) +
Nuts (I used chopped almonds and cashews) = totally 1 and 1/2 to 1 and 3/4 cups roughly
Fruit juice (I have tried both Apple juice and Cranberry juice with good success)
Hot milk - 1/4 cup
Yogurt - 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Baking powder - 0.5 tsp
Baking soda- 0.5 tsp
Cardamom powder - 1 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 0.5 tsp
A pinch of salt

Preparation -

• Soak the dry fruits in the fruit juice overnight.
• Drain the juice( save it so you can drink later!) and take  the soaked fruits and nuts in a bowl.
• Coat it with 2 tbsp of flour roughly.

• Start by pre-heating your oven to 180 degrees.

• Sieve the flour along with a pinch of salt and baking soda, baking powder --> all dry ingredients. Add cardamom and cinnamon powder.
• Beat the avocados (pitted) with sugar in a mixie.

• Add hot milk to yogurt and mix this to the avocado-sugar mixture. Sure, the batter appears curdled at this stage but fret not!
• Add vanilla essence as well.
• Slowly mix the sieved flour mixture into the wet batter mixture until well-incorporated. You can add more chopped nuts at the stage. I like to add some walnuts :-)

Batter ready to go into the oven! 

• Prepare a pan by lining with baking paper. Pour the batter and let the oven do the magic :-)

• Do check after 20 minutes using a toothpick to see if the cake is done/ nearing doneness. If its too wet, let bake for another 5 to 10 minutes. Adjust timing by checking every 5 to 7 minutes. If the top is brown but the insides are uncooked/wet, then cover with an aluminum foil so that the top doesn't get burnt.

Just out of the oven! Heavenly goodness!

Enjoy your cake guilt-free :-)

This is suitable even for heart patients as there is no butter or oil added.

This year (26th Dec 2015), I made this lovely cake again for a potluck party and it was a big hit!!

Some photos -

Christmas Cake

Shopped for dry fruits and nuts and candied fruits :-)

Easy-peasy Chocolate Cake - Happy Birthday Sis!!! :-)

Today is my sister's birthday and I baked this chocolate cake to celebrate it :-)  How I wish I could walk across the street (and not having to fly for 4 hours + spend 3 hours at the airport), feed her and see her relish the cake!

Happy Birthday!

The specialty of this recipe is that it is absolutely eggless (Yes, no need to think of substitutions for egg! Isn't that wonderful?) and free from butter! Plus, there are no fancy ingredients and I am quite sure you'll have all the stuff stocked in your kitchen at most times. Although there is oil being used, I would soon be trying it out with half prune extract and half oil and I believe (from my prior experiments) that wouldn't significantly affect the quality of the end-product. Will update y'all with the results.

Update:

I replaced 3 tbsp oil with prune essence and used just 1 tbsp oil and there was absolutely no difference to the taste or texture! Yum-yum-yummy!!!

Take a bite, please!

Things You Need -

Dry Ingredients -

Flour (I used Whole wheat) - 1 and 1/2 cups
Baking soda - 1 tbsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Cocoa powder - 3 tbsp

Wet Ingredients -

Water - 1 cup
Sugar - 1 cup ( (I used 1 and 1/4 cups brown sugar as I didn't have enough white sugar!)
Vinegar (White or Apple-cider vinegar or simply concentrated lemon juice) - 1 tbsp
Vanilla essence - 1/2 tbsp
Oil - 4 tbsp
Chocolate chips - 2 handfuls ( I like mine to be really chocolatey...Ummm :-)

Birthday Cake for Dear Sis!

Procedure -

The recipe is so simple! Sift and combine the dry ingredients in a big bowl. Whisk together the wet ingredients in another bowl. Add the dry to the wet. Whisk well. Add in some (a handful) chocolate chips finally and mix once slightly.

Line a baking dish and pour the mixture (it's kinda watery and not thick unlike usual cake batter, but don't panic, all is well!). Sprinkle some more (another handful) chocolate chips.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg Celsius for about 35-40 minutes. When tested with a toothpick, it might be a bit moist. Decorate with Icing of your choice!

So soft and delicious!

Blueberry Streusel Cake - Happy New Year!!!

I'm really fond of fruits in my cake and the berries, full of anti-oxidants, are definitely special! As a child, I haven't seen Blueberries or Blackberries and was fascinated to see some fresh produce here in Singapore! We do get Strawberries in India from places like Reliance Fresh or Nilgiris Supermarket and whenever appa brings home these cute fruits, amma makes fresh smoothies that taste so heavenly!

I am immensely delighted that this is my 100th post (Yeh!!!) and today is the 1st day of 2012 :) This is Celebration time! I decided to splurge a bit today and baked this one, without substituting butter with anything else! I did feel a bit guilty on creating some exceptions, but I guess we really enjoyed every piece of the cake :)

Blueberry Cake with Streusel Crumb Topping

The basic cake recipe is adapted from Joy of Baking, but the streusel topping is my own combination, with some oats and walnuts added for the crunch!

Blueberry Streusel Cake

What I Used for the Cake Batter -

Dry Ingredients -

All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Whole wheat flour - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1/8th of a teaspoon
Baking powder - 1 tsp

Wet Ingredients -

Butter (unsalted) - 1/4 cup 
White Sugar - 1/2 cup
Flaxmeal - 1 tbsp soaked  3 tbsp of warm water for 5 minutes (or 1 egg)
Milk - 1/3 cup
Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
Blueberries - 350 grams

Blueberries - out of the freezer!

For the Streusel Topping -

All-purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1/2 cup
Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
Walnuts (coarsely chopped) - about 10
Oats (Quick Cooking) - 1/4 cup
Butter - 3 tbsp

Steps -

To Make Streusel Topping -

Mix the flour, oats, cinnamon and sugar together. Cut in the butter with a fork and blend well until it forms coarse crumbs. Add chopped walnuts. This is the streusel topping. Keep it aside.

To Prepare the Cake Batter -

• Sift the dry ingredients and mix them together.
• Beat the butter until smooth and cream sugar along with it.
• Whisk flaxmeal with warm water until it becomes sticky. Then, add it to the creamed butter-sugar mixture. Please look up this recipe for pictures of freshly ground flaxseeds and how it looks when whisked with warm water.
• Add vanilla and beat until well-incorporated.

• Now, add the flour mixture (dry) to the wet and add milk gradually and mix until just combined.

• Take out your cake pan, grease with butter (or use a baking sheet as a liner) and pour this prepared batter on top of it.

• Arrange blueberries on top of this batter.

• Sprinkle the prepared streusel topping on top. Press slightly with a spatula.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake, comes out clean, without anything sticking to it. Remove from the oven and let cool on the wire rack.

Blueberry Cake with Streusel Crumb Topping

The streusel crumb topping is the BEST part of this cake! It is ABSOLUTELY RICH with butter and sugar and the addition of oats and walnuts give it the much needed crunch :) I say, its so much better than cakes loaded with cream on top! Do try this and your taste buds will be soo pleased that you'll want to make it over and over again! :-)

Serve fresh out of the oven when it's still warm. Refrigerate the cake (if anything remains!) and it will stay good for a week.

Wishing everyone a fantastic new year filled with good health, joy and prosperity!!! :) 

Spanish Potatoes - A quick appetizer!

If you want to astound your family/ guests with great food, start with the best appetizer! Who doesn't love potatoes? How about oven-roasted potatoes? You know where I'm coming to...:)

Spanish Potatoes

This Is All You Need -

2 Potatoes
1 Green Bellpepper/Capsicum
1 tbsp Tabasco sauce (you could increase/reduce this to suit your palate!)
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp Olive oil
Some Salt and Pepper to taste

Tabasco sauce with Garlic

How To -

• Cook potatoes for exactly 10 minutes (so that they don't get over-cooked) in a pot with water to cover them.

• Peel potatoes cooked al-dente and cube them into uniform size.

• Chop capcicum/bell pepper into fairly large squares.

• Take a bowl, pour olive oil, add the veggies, sprinkle cinnamon and cumin powder and mix well. Pour the Tabasco sauce and mix (I used Tabasco sauce with garlic in it, so omitted the fresh garlic; You could mince garlic fine and add at this stage). Season with salt and pepper.

Olive oil, Potatoes , cinnamon and cumin powder

Added capsicum, salt and pepper

Mix once and pour Tabasco sauce and mix again

• Bake for about 10-15 minutes at 180 deg Celsius until potatoes are reddish-brown and well-roasted.

Ready to go in, place each cube separately to get well-roasted

Enjoy while still warm from the oven, just like you relish potato wedges or fries. This one, being baked is infact better!

For kids who find this too hot n spicy, serve with tomato ketch-up :)

This is my entry to Bake-Fest #2 conducted by Sangeetha.

And to Healthy Cooking Challenge - Movie Time Snacks hosted by Vidhya and Rekha.