Delicious Vegan Buns

Delicious Vegan Buns (Unglazed)

Innovation and making things tailored to personal taste and health requirements lead to new recipes. I used to get pav and buns from market but the bleached All-purpose flour used to make me hesitant to consume it thus I would be longing to have my fix of missal–pav and burgers. But one fine day I decided to take the baking of buns in my own hands and succeeded in making these crunchy soft buns which I consumed with missal and made yummy burgers using homemade banana cutlets and all greens with little butter as my high cholesterol limits me from butter intake. The buns were made from 1:1:1 ratio of multigrain flour: All-purpose flour: Suji (semolina) with olive oil and milk. So what more one could ask for when the outcome was healthy and tasty.

Please note that :
Since I wanted to avoid use of sugar/butter/more honey thus did not glaze the buns
To avoid use of more yeast (personal choice) proofing time is increased and yeast amount is far less.

Preparation Time: 1 hr. (proofing time not included)

Baking Time: 10 -15 min. /batch

Serving: 15 buns

Ingredients Required For Making Delicious Buns:

• 300 gm. All-purpose flour
• 300 gm. Multigrain flour
• 300 gm. Semolina (Suji)
• 1 ½ Teaspoon Dry active Yeast
• 100 ml water
• 200 ml Soya Milk
• 3 Teaspoon Honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4-5 Teaspoon Til
• 6 table spoon + 1 teaspoon Olive oil or softned nutrelite butter(for regular bunsl 

Direction For Making Delicious Buns:

• Mix
• Multigrain flour
• Semolina
• All-purpose flour
• Salt
• Keep aside this mixture.
• In a deep bowl or glass take
• Water and warm it to 35-38 Degree centigrade. (You should feel the water warm when finger is dipped not hot)
• Dissolve sugar and 1 teaspoon of All-purpose flour in it.
• Add yeast and stir till all granules of dry active yeast are dissolved.
• Cover with a lid and keep in warm place for 20-30 minutes.
• The yeast mixture will become frothy and the glass/bowl will be quite full by this time.
• Add
• Yeast
• 100 ml. of soya milk
• Honey to the flour mixture and knead.
• The dough should not be hard but pliable.
• Add remaining soya milk in little portions and keep kneading.
• Add Olive oil and knead till all oil is incorporated. (You can add oil in small portion to ease the work)
• Make a round of the dough and apply one teaspoon of oil all around it and keep it in a container covered tightly for 6-8 hrs. in a warm place.
• By this time the dough will have proofed and will become double or more than its size.
• Dust some flour (I used multigrain you can use all-purpose also) on the place /container you are going to knead the proofed dough and take out the proofed dough on it.
• Punch the air out of the dough and knead. You may require oiling your hands if the dough sticks to hands.
• Do not add flour as this will result in dense and hard buns.
• Once nicely kneaded (max 5 minutes) divide the dough to 15 portions and roll them using oiled palms to nice balls.
• On a baking tray (oil the tray if it is not non-stick, I used silicon baking sheet) place these balls at a distance of 3 inches.
• Sprinkle little Til (sesame) seeds on each ball.
• Cover with moist cloth or a container which would not touch the top of dough balls. Keep aside for 30-40 min for second proofing of the dough.
• The dough balls would become almost double their size.
• Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degree for 10 min. Check with a dry stick by poking the buns with the stick. If it comes out clean the buns are done.
• Remove from oven and keep in a basket or cloth lined container covered with thick cloth to make sure they neither become dry not the moisture during cooling makes them soggy.
• Since I did not glaze the buns, so no shiny top of my buns in picture.

Delicious Vegan Buns

• To get shiny glazed to get shiny top of buns brush them with soya milk+ honey/ soya milk+ sugar/lemon +juice sugar before sprinkling sesame seeds and sugar syrup just after baking.
• Enjoy the hot freshly baked buns Missal (An Indian savory made from sprouted pulse) 

Missal-Pav aka Vegan Buns

•  Just sut them to two halves and put some butter and jam and enjoy with tea  /make burger with cutlet and green of your choice. My husband liked them so much that he said I can eat without any accompanimentJ
• Please note that the buns will be little crunchy and dense because of very less fat and All-purpose flour.
•  My due apologies to all followers and friends. Step by step pictures could not be taken as power supply was erratic and I had to hurry when supply was restored.  I will post them when I make them next time.

Tips:

• Make sure the water for yeast is not too hot else the yeast will die and will have to be thrown.
• An activated yeast mixture will always be too frothy.
• Mix salt and all flours properly for even distribution.
• Fine grained semolina gives better result.
• Always preheat the oven for 15 minutes before baking.
• If the power supply plays tantrums then keep the dough in the fridge do not keep the dough ball for too long outside as they will not rise during baking and the final result may not be too good.

Suggested Variations:

• You can increase the amount of all-purpose flour and reduce multigrain flour.
• Multigrain flour can be replaced by whole wheat flour.
• Honey can be replaced by white sugar or brown sugar. Remember honey not only is a sweetening agent but also add moistness to the baked products.
• Sugar/honey can be increased to double if more sweetness is required in buns.
• For those who do not want vegan buns
• Soya milk can be replaced with dairy milk.
• Olive oil/ Nutrelite butter can be replaced by dairy butter. 
• Egg white can be brushed on the top of dough balls before sprinkling til (sesame seeds).
• To get more soft bunsand glazed top buns increase the amount of oil / butter to double the amount.
• If proofing time is desired to be decreased to 2-3 hours then increase the amount of yeast to 3 teaspons.
• Add 2 Teaspoon of cinnamon powder  and 2-3 teaspoons of sugar powder to the flour mixture  before adding wet ingredients and make these hot cross cinnamon buns. 

Hot Cross Cinnamon Buns Topped with Sesame seeds (Un-glazed)

Deli- Milk -Shake

Deli-Milk-Shake

·  It was most difficult time for me when I had to make my children aged 8 1nd 12 yrs. eat Lauki (Bottle guard) sabji. They always wanted me to make Koftas of Lauki. Though I had no difficulty in slogging in kitchen for my family yet how many times one make and eat Koftas. So to make sure this cooling and healthy summer vegetable is eaten without much of ado and get maximum benefit of it I came up with a brilliant idea of making shake and passing it off as Pista milk shake with few pieces of pistachios sprinkled on the top of the shake. The Pistachios  made it look absolutely authentic and they lapped it up. But then came the end of honeymoon with Lauki. My daughter who is elder by 4 yrs. to her brother returned earlier than expected from evening games time and saw what I was doing and then onwards refused to have that shake. Reason? There is Lauki in it!
      I fail to understand this fixation of not wanting to eat Lauki once they grow up.

Well years later I gave it to my daughter-in-law and after she said it is yummy ija  (term for mother in our language), I told her the ingredients and she just could not believe. This shake is very cooling and perfect for summers. It helps reduce acidity and is perfect drink for person suffering with sun stroke as it is light to digest, cooling to whole system, nourishing and yet easy to digest.

One precaution when you make it sure kids are not around. They will love it till they are not told it has Lauki, it does not take to be Einstien to guess the rest :) 

Preparation Time: 10 min

Making Time: 15 min
Servings: Makes approx. 300 ml Shake

Ingredients Required for Making Deli-Milk-Shake:

• 100 gm Tender Green Lauki (Bottle gourd)
• 250 ml. Full cream milk
• 5-10 pistachios
• 1 Teaspoon Green Cardamom Powder
• 5 Teaspoon Sugar powder /to taste
• 10-15 ml. Water

Directions For Making Deli-Milk-Shake:

• Wash the bottle gourd and cut the 1 inch part with stalk and little from the lower end.
• Cut into two halves and if there are seeds in the bottle gourd then remove the soft portion with seeds.
• Grate the gourd and place it in a thick bottom container.
• Add
• Water
• 2 Teaspoon sugar
• Mix nicely
• Cook on low flame with continuous stirring till the gourd shreds change color and are cooked soft.
• Cover and let it cool.
• When the cooked gourd is cooled pulse it in a mixer-grinder to make absolutely smooth paste.
• Add
• Chilled milk
• Cardamom powder
• Sugar powder
• Churn nicely to get a uniform light green milk shake.
• Pour the mixture in glasses and top it with finely cut pistachio pieces.
• Serve this chilled milk shake and pass it off as Pistachio shake to children as well as elders. Believe me until unless they are told they will not be able to find the ingredients used to make this wonderful shake.

Deli-Milk-Shake

Enjoy this cooling, healthy milk shake this summer.

Tips:

• Make sure there are no seeds and pulp when you grate the bottle gourd.
• Do not worry about the change in color as it may turn little dark on grating. Faster it goes for cooking lesser will be the color change.
• The gourd has to be tender else the peeling will make the paste coarse this will make the shake unpalatable.
• Removing the peeling from the gourd may be an option but this reduces the green color as well as the nutritional value of the shake.

Alternate Suggestions:

• It can be decorated with rose petals along with pistachio flakes
• Rose flavor can be added instead of cardamom.
• The shake can be topped with little cream and cherry to make it tempting to kids.
• 1 lt. milk can be boiled till it reduces to 250-300 ml. This thickened milk can replace normal milk. The resulting mixture can be frozen to make ice cream. Children love it. I have done it so many times while making kulfi (A type of ice-cream made from thickened milk) also.