Chocolate Malted Muffins

Blogging Marathon# 57: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Cooking with Whole grains

Dish: Chocolate Malted Muffins

For the 3rd and final day of this week's blogging marathon, I made these delicious Chocolate Malted Muffins. These go to Kalyani's 'Kid Delight -- Cooking with Whole grains' event (an event started by Valli).

I usually substitute some of the all purpose flour with wholewheat flour and wholewheat pastry flour to add some whole grains and fiber to my bakes. I have also used barley flour in a strawberry cake but this recipe uses 1 cup barley flour and is the main ingredient for this muffin.

Read more »

Banana Yeasted Sandwich Bread

Blogging Marathon# 40: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Yeast Breads
Dish: Banana Yeasted Sandwich Bread

We are back to the regular weeking marathons this month. It has been quite a roller coaster ride exploring the dishes from all the Indian states. So I'm taking a short break from Indian food and decided to bake some yeast breads for the first week of Blogging Marathon# 40.
My husband bought me this Bread maker recently. He wanted to buy one a while back, but I was resisting the idea -- didn't want to clutter the kitchen with another appliance. But when it went on sale couple of months ago, we went ahead and bought it. Since then we have stopped buying bread unless it is absolutely necessary and I bake about 2 loaves of bread every week.
But what I found out was that the bread baked in the machine is rather unsightly -- awkwardly large and has a gaping hole in the bottom. I couldn't even pull myself to take a picture of that monstrosity -- don't get me wrong, it tastes amazing, but it is just not camera ready (you know what I mean.. right!!!!)

Read more »

Vyborg Pretzels (Eggless version)

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: BM# 32 Bookmarked Recipes
Dish: Vyborg Pretzels by Chef Mireille

I am revisting my fellow bloggers posts from the A-Z Alphabet marathon for this week of BM# 33. Like I said yesterday it has been tough finalizing this week's 3 dishes. I still have no idea what to make for tomorrow from the very long list of short listed dishes. I've to check my pantry and the fridge to see what can be made with th time I have. I wish I can try all the recipes, but alas I can't.

So for Day 2, I made Chef Mireille's Vyborg Pretzels. These pretzels are popular in the city of Vyborg, which was previously part of Finland. These pretzels caught my eye the minute I saw them. I've been planning to make pretzels for quite some time now and when I saw these I knew this was going to be my very first pretzel recipe to try. I wasn't disappointed. This recipe makes 4 huge challah bread style pretzels that are soft, slightly sweet and super flavorful from the addtion of saffron and cardamom.

Changes I made were, use egg-replacer in place of eggs, brush with heavy cream in place of egg yolk-milk mixture and sprinkle some turbonado sugar on top for some extra sweetness and crunch. My pretzel shape did not turn out as professional as Mir's, but they tasted amazing especially when eaten warm. They stay fresh when wrapped well and stored at room temperature for couple of days.

Read more »

Scallion Pancakes

This is the second dish that I made for the International Food Challenge. Scallion pancakes have been on my to-make list for a long time and when I saw them on the list of Cantonese dishes to try, I knew I had to make these. I found a recipe using whole wheat pastry flour in Whole Grains Baking by King Arthur flour and made them. They turned out great.

The dough for these pancakes is very sticky and that is how it is supposed to be to get nice and chewy pancakes. Recipe also requires quite a bit of oil, so don't attempt this recipe if you are on a low-fat diet or watching your calorie intake. But you need the oil to make the pancakes less sticky and easy to work with. 

I halved the recipe and made 3 pancakes. They are so addictive, that me and my husband ate them all in one sitting. The best part of the whole recipe is the dipping sauce; salty, sour, spicy and sweet.

Read more »

Sourdough Chocolate Bread

VeganMofo Day 5: My sourdough starter has been neglected for quite sometime now. During my 3rd trimester, I neither had the energy nor the time to even feed the poor starter. I can't even explain why or how I brought it out and fed it just hours before I rushed to the hospital for delivery!!!! I had the presence of mind to put it back in the fridge before leaving the house (??). 

So finally I felt it was time to use the sourdough starter and I made this amazing Sourdough Chocolate Bread. I had this recipe bookmarked forever and finally I got to make it.

Read more »

Portuguese Sweet Bread

For day 2 of BM, I made this sweet yeast bread from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baking Apprentice cookbook. I’ve been meaning to make this bread for a long time and even bought orange and lemon extracts to use. Finally I got to make for this bread baking week.

This bread is rich with the addition of eggs, butter and powdered milk. It smells heavenly while baking and tastes equally amazing. I have one loaf in the freezer that I intend to use very soon.

This recipe starts with a sponge that is fermented for 1-1.5 hours before adding the other ingredients for the bread. If you want to make the bread, read the recipe carefully for the rising times.

 

Read more »