Fat Free Almond and Banana Bundt Cake flavoured with Cardamom

I've been baking with bananas so regularly these days that if I say it's banana bread my daughter say can't U make a regular cake like chocolate cake. So this time I baked it in regular size bundt pan & didn't forget "not to mention bananas anywhere", so..... it's cake with chocolate chips......served with some freshly whipped cream and did I mentioned it's cardamom flavor, again something NOT to be mentioned(to her) and yes, no mention of whole wheat flour either & wait there is more almond meal & flax seed.....let me give you the whole recipe but before that another look while cake is cooling down.

No!No!No! it didn't stick to the pan, but....

A Mouse in the House now the recipe.....

What I used :

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour(I use atta available at Indian grocery stores)
• 1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal(grind almonds using a spice/coffee grinder)
• 2 tablespoon ground flax seeds/flax meal
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 egg
• 3 over ripe bananas
• 4 green cardamoms/choti illachi (seeds taken out & crushed into powder,)
• 2 tablespoon of dark brown sugar
• handful of chocolate chips

See it didn't stick to the bottom

What I did :

1. Grease 6 cup capacity bundt pan. & heat oven to 350 degree F.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients,including sugar & cardamon powder, making sure there are no lumps.
3. Mash the bananas to smooth paste, add egg, mix it together.
4. Mix dry ingredients to wet. Mix everything together & finally fold in handful of chocolate chips.
5. Bake till toothpick comes out clear, mine was done in exact 30 minutes.

Note :

1.  Don't throw the outer shell of green cardamons, use them for flavouring tea or rice.
2. I used 6 cup capacity bundt pan as I wanted to test my new pan(yes I'm addicted to bundt pans now, first I got the baby ones then med. size & this is the new addition to the collection) but I believe this recipe would fit in the 8" or 9" square or round pan also.
3. If  U don't like cardamom flavour replace it with vanilla.
4. I tried same recipe egg less also by replacing egg with 1/4 cup buttermilk & increasing baking soda with around 1/4 of tsp. came out good.
5. I'm not using any butter or oil in this recipe & believe me we didn't miss that, bananas work good as butter substitute also.
6. Also it's not very sweet but sweetness from bananas & little brown sugar was perfect for our taste buds, but for those who love their cakes more sweet, quantity of sugar can be increased.

 And finally the Mouse is caught in action

did I mentioned she was born in the year of Rat as per Chinese zodiac....so basically she is just doing what she is suppose to do and not giving up any of her mousy tricks....and btw my little mouse had big serving of this cake as her lunch that day....off it goes to Champa for her weekly bake-off.

For other recipes for baking with bananas like cake/biscotti/muffins/bread U can click here.

Eggless Baking : Chocolate Banana Bread & Mini Bundt Cakes

Again some bananas waiting for their turn to be used up and thinking, if nobody is eating may be we'll get a good shake with milk......but wait it's snowing outside chances are very less to mingle with the milk......slowly turned black from outside, perfect for baking, may be now somebody will see us.......and finally lady of the house decided their faith.....Chocolate banana bread & mini bundt cakes with blueberries.

Base recipe used here is of my other banana bread but this one was baked to mainly clear few things from the cooler-box and pantry. And it's very forgiving kind of recipe one can easily substitute with what they have in hand or how healthy they want to make it, butter can be totally left out from this recipe as banana works well as fat substitute. Addition of chocolate make it more acceptable by kids even when it has lots of good stuff in it. Please do check the notes at the end, as list of ingredients might make u think it's a very long recipe, which is not, only the list of ingredients is lengthy otherwise it's just mix & bake kind of recipe.

What U need :
Dry ingredients :

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour(I used whole wheat pastry flour, atta works fine)
• 1/2 cup oat flour(grind regular/old fashioned oats in coffee grinder)
• 1 cup all purpose flour + 1/2 tablespoon (used maida from Indian store)
• 3 tablespoon flaxmeal (dry roast flaxseeds when cool grind then using coffee grinder)
• 1 cup almond meal (grind almonds fine or coarse, as per your taste)
• 4 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1&1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Wet Ingredients :

• 2 tablespoon butter at room temp.
• 3 medium over ripe bananas
• 2 tablespoon ricotta cheese
• 5-6 tablespoon sweet condensed milk
• 1 cup buttermilk(or homemade dahi/yogurt can be used, dilute it with little water in case if it's thick)
• 1/2 cup water(might need little less or more depending upon what proportion of diff. flours u r using)

Other Ingredients(totally optional) :

• handful of blueberries(needed to finish these too)
• handful of mini chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoon of sweet coconut flakes(rest of the packet is waiting to be turned into coconut cake....ahhh!!)

What U do :

1. In a large bowl using a whisk, mix all the dry ingredients making sure that there are no lumps. Keep it aside.
2. Make sure all the wet ingredients are at room temperature. In another bowl using a whisk mix butter, banana, ricotta and condensed milk till they are smooth. Slowly add buttermilk & 1/2 cup of water & again whisk them.
3. Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture little at a time & keep mixing them till all the dry ingredients are mixed together with wet. It's kind of a thick batter but not too tight. So if needed use little extra water.
4. Roll blueberries in 1/2 tablespoon flour. Fold berries & choco. chips to the batter. I added coconut flakes to only one loaf. So after filling the bundt pan & one loaf pan I folded coconut flakes to the batter.
5. Pour it into greased pans & bake it in the 350 degree F oven, for timing check below and for filling bundt pan check notes.

Baking Pans and Time :
I made two small loaves & 12 mini bundt cakes out of this batter. Mini bundt cakes or if U plan for cupcakes usually take around 16-18 minutes. For mini loaves, it took 30 minutes.

Notes :

1. I have used 3 different flours basic idea was to have around 2 cups of flour, recipe works well with only whole wheat flour also. So U can change the quantity of diff. flours, as long they measure 2 cups in total should work fine.
2. In wet ingredients also I'm using quite a few things as I had to finish those & bread came out very good with addition of all those. U can check other version of banana bread here which is not using condensed milk & ricotta cheese and play with the recipe as per your taste.
3. If using mini bundt pan filling the batter into small cavities can be little tricky & messy at the same time. So, here's the easy solution just fill a large Ziploc with the batter, cut 1 cm. from one corner & squeeze the batter out into cavities(fill only around 3/4) or if U happen to have large pastry bag use that. And don't throw the bag wash it, let it dry & use it next time when U again bake mini bundt cakes.  

This chocolate banana bread & mini bundt cakes are off to Champa for her weekly bake-off.

Orange Biscotti almost Eggless

Biscotti - twice baked Italian cookies, to get that extra crunch so that biscotti become hard enough to be dipped into coffee, milk or sweet wine & not crumble. But they should never be so hard to crack a tooth. It was on my "to do list" from a long time or I should say it was on His list for me to do. Past sunday for Father's day brunch I decided to surprise him with home made biscotti along with fresh home made pizza(DD's request).

Now before moving to the recipe I would like to mention that source of this recipe is the book called "the Cake mix Doctor" which I got from Champa of VersatileKitchen back in the month of may. Around that time only I also bought a cake mix box for the first time in my life, thinking that I'll try a cake with that, but whenever I bake I'm so use to of all purpose flour/maida that cake mix box kept waiting in the pantry for it's turn. Finally night before father's day I sat with this book to find out some recipe for the cake but when I saw recipe for Lemon Pecan Biscotti, I decided that's it. I had Orange supreme cake mix so I used that & I was out of almonds otherwise I would have used that so  instead I used mini choc. chips. Also I decided to go eggless with this recipe so used  two frozen bananas which were left after making eggless choc. banana cake, but while making the dough I felt it was too tight so I ended up using one egg yolk(as I had no more ripe bananas & was not sure about using milk). Finally here goes the recipe :

What U need :

• parchment paper for the pan
• 1 package(18.25 oz.) orange cake mix(I used Duncan Hines)
• 8 tablespoons(1 stick) butter, melted
• 2 large ripe bananas(might need half extra banana if bananas are med. size)
• 1 egg yolk(my bananas were toward the smaller size that's why I added egg)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts(I used mini choc. chips)

What U do :

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven, preheat to 350 degree F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper & set aside.
2. Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl & blend on low speed for 3-4 minutes. Dough should come together into a ball. Transfer it to the prepared baking sheet. With lightly floured hands, shape the dough into a rectangle about 14 inches long by 4 inches wide by 1/2 inch thick. Mound the dough so it is slightly higher in the center.
3. Bake the biscotti rectangle for around 30-35 minutes, do the toothpick test(like u do it for cakes). Remove the baking sheet from the oven & let the biscotti cool for 10 minutes. Leave the oven on.
4. Using a sharp serrated knife slice the rectangle on the diagonal into 1 inch-thick slices. You should get 14 slices. Carefully turn these slices onto their sides, on the same baking sheet. Return the baking sheet to the oven.
5. Bake for another 10 minutes. Turn the oven off, and let the biscotti remain in the oven until they are crisp, 30 to 40 min. more. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, transfer the biscotti to a rack, and allow them to cool completely,.
6. Enjoy it with your fav. drink milk, tea or coffee & store leftover biscotti in an air tight container at room temp. for up to several weeks.

receipe source : the Cake mix Doctor by Anne Byrn

Notes : though I had baked them for the minimum specified time, still mine were little overdone, but still tasted good. I did checked them little before the mentioned time but they were not done at that time so I guess for next time I'll reduce the temp. from 350 degree to may be 340 degree. so that they don't get too brown from outside so quickly.

I'm happy that I tried these, not only because everybody loved it but also because it tasted quite similar to our very own Indian cake rusk, a very popular tea snack in Delhi. We love those &  I usually get those from Indian grocery store, please don't get confused with plain rusk here, as plain rusk are not sweet & they are kind of a hard toast but cake rusk are buttery & very much similar to biscotti. Now I feel no need to buy those as this was really a easy procedure & I'm surely gonna make it on a regular basis but with different flavors.

Biscotti is off to Champa  for her weekly Bake-off & also to  Suma of Veggie Platter, who's hosting this month's Baking from the book  event started by Champa.

Eggless Chocolate Banana Cake with Toffee Bits

As the name say it's a Chocolate Banana Cake, but believe me it taste like chocolate cake only...moist & chocolaty. If you are like me who's not a big fan of baking with banana(b'coz they over power all other flavors) than this cake is for you. Even after eating 2 slices each DH & DD didn't noticed that cake has banana in it. You might be thinking if I don't like baking with banana than why did I baked this cake.........I froze 4 bananas couple of weeks back, as the whole family was under the attack of cough & cold & no one was eating them.....so took out two to make banana oat muffin & then came the sweet request "can U make chocolate cake instead, so that we can eat like cake slice". So here comes the cake......

What U need :

• 1 & 3/4 cup Cake flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tap. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3 Tblsp. cocoa powder
• 3 Tblsp. light brown sugar
• 1 cup + 1 Tblsp. milk
• 4 Tblsp. vegetable oil
• 4 Tblsp. semi sweet choc. chips
• 2 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

optional for filling & decoration :

• handful of semi sweet choc. chips
• handful of toffe bits

icing/glaze

• 4 Tblsp. cocoa powder
• 5 Tblsp. icing sugar
• approx. 4-6 spoons of warm water

What U do:

• Sift all the dry ingredients. Add sugar to it & mix it.
• Using microwave melt 4 Tblsp. of chco. chips along with 1 Tblsp. of milk. Stir it to make sure all the chips are melted. Let it cool.
• Add all the wet ingredients to the above melted chocolate.
• Now mix wet ingredients into dry ones & mix them gently, until well combined.
• Pour the batter into prepared deep round 8 in. cake tin or into two smaller cake tins(I used two 6 in. round pan).
• Bake at 325 degree F for about 1 hr.(do the toothpick test to check the doneness) if using deep pan. In case of smaller pans check around 22 min. or so, mine were done in 24 minutes.

After cake is cool, mix cocoa & icing sugar with warm water to make thick or thin icing as u like. Use less water for thick consistency.
Spread half of the icing on one layer of cake, spread it, spread  choc. chips & half of the toffee bits.
Stack the second layer on it & pour the icing on top of it & decorate with remaining toffee bits.

Note : 1) Cake is not very sweet as the amount of sugar used is very less but if U are planning to use icing than it's perfect.

2) Quantity of icing is not too much, it won't cover the whole cake(i mean all sides) but for our taste it was good enough, just to give you that little extra sweetness.

Needless to say half of the cake was vanished quickly, it was still warm when we ate it....yes I didn't had patience to wait for it to cool down completely, so I pour the icing when it was still warm & once it's ready it's hard not to eat...... so we had dessert before lunch......and we all loved it. Most important of all, other than me no body noticed(from the smell & taste) that it's a BANANA cake. And those two bananas in the picture are still waiting in the freezer for their turn, they only came out for the picture shoot.