Whole-Wheat-Carrot-Cinnamon-Muffins

Whole Wheat flour-carrot-Muffin

Muffins are denser than cakes and require less fat (Oil/Butter). Carrots/Apples/Pear and other fruits make it very healthy and nutritious along with tasty. If these muffins are made brown sugar or yet better organic unrefined jaggery then it tops the list of all muffins for its nutritional, health and taste quotient. Since I am a chocolate buff thus I divided my batter to two parts (3:1) and in one part added dark chocolate and put it in the bottom and the rest 3 parts was used for pouring above the chocolate batter, I found this experiment unique and yummy. Try if you are cocolate buff like me. Else avoid the cocolate part.

Preparation Time: 20-30 min.

Baking Time: 25-30 min. maximum

Servings 4 large muffins (100gm each muffin)

Nutritional Value of Carrot muffins: (Approximate)

Calories:  1036

Total fats: 47.17 gm

Cholesterol: 478mg.

Sodium: 627mg

Potassium: 606 mg

Carbs: 151.34gm

Dietary fibers: 40.2 gm

Sugars: 71.05 gm

Proteins: 27.12gm

Vitamins A,B,C group

Minerals calcium, Iron

Divide the above data with 4 to get approx. value /muffin.

To reduce sugar amount and increase iron and fiber contents white sugar should be replaced with organic unrefined jaggery and to reduce fat butter should be replaced with Olive oil (60% of butter amount).

Ingredients Required For Making Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins:

• 100 gm. Whole Wheat Flour
• 50 gm. Salted Butter
• 50 gm. Sugar
• 100 gm. carrots
• 2 Medium size eggs (The eggs I used weighed 50 gm each)
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda/Eating Soda
• 1/2Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
• 1 egg white for glazing muffins (Whisked separately)

Directions For making Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins:

• Wash and remove the fibrous roots from carrots. Do not peel them else many nutrients will be lost.

Carrots Cleaned not Peeled

• Grate the carrot and keep aside for later use.

Cleaned and grated carrots

• Sift flour, cinnamon powder and baking soda 3-4 times to ensure even mixing of baking soda and flour also this incorporates air in flour which helps batter to rise.
• Powder the sugar by pulsing it in grinder.
• Cut the butter to small cubes and beat with sugar powder till creamy mixture is obtained. (3-4 min. with hand mixer)

Whisked Butter and sugar 

• Add egg yolks and whisk for a minute.

Butter and egg yolk beaten to creamy texture

• Whisk the egg whites till stiff peaks are obtained.

Egg white beaten to stiff peaks

• Add flour to grated carrots and then add this mixture and whisked egg whites in butter and sugar mixture.
• Mix with light hand without whisking, just swirl and mix this will give a thick uniform batter.

Thick batter for muffins

• Pour the batter in muffin cups and brush the top lightly with whisked egg white.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or till done in a preheated oven at 180^o C.
• The top will become golden and the testing skewer should come out clean when baked.
• Cool on the rake. Remove from the molds and when muffins come at room temperature wrap them individually with cling wrap. Store and enjoy with hot cup of coffee/tea/milk.

Whole Wheat flour-carrot-Muffin

Tips:

• Do not beat while mixing the ingredients in final stage as the air trapped will get released and the muffins will not rise. Use swirl and cut method.
• Under-mixing will result in non-uniform batter so mix slowly with light hands till uniform batter is obtained.
• Eggs can be beaten together with butter without separating yolk and white. This will shorten the time required.
• Carrots and flour mixture should be added together just before adding to butter egg mixture because moisture of carrot will start the reaction of soda.
• Oven should be always pre-heated for baking else slow baking will start during heating of oven causing the baked product (Muffins in this case) to get spoiled.

Suggested Variations:

• Nuts can be roasted and added to the batter this will add crunchiness to the muffins as well as nutrition.
• Replace sugar with brown sugar/ jaggery for better nutrition.
• Replace butter with Olive oil for reducing fat content and fewer calories.
• Extra 50 gm of carrots can be added to the batter in paste form to get more carrot flavor and dietary fibers.
• I prefer my cakes and muffins nude, if you want top them with whisked cream and fruits.
• As I haqve mentioned in strating that for chocolate fans like me I included chocolate by taking 1/4 part of batter and adding melted dark chocolate 50 gm. Then this part of batter was poured at the bottom and above it pure carrot batter, then baked to get yummy muffins. Try it if you are chocolate buff like me.

Eggless Orange Cake

Super soft Spongy Eggless Orange Cake

Cake whether it is eggless or with eggs when has fruits in it its nutritional value increases along with the taste, I always tell parents of school going children to order for the fruit cake rather that chocolate cake always. Reason for those children who shy away from taking fruits, it is the best way to incorporate fruits in their diet. If these cakes are made in whole wheat flour or multigrain flour then it is best as refined and bleached flour loses much of the nutrients. Whole wheat fruit cakes can be packed in the tiffin or given in breakfast with a cup of milk. What a delicious lunch box and breakfast it will make. So what stops just try it once and see how your family likes it.

Preparation Time: 20-30 min.

Baking Time: 30-35 min

Servings: Makes 300 gm. cake (Approx.)

Ingredients Required For Making Eggless Orange Cake:

• 150gm.+ 6-8 tsp. All purpose flour/Wheat flour
• 6 Oranges (I prefer at least one with green peeling)
• 75 gm. Sugar
• 50 gm. butter
• 3 Tbsp. Thick Curd
• 1 Tbsp. Vinegar (I prefer Apple cider as it is not synthetic vinegar)
• 1 Tsp. baking Powder
• 1/2Tsp. Baking soda (Cooking soda)

Direction For Making Eggless Orange Cake:

• Powder the sugar (You can take castor sugar also)
• Peel the oranges and remove the seeds and outer thin film from the oranges wedges of 4 oranges. Make pieces of the wedges.
• Sprinkle 4-5 tsp. flour on the pieces of orange wedges. After some time the flour will soak some juice from orange wedge pieces do not worry. Just do not handle it unnecessarily too much.
• Take out juice of 2 oranges.(It should be 150 ml.)
• Remove threads from inside of peel of orange with green peeling and grate it or shred it. Keep 1 teaspoon coat it with flour and keep it aside for. Discard rest. ( I prefer shredding) 
• Coat the rind pieces with the flour.

Cleaned Orange wedge pieces, rind and juice

• In a bowl take curd and whisk it to smoothness.
• Add vinegar and orange juice to curd and mix.
• Mix
• 150 gm. Flour
• Baking powder
• Baking soda
• Sieve the above mixture 4-5 times to make uniform mixture.
• Melt butter in a double boiler or microwave. Do not boil it.
• In a big deep bowl take sugar and melted butter and beat till it becomes creamy and fluffy.
• Add flour mixture to butter sugar mixture and mix till homogenous mixture is obtained.
• Add 1 teaspoon orange rind pieces coated with flour and mix.

Flour, butter, sugar and rind mixture

• Add curd + vinegar + orange juice mixture and mix with light (Fold and cut method), this should be done little faster else vinegar and baking soda and baking powder will react and cake will not rise properly.
• Add orange wedge pieces and mix with a swirl for even distribution.
• Cake batter should be pourable not too thick.

Batter for Eggless Orange Cake

Pourable Consistency of Cake Batter

• Pour the batter in the pan lined with butter paper. Tap it lightly to remove the trapped air bubbles and bake in a preheated oven at 165 ^o C for 30-35 minutes.
• After 10 min. you will see the cake rising and after 20-25 min the upper layer to become golden brown.
• Check the cake for the state of baking by poking a thin wooden/ metallic skewer from center in diagonal direction.

Eggless Orange Cake and Cupcakes Baking

• If the skewer comes out clean that means the cake is baked.
• If it has some material sticking to it then bake for some more time till it comes out clean.
• Baking time may differ from one oven to other by 5-10 min.

Cup cakes Baked After 20 minutes

Eggless Orange Cake

Tips:

• Make sure the oranges are not too sour best is  nice sweet oranges.
• If orange is little sour then decrease the amount of vinegar to 1/2teaspoon. 
• Sugar amount can be increased to 90 gm. but if you prefer too sweet cake. I prefer the cake to have a balanced sweetness so that the orange taste is not camouflaged.
• The number of oranges can be changed according to the pieces you want to put in the cake.
• Orange juice should be not less than 100 ml. 150 ml. is ideal.
• The skewer should be thin (1 mm. in diameter).
• Do not over mix or beat the mixture, mixing should be done fast with fold and cut action..
• If you find the upper crust becoming brown without the cake getting baked reduce the temperature by 10 degrees and cover the cake with foil or moist cloth without removing the cake from oven and then bake.
• Add the liquid mixture in three parts and if you find the batter becoming thin stop do not add more.
• Do not fill the container more than half with the batter, if the batter is more instead of pouring it in the cake baking container add little juice or water to make it little thin and put in cup cake moulds (oiled and flour dusted) and bake with the cake, They will bake in 20 min.

Alternate Suggestions:

• 1 Tsp. orange essence, pinch of orange color can be added to the batter. I prefer not to add any artificial additive.
• Orange rind pieces can be coated with caramel this will give cake a wonderful color.
• Oil can replace butter. If you are taking oil no need to heat it. As heating of butter is to just melt it.
• Instead of mixing baking soda to the flour it can added to the vinegar + curd + orange juice mixture and this can be added to the flour + butter + sugar + rind mixture only one has to be very quick as soda will react with the vinegar and bubbles will be formed rendering soda ineffective.

Happy baking

Banana-Jaggery Eggless Cake

Banana-Jaggery Cake

Banana-Jaggery cake

Cake is the flavor of season in the month of December, as from thanks giving to Christmas and New Year eve fall in this month. Many either are pure vegetarian or opt to have egg less cake. Egg-less cakes are made either from Dates, chocolate and fruits. Though most of them are in texture like any other cake the recipe of the cake I am blogging today is slightly wet / moist but is extremely tasty and healthy. Iused to make Banana-Sugar cake but Banana and jaggery was introduced to me by my daughter-in-law who inturn got this wonderful recipe fromPushpa (Anand's wife). Banana and jaggery both are rich in iron and whole wheat as well as banana is rich in vitamins and fibers. Extremely easy to make this cake is delight of all cake lover's especially egg-less cake lovers. My daughter in law made this for my mother and she delightfully cut this cake.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Baking Time: 50 minutes (Approx)

Servings: makes 800 gm cake (Approx)

Ingredients Required For Making Banana-Jaggery:

• 150 gm. Jaggery

• 225 gm. Whole wheat flour

• 225 gm. Banana (Peeled)

• 1/2Teaspoon Cinnamon powder

• 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder (Level)

• 1 Teaspoon Eating Soda (Level)

• 150 ml. Olive oil/sunflower oil

• 100 gm. walnut kernel

• 100 gm. Cashew

Directions For making Banana-Jaggery Cake:

• Cut peeled banana to small pieces.

Banana cut to pieces

• Break the jaggery to small pieces.

• Mix jaggery and banana in a bowl, cover and keep aside for 10 min. 

Jaggery added to Banana pieces and mixed

After 10 min. Banana and jaggery mixture

• Mix

• Flour

• Baking powder

• Eating soda

• Sieve the flour mixture through a fine sieve three to four times to ensure through mixing.

• The mixture of jaggery and banana will have liquefied in 10 min. Make it to fine paste. 

Paste and jaggery paste

Whole wheat flour and jaggery banana paste

• Add flour to jaggery banana paste.

Jaggery banana paste added to flour 

• Add oil and cinnamon powder and mix.

Oil being added to flour banana mixture

Cinnamon powder added to flour jaggery mixture

• Mix the nuts and sprinkle 10 gm. of whole wheat flour on then and give a shake so as to coat them with flour.

• Add these nuts to the batter and stir to mix the nuts in batter.

Batter of cake

• The batter will be thick not pourable like in egg cakes.

Consistency of Batter

• Put the batter in a butter paper lined baking dish.

Batter in baking dish

• Bake for 30 min at 150^oC temperature.

• Increase the temperature to 160^o C and bake for 10 minutes.

• Poke with a needle if it comes out clean then switch off the oven. If it comes out sticky with batter then bake for 5-10 minutes at 160^o.

Cake after 50 min.  of baking

• When the batter does not stick to the needle then switch off the oven and remove the cake from oven. Cool on the rake.

Banana-Jaggery Cake Ready to be cut

My Mom  Cutting the Cake

• Cut the cooled cake to required pieces. If hot cake is cut then pieces will not come out neat. 

Banana-Jaggery Cake

Tips:

• Do not add any raisins as they do not taste good in this cake.

• Do not increase the amount of cinnamon the flavor will become overpowering and unwelcome.
  

• Always measure the baking powder and eating soda with standard measuring spoon to get best results.

• Get jaggery powder from market to ease your work.

• The baking dish should never be filled more than 3/4^th. Else the cake will remain half-baked from the center.

• Always coat the nuts with flour to ensure they do not settle at the bottom.

• If you do not want to use butter paper then thinly coat the baking dish with oil then dust flour on it before putting the batter in it.
• Keep 150 ml of water in the oven while baking below the cake rake to ensure the top exposed surface of cake does not become hard.

Alternate Suggestions:

• Organic jaggery can be taken rather than normal jaggery.

• Multigrain flour can be taken in place of whole wheat flour.

• Almonds can be added along with the nuts.
• Bananas can be mashed in the peel itself but the mash should be weighed to the given weight in the recipe. 

Walnut-Spice cake

Walnut-Spice Cake with Walknut by the side

Walnut-Spice Cake

Christmas season, birthdays or any occasion cakes for all occasions are available in various flavors in market but what a charm it holds when for the loved ones cake is baked at home. It has a personal touch and we can make as many variations as possible. On my children birth days they used to demand I make chocolate cake or spice walnut cake. My husband used to lend helping hand and children used to boast to their friends of the delicious cake their mom makes and how papa dear is always there to help her in baking the cake. My daughter in law recently went for trekking and made me make this cake since then her colleague have been pestering her to ask me to blog the recipe of Walnut-spice cake. Make this Christmas special for your loved ones by baking this cake.   

Preparation Time: 40-50 min.

Baking Time: 45-50 min

Serving: makes 750 gm. Cake (Approx)

Ingredients Requi8red For Making Walnut-Spice Cake:

• 6 Eggs 
• 200 gm. Maida (Refined Flour)

Refined Flour (Maida)

• 150 gm Sugar
• 2 Teaspoon Honey
• 150 gm Nutrelite Butter/White butter
• 100 gm Walnuts deshelled (Akharot)
• 8 Cloves (lawang)
• 3 cm. Cinnamon piece (Dalchini)/1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 4 Green Cardamoms (Choti Elaichi)
• 2 Teaspoons Baking Powder (Level not heaped)

Directions for Making Walnut-spiced Cake:

Making Golden Syrup:

• In a thick bottom pan take 50 gm of sugar and heat on low flame with continuous stirring.
• The sugar will start melting keep heating on low flame and stirring till the sugar turns to dark brown (not black) liquid. It will take 4-5 min.
• Switch off the gas and add 100 ml. of water to the hot melted brown color sugar in the pan. The sugar will stiffen do not worry.
• Boil the mixture with stirring so as to dissolve all sugar.
• When the sugar water mixture reduces to half remove from heat and cover. Keep aside to cool and future use.

Making The Batter Of The Walnut-Spice Cake:

• Mix baking powder and refined flour and sift it through a fine sieve four or five times to ensure thorough mixing of baking powder with maida. Keep in a dry container.
• Mix all spices and make a course powder.
• Add the spices powder to the golden syrup cover and keep aside.
• Cut walnuts to small size and sprinkle 10 gm. refined flour on it. Mix nicely so as to coat the walnut pieces with maida(Refined flour).
• Separate egg whites from egg yolk.
• Powder 100 gm sugar to a fine powder. Keep 50 gm sugar separate for making golden syrup.
• Cut the butter to cubes and take in a wide deep bowl.
• Beat the butter with a wooden fork or fingers to soften it.
• Add all sugar powder and whisk with wooden fork or fingers till it gets creamy consistency. It will take minimum 10 minutes.
• Beat egg yolk and add small portions and whisk with fork. Continue till all egg yolk has been incorporated in butter sugar mixture.
• The mixture should look creamy and be light.

Butter and Sugar Egg yolk mixturemixture

• Whisk egg white till stiff peak are formed of the froth of egg white.

Egg White being whisked

Frothy stiff peaked Egg White

• To the creamy mixture of sugar, butter and egg yolk add one spoon of refined flour and baking powder mixture and mix with light swirling action. Add one spoon of egg white and fold it to the mixture. Repeat this alternate mixing of egg white and flour mixture till all the egg white and flour is finished.

Egg White and Flour being added 

Batter before golden syrup is added

• Add spices and golden syrup mixture and honey to the above mixture and mix with light swirling action.

Golden syrup with spices, Honey added to Batter

• Add the walnut pieces and mix lightly.

Walnuts added to batter and mixed

• Line a baking dish with butter paper and pour the batter in it.

Batter being poured in Baking dish lined with butter paper

Ready for Baking

Baking The Cake:

• Pre-heat the oven to 160 centigrate and place a small metallic /oven proof dish with 150 ml. water ot the bottom.
• Bake in a pre-heated oven at 160­^o C for 30 min.

After 30 minutes

• The cake will rise and start becoming light brown from top.
• Increase the temperature to 180^oC and bake for another 10-15 minutes.
• Keep checking by poking a long needle in the cake and switch off the oven immediately when the needle comes out clean. The time may vary from 5-10 min depending on the size of eggs.

After 45 minutes

• Remove the cake from oven cover with a thin cloth or butter paper and cool on a rake.

Walnut-SDpice Cake

• Turn the cake in the baking dish upside down on a big dish and pat the baking dish lightly with hands. The cake will fall free on the plate.
• Remove the butter paper and cut the cake to the required size or decorate it as per your choice with icing then enjoy with hot tea/chocolate/coffee with family and friends.

Walnut-Spice Cake with Walnuts on the side

Merry Christmas to my friends. Celeberate this christmas with Walnut-Spice Cake.

Tips:

• Butter shouldf be chilled noty at room temperature when you cut it to pieces for whisking.
• Avoid using metallic spoon or fork. If wooden fork is not available use your fingers for making fluffy cake. Metal fork causes heavy whisking thus reducing trapped air.
• Do not heap the spoon while measuring the baking powder.
• Measuring spoon set is availabler in market which gives standard measurement, use them preferably.
• Sugar powder should be very fine.
• Add egg yolk slowly with continuous whisking to avoid curdling of butter.
• Coating nuts with flour is must to avoid them from settling at the bottom while baking.
• Caramelize the sugar on low flame and do not burn it the golden syrup will not be golden in color or taste.
• Water is kept in the oven to make sure the top exposed surface remains moist and soft.

Alternate Suggestions:

• 50 gm of deseeded dates can be soaked in 100 ml of milk for 30 min and then ground to coarse paste and added along with golden syrup- spices mixture.
• Whole wheat flour or multi grain flour can be taken instead of refined flour (Maida) to make the healthier version of Walnut-Spice Cake.
• 20 ml. Rum can be added along with golden syrup-spice mixture to give a Christmas touch.