Eggless Papaya Chocolate Chip Muffins Recipe | Vegan Papaya Muffins Recipe

Papaya Chocolate Chip Muffin, eggless, butterless papaya chocolate chips muffins makes excellent tea time snack or a quick breakfast or even dessert. This Valentine Day is around the corner I thought of sharing this simple yet delicious spiced muffin recipe and a great way to use papaya, it's specially good for the people who always end up having papaya for days without knowing what to do with it as lot of people don't eat papaya!

Spiced Apple Cake Recipe

I love baking with fruits, most of my baked recipes are with different fruits and here again I baked a cake with my favorite bake fruit - Apple.   This cake I baked together with gingerbread man cookies and packed along fruit cake, all these goodies for cuties nibbling.  

Coming back to this cake, it’s very simple cake with minimal ingredients, all the spices makes it very interesting and flavorful plus the aroma is so good, it’s soft, moist and crumbles just a perfect cake packed with apple goodness.   If you like spices then you going to absolutely love this cake and if you don’t like spices then reduce the quantity to get just touch of spices, adjust according to your taste. 

 Ingredients for Spiced Apple Cake

Apples - 4-5 [I used different varieties]
Cinnamon Powder - 1 tsp
Sugar - 5 tbsp
Plain Flour/Maida - 2 Cups
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
All Spice Powder - 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg Powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Eggs - 3
Sugar - 1 1/2 cups
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Vegetable Oil - 3/4 Cup
Milk - 1/4 cup

Method:

1. Wash, core and dice apples, we don’t have to peel apples.

2. Toss with 5 tbsp sugar and cinnamon powder and set aside.
~ If you leave aside this for long time or a hour sugar will release water, which happened with me as I got busy with cooking lunch.  But it’s not really a issue, we can use the water.

3.  Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, all spice, nutmeg powder.

4. In a bowl beat eggs and sugar together until fluffy and sugar dissolves.

5. Add vanilla extract, milk and oil mix well.  Now add flour mixture in batches, stir well to incorporated all ingredients.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degree or 180C.  Prepare a 8 inch pan grease and dust with flour or line with parchment paper.

7. Pour half of cake batter into pan, spread half of apple over it. 

8. Pour remaining batter over apples and again arrange remaining apples on top. 
9. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes hour or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool cake completely on a wire rack before slicing.
~ Check if the cake is baked after an hour. 

Our cake is ready.

Have a nice day ~~

Eggless Christmas Fruit Cake

December is month of celebration and it’s goes so true for me with my birthday, anniversary, my sis, bro, sil, close friend birthdays, it’s a month long celebration time.  And if your friend bakes a cake for your anniversary and travel all the way to give the cake it’s makes your day super special like we say in hindi sone pe suhaga.

The cake was just so perfect it was dense, soft, moist, crumbly with loads of fruits and nuts making it way too good and I actually didn't believe it’s a eggless cake.  So thank you Prema for the wonderful cake recipe :)

If you planning to try fruit cake/kerala plum cake during this festive season then try this recipe you going to love it, there’s no two away about it.  It's eggless, alcohol free, easy and the best part is just too delicious.  In case you use rum or brandy then just replace fruit juice with that and enjoy your cake.  I packed this cake along with gingerbread man cookies for DH to take India and every one just loved this cake.  Frankly speaking I can go ga-ga over this delicious cake but let me not do this here and check out the recipe.

Ingredients for Christmas Fruit Cake | Kerala Plum Cake

Brown Sugar - 120g
Butter  (Salt-less)- 120g
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Plain Flour - 125g
Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
Vinegar - 1 tbsp
Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
All Spice Powder - 1/4 tsp
Fruit Juice - 1/3 cup  OR 30 ml Brandy (Used here is apple juice)
Mixed Fruits - 120g (sultanas, raisins, cherries, prunes, dates, mixed peels) roughly chopped
Mixed Nuts - 120g (macadamia nuts, cashew nuts, almonds) roughly chopped

Method

1. Add roughly chopped mixed fruits, fruit juice (or rum/brandy if using) in a bowl and mix well.  Leave to stand for overnight or at least 3 hours.  If you have time soak fruits for 2-3 days for better results. 
2. In a small bowl, mix baking soda and vinegar and keep aside.
3. Preheat oven to 180C, meanwhile in a mixing bowl, beat butter till light and fluffy.  Add brown sugar and mix well.
5. Sieve baking powder, plain flour, salt.  Add flour in batches with butter & sugar mix, beat the mixture just for 1 minute at low to medium speed.
6. Add soaked fruits along with juice, chopped nuts, spice powder, baking soda & vinegar mix and blend well.
7. Grease a 9 inch tin and transfer the cake batter in it.
8. Bake it for 35-40 minutes at 180 degree Celsius or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
9. Once the cake is done, cool on a wire cake.

Our cake is ready, you can dust it with icing sugar.  I didn't do that because I was not in that mood!   Share with your family, friends to double your joy.

Variations
~ You can use orange juice instead of apple juice for soaking.
~ If you don’t have spice powder, use 1/2 tsp mix of nutmeg, cinnamon, clove powders.
~ Mixed candied peels comes in bottle, you can just add candied orange peel. If you don't have both add 1 tsp heaped orange or lemon zest.
~ Slice cake when it’s completely cooled.  If you find cake getting crumbs, keep it in fridge for 30 minutes and then slice it.

Have a nice day ~~

Homemade Ginger Powder Recipe

This ginger powder recipe post is pending from the time I posted garlic powder.  Making ginger powder at home is so easy and economical, not to mention freshness we get can’t be compare.  I used to buy ginger powder and never really like the smell and after a while it’s turns into bad smell and taste.  This ginger powder recipe is again my SIL recipe, she makes this in huge batches and keep.

I had step vise picture, now it seems I lost those, but this recipe is so simple and straight forward that stepvise pictures are really not indeed.  You can make this in small quantity for a start if you want and store.  Try this once and you will not go back to store brought ginger powder anymore.  If you like ginger tea then mix little amount of this ginger powder with tea dust/powder and store, you easy instant ginger tea ready.

Ingredients:
Fresh Ginger - 1/2 Kg or as you want

Method:

1. Wash ginger 5-6 times in fresh water each time or until ginger gets very clean.  We don't have to peel ginger.
2. Chop ginger in to small pieces.  Smaller you make better it is.
3. Sun dry ginger pieces in a clean cloth for 2 days or until ginger gets completely dried, it may take 1 day or 3-4 days too.
4. Once ginger is totally dried pulse in mixer or spice grinder into fine powder in batches if making in large quantity.
5. Sieve ginger powder, transfer back the remaining amount into mixer and grind again.
6. Sieve one more time and sun dry for 30 minutes ginger powder again.
7. Store in air tight container and use as required.

The powder you see in picture is more than a year old and it’s still fresh with strong fragrance. 

 Have a nice day ~~

Eggless Banana Chocolate Chips Muffin

I wanted to make banana and chocolate chips muffin for a long time now and every time I kept banana to ripen well but then in the end I have to throw it for some reason or other.  This time I did the same kept the banana, it was well ripen but still I kept postponing to bake the muffins, in the end I just pulled the socks and did it.  

These muffins are so delicious I can't describe.   Strong banana flavor with chocolate chips is yum, I finished clicking and ate immediately 2 muffins controlling myself not to eat any more.  Without egg also the muffins are so soft and spongy that you won't miss the egg factor here.  The recipe is so easy just mix everything and bake, no special gadgets needed.  Frankly, you have to try this there's no excuse just make this and you going to love it as me and my family did.  I took the picture late evening so there's color difference due to light, kindly ignore that :)

Ingredients: [ Yields 6 Muffins]

Mashed Banana - 1 Long
Plain Flour - 1 Cup
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Milk -1/2 Cup
Sugar - 1/2 Cup [ I used little less]
Oil - 1/4 Cup [ or butter 1/2 cup]
Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
Chocolate Chips - 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Mash banana well, I used mixer to do the job.
2. Shift flour and baking powder. 

3. Add mashed banana, milk, sugar, essence, oil and mix everything well to combine.

4. Add chocolate chips and fold.

5. Preheat oven to 180C and line muffin tray.  Fill muffin liners with batter.

6. Sprinkle few chocolate chips on top and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and cool muffins in wire rack.

Enjoy these yummy muffins.

Have a nice day ~~

Homemade Dabeli Masala Recipe

 
I like to make my own masala powders instead of buying ready made as homemade ones are always fresh, fragrant full and nothing can beat that.   Coming to this dabeli masala I made for my Dabeli obviously right?  Well you can use ready made ones but then it’s so easy to make at home and hardly takes 5 minutes then why not?  Most of the ingredients are always available in your pantry so give it a try, this masala you can use for pav bhaji or as normal garam masala too not just for dabeli.   I made this in small quantity and these ingredients makes around 2 tbsp of masala, if you want you can double or triple the ingredients, make this in large batch and store.  But then it’s so easy to prepare then why to store just make fresh every time you need.
*Different color of masala you see it's due to lighting, so ignore that please.



Also check out how to make Dabeli

Recipe for Dabeli Masala

Ingredients:
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Fennel Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Black Peppers - 1/2 tsp
Coriander Seeds - 1 tsp
Clove - 5
Dry Red Chilies - 5 [stems removed]
Mace (Javitri) - 4 blades  [or powder 1/4 tsp]
Nutmeg Powder (Jaiphal) - 1/4 tsp
Whole Star Anise - 1
Bay Leaves - 2
Black Cardamom - 1
Green Cardamom - 4
Ginger Powder - 1/2 tsp


Method:
1. Dry roast all ingredients one by one until fragrant.  Don't roast any powder if using like nutmeg, ginger powder etc.



2. Allow everything to cool down, transfer to a mixer or blender and grind to fine powder. 

That’s all it’s as easy as this and our dabeli masala is ready. 



Have a nice day ~~

Black Forest Cake

Remember my tricolor cupcakes with cream frosting, the same day I also made this black forest cake for DH birthday.  Last year I baked chocolate cake with chocolate frosting which was so delicious I got wonderful review for it from DH and others but couldn’t post it as I didn’t took pictures. 


This year after a lot of thinking I decided to make black forest cake as it was in my wish list for long and took all my effect to take pictures too.  The step vise pictures looks a bit messy, but having newspaper over the counter really helps a lot with aftermath of baking as the one part I hate about baking is cleaning after all the work done, always end up having so many things to wash, clean, wipe and store back all the spoons, cups, tins and what not! It’s just me or any of you have same feeling too?  Anyways here the cake just before cutting :)


Coming back to our cake, yes I agree I didn’t pipe well and it doesn’t cook all pretty too as I am still learning and hope to do better in future.  It was a humid day (as always) the icing was melting which you can see in the pictures and I was running out of my patience.   If you are patience enough and practice you can decorate the cake nicely it comes with practice so don’t be dishearten if 1st time you don’t get it right, you will eventually get it it’s just matter of time. 

Anyways the cake tasted deliciousssss, seriously it was too delicious everyone liked it and I shared this with my friend and she loved it too.   I adapted the recipe from joyofbaking and from Prema’s black forest cake recipe and came up with my own recipe, and thanks to Prema for always motivating to try icing, no matter how I do she still praise it with kinds words (though I know the truth ;)).  So not dragging any more let’s look at the recipe.   Posting this cake today as it's dear friend Dharini birthday, so here you go gal Wish you Happy Birthday.

Ingredients:
[Adapted from Joyofbaking & Prema’s Culinary]

For Chocolate Sponge Cake
Plain Flour - 250gms ( 2 cups)
Baking Powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Eggs - 4
Granulated White Sugar - 200gms
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Vegetable Oil - 60 ml [4 tbsp]
Cocoa Powder - 30 gms [ 1/3 cup]

For Whipping Cream Frosting & Assembly
Whipping Cream - 400ml
Icing Sugar - 20gms
Pitted Cherries - 1 tin [halved, keep the syrup]
Corn Flour - 1 tbsp
Granulated White Sugar - 2 tbsp
Maraschino Cherries - 10-12
Chocolate Rise - 100gms
Colorful Sprinkles - 1 tbsp [optional]



Method

For Chocolate Sponge Cake
1. Shift plain four, baking powder, soda, salt and keep aside. Line and grease a 9" round baking tin. Preheat oven at 180C [ I used 8” round baking tin].

2. In a large bowl break eggs, add sugar and beat in high speed for 5-6 minutes or until egg mixture gets light & fluffy  add oil, vanilla extract and beat for a minute to combine everything well.

• For eggless version, replace eggs and sugar with 1/2 cup of condense milk and rest of procedure is same

3. Add cocoa powder, Keep adding flour in small quantities and blend well.

4. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  You will also notice cake will start to leave sides of pan.  Cool on a metal rack for 5 minutes before removing cake from pan and then cool the cake completely before frosting.

• [You can bake this as a single cake like I did or divide the batter in two same size tin and bake twice, you need to check the cake after 25 minutes if it’s baked fully.
• You can make the sponge cake in advance and store in fridge (wrapped well in cling) up to to 2 days before doing frosting]

For Frosting
5. Remove wax paper from cake and slice the cake in 2 or 3 layers horizontally.

• [If you baked the cake in 2 pans then slice in 2 layers so in total there will be 4 layers of cake]

6. Drain out juice from cherries in a bowl, halves cherries & keep aside.  In a small bowl take 2-3 tbsp of drained cherries juice, add corn flour and mix well, make sure not to form any lumps.

7. Heat drained juice along with 2 tbsp sugar until it starts to boil, slow flame, now add corn flour mixture and whisk briskly.  In a minute juice will start to thicken off flame and keep aside to cool.

8. In a large bowl add whipping cream, icing sugar and beat till stiff peaks.

Now that we have all prep work done we can work on our assembly.
For Assembly
9. Place a cake layer on the cake board and brush with prepared syrup evenly over, idea here is to soak cake to make it soft but do not add too much of syrup it will make the cake soggy and it will break.

10. Add a dollop of cream on top and spread over, decorate with cherries.

11. Repeat for 2nd cake layer with syrup, cream and cherries. Keep the third layer on second,spread the cream on top evenly.

12. Frost sides of the cake.  Fill cream in a piping bag and decorate top sides.  In the center you have include chocolate  shaves.   I thicken up remaining syrup and spread it in center.

13. Coat sides of cake with chocolate rice and also on top of cake and pipe lower edges of cake.

• [I did a mistake of piping top and bottom of cake and then coat chocolate rice]

14. Place the Maraschino cherries at the top and add sprinkles in center. 

Want a bite?



Have a nice day ~~