SIMPLE VANNILA CUPCAKE.



This is a very easy and Simple  vanilla  cup  cake  recipe.I  got  this  recipe  from  just  easy  recipes.com. Made some  slight  changes  to suit  my  little ones  sweet  tooth  craving. It's a  super  easy  and fail  proof recipe.I  have  even  used  this  recipe to make a   pressure  cooker vanilla  cake too  and  it  came  out  so well  and  everybody  liked  it  too. So it's a  good  recipe  for   baking  beginners  to  try. My  son  just  loved  it .

INGREDIENTS

All  purpose  flour/Maida - 1 1/2  cup
Sugar - 1  cup
Baking  powder - 2  tsp
Salt -1/2  tsp
Milk - 1/2  cup
Any flavorless  oil- 1/2cup
Eggs - 2
Vanilla  essence - 1 tsp



METHOD

1. Sift  dry ingredients  together  and  mix .

2. Add wet   Ingredients  to  dry  ingredients  and beat  well  until  smooth  and  creamy.

3.  Keep  muffin  tins  ready  lined  with  muffin   liners .

4.   Fill  up  to 3/4  th  of  each  cup .

5. Bake  for 15  minutes  at the  180  degrees.
The  baking  time  may  vary  according  to  various  ovens.

    WHOLE WHEAT PUMPKIN MUFFINS.

This is a very tasty   savoury  muffins. These too  is an  adaptation  from  the  blog cookieandkate. The  main change I  have  made is  that  of the sweetner .The original recipe uses honey but according to our knowledge honey cant be heated so  I used sugar.Here i used home made pumpkin puree.I made it by pureeing pressure cooked  pumpkin.To make the pumpkin puree I used almost 250 grams ripe pumpkin.Peel it and dice it.Pressure cook with little water for 3 or 4 whistles.Cool it,puree in a blender and use it.

INGREDIENTS

• ⅓  cup coconut oil 
• 1  cup sugar
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• 1  cup pumpkin purée
• ¼  cup milk 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling on top
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon allspice or cloves
• 1¾ cups whole wheat flour
• ⅓ cup old-fashioned oats, plus more for sprinkling on top

Method

1. Preheat oven to  180 degree C...and keep muffin tins ready lined with muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl, beat the oil and sugar together with a whisk. Add eggs, and beat well. Mix in the pumpkin purée and milk, followed by the baking soda, vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice or cloves.
3. Add the flour and oats to the bowl and mix with a large spoon, just until combined. If you’d like to add any additional mix-ins, like nuts, chocolate or dried fruit, fold them in now.
4. Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups. For these muffins, it’s ok to fill the cups a little higher than you normally would. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with a small amount of oats, followed by a sprinkle of cinnamon. Bake muffins for 20 to 23 minutes until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.Baking time may vary according to ovens.
5. Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack. These muffins are delicate until they cool down . so it’s best to wait until they have cooled down to remove them from the tin. You might need to run a knife along the outer edge of the muffins to loosen them.

    EASIEST  WHOLE  WHEAT  VEGGIE  PIZZA.

  Pizza  is always a favourite  among  kids  as well as  grown  ups  so I  wanted  to try a healthy  version   of  it . I had a very nice cook book which I got as a compliment with my LG oven which is written by the wonderful  cooking expert Nita Mehta. This book is a great help for beginner bakers like me.In this book she had a recipe for pizza , but the base is store bought. But I wanted a whole wheat base.So I started searching on the biggest and easily available cook book Google..lol...My  search lead  me  again  to  cookieandkate. com.So  my  recipe here is a  fusion of  these two.

Ingredients
water  - 1 cup(very warm, almost too hot for comfort)

Sugar  - 1 tablespoon

Olive oil - 1 tablespoons

Instant yeast - 2¼ teaspoons

Salt - 1 teaspoon

whole wheat flour- 2  3/4cup

Parmesan cheese - 1/4cup

Green bel lpepper - 1/2  (sliced or  cubed ).

Pizza sauce( home made or store bought) -2/3 cup

Mozerella cheese shredded -2cups

Onion cubed - 1

Tomatoes cubed or  sliced thinly - 1 

Oregano-for sprinkling

Pepper powder- for sprinkling

Salt-for sprinkling

Fresh basil - for garnishing.


Method

1. Preheat oven to 220degrees Celsius .Keep two greased baking pans ready.
2. Whisk water, sugar, oil and yeast in a liquid measuring cup or small bowl. Allow yeast to proof for 5 minutes. 
3.    Mix wheat  flour, Parmesan, and salt  until combined,then  slowly pour in the water mixture and combine well until a shaggy ball forms.
4. Dump the dough onto a floured work surface and quickly knead dough a few times until it comes together. Halve the dough.
5. On a floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll dough into two rounds about 11 inches in diameter. For best results, roll the dough out about as thin as reasonably possible. Aim for even thickness rather than a perfectly round shape. Transfer dough to a baking pan .  Brush the outer 1-inch of the dough with a light coating of olive oil.
6. Add pizza sauce of your choice on top of the base leaving the edges.Arrange some vegetables and sprinkle some salt and pepper over it. Sprinkle with cheese and some oregano.Arrange a few more veggies on top.
7. Bake  until the crust and cheese are lightly golden, rotating halfway, about 10 minutes for cheese only pizza and 12 minutes for pizza with additional toppings. Sprinkle with smoked sea salt and/or fresh basil and serve.

Note:we can  either  use  raw or  sauteed  veggie  toppings .We  can  lightly  brush  the  base  with  olive  oil  before spreading  pizza  sauce.I  used home made pizza sauce.Will share it later.My  veggie  pizza  took 13  minutes  to  get  done,baking  time  may  vary  according  to  ovens.

Home made pizza sauce

Cook 4  tomatoes with little water and cool it  and puree it.
Microwave tomato puree,1 tablespoon olive oil,1 teaspoon garlic paste,2 tablespoon tomato kech up,1 tsp  oregano,1/2 tsp salt and pepper for 2 1/2 minutes.OR you can saute all these except tomato puree and mix it with puree  later.

Healthy steamed chocolate banana muffins

Healthy steamed chocolate banana  muffins

I was  searching  for  alternate baking methods  and stumbled  upon  steaming  cakes. So I  decided to give it a try  as I  have  tried  pressure  cooker method , so  many  times  successfully.In  pressure  cooker  method  we  can  use  either  pressure  cooker  oor any  heavy  bottomed   vessel  for  baking , aluminum  preferably.

And  we  put  sand  or salt   inside  to prevent  burning  of  the  vessel,I  have  tried without  salt  also. Both  are  ok  but  it's   better  to  take  off  your  vessel  unless it's old   by   spreading  salt oin one   inch  thickness. Once I  tried  pressure  cooker  method  with  water  also  and  the  cake  raised  well, but  the  only  problem   was   vapor  falling  on  the  top . So  this time I   decided  to cover  loosely with a  soft  thin  cotton  cloth  to prevent  this  and  to  use my  iddly   steamer.  The  advantage  of steaming  compared  to  baking  in pressure  cooker  is , cooking  time  can  be  reduced.So  here  we  go.I  used  the  whole  wheat chocolate   Ragi banana  muffin  recipe  in  my  blog, the  only change I  made  was  used  only  whole  wheat as I was  out  of  Ragi so I used 13/4   cup         whole  wheat  and  increased  the  amount  of   cocoa  powder  to 3   tablespoons  to  make  it  more   chocolatey. The   link  to

Recipe is here 

http://cookingbygrace.blogspot.in/2016/07/fingermilletragi-banana-choclate-muffin.html?m=1

so here I  am explaining the method  only. Here I   used  my iddli  steamer and I had an additional  round plate  which can be used  to steam food by placing it over the water just like idly moulds . So I used it  here.

Method
1.Prepare  batter .
2.Switch  on  stove  and  keep steamer with   water and lid    on it in  high   flame  for 5  minutes
3.Keep  the  muffin  liners  inside  muffin  moulds or small paper  tea cups and fill  up  to 3/4  th  of  muffin  cups.
4.Reduce the flame to low and Keep  the  muffin  moulds  inside  the  steamer and  and cover loosely with a cotton cloth over the muffins without touching the batter and be careful to keep the cloths endings away from fire  ,cover with lid and steam  for 15 to 20  minutes  or  until done or a tooth  pick inserted  comes  out clean.

Your  steamed chocolate  banana    muffins  are  ready  now.....don't forget to remove muffin liners before eating...lol... healthy  and  yummy.