Eggless Baking : Chocolate Applesauce Muffin for breakfast on a very Crucial Day

Importance of today's Cricket Match(march/30/2011) : it's a crucial match, SEMI-FINAL for WORLD CUP & played between two Cricket Crazy Nations India and Pakistan, lots of emotions and politics goes in this. Lots of pressure on both the team all important leaders including Prime Ministers of both countries are watching it.

Last Match Day(March/24/2011) : scene from my house explained here in my previous post.

Today (March/25/2011) : my day started at little before 6 A.M.....he's again missing from the bed, I can hear some voices coming from the other part of the house, but this time I'm lazily staying in the bed for a while & finally decided to come out & here goes our conversation....

me : what's the score

he : 77 for ?? balls(he did told me exact balls but i don't remember it now when I'm typing it after 45 minutes), run rate is very good 7.??(again I forgot)

me : kaun khel raha hai???(which team is playing)....do u want chai(tea)???

he : India, aab chup ho ja yaar bara sahi match chal raha hai.....(Please be quite now honey, it's very good match going on, (remember in the last post he called me honey...well in hindi the way we talk, yaar would come in the category of honey only)

after sometime....

me : in Delhi roads must be quite right now...my brother told me in many neighbourhoods large T.V screens have been installed & it's kind of a holiday.

he(no talking) : picked up the phone, called his Dad.....sharing some cricket talk

me(no talking) : started working on my post.....I tried to open multiple pages &

he : kya yaar(honey) what r u doing it's slowing down my match here(we r watching it on Internet)....can't U work on one page only.....

after some time he went to do his brush & OMG!! Pakistan took 3rd Indian wicket(Kohli)....run rate is also 5.57 & another sad news Yuvraj got out on his first ball :-((.....I ran towards him almost screaming, came back quickly........now comes Dhoni & that reminds me of a movie I saw last month "HATRICK" it's a bollywood movie(it's interesting movie to see, if you haven't seen) showing how cricket plays an important role in different peoples life and commentator is also talking if it's gonna be a HATRICK ball....means 3 players out in 3 continuous balls...but thank god...NO it's not....

he was out of the room when 2 above players got out.....

he : kya yaar I just went out aur do wickets chale gaye(I was out for a minute & 2 players out what??)

me : U sit here & U r not moving out of this area.....Oh Yes! we Indians do have lot of superstitions when it comes to CRICKET.

After few minutes he went to the kitchen to make tea for himself.....& I hear Pakistani team cheering....No..No...NO, not because my husband is making tea for himself....but because....

me: OMG!!!! sachin gaya

he : are nahi yaar(no), catch miss ho gayi....sachin is saved 3rd time....

me : U come back, right now....sit on this chair, don't go anywhere(remember superstitions).....I'll make tea, U want it with ginger...

SCORE : 185/4 (time : 7:37 A.M EST U.S.A)

Just in case if U guys are thinking that don't they have anything else to do...so for the records, I'm usually not this crazy or in fact not crazy at all for sports but it's India Vs Pakistan....U can't miss this.....this time hubby dear is lucky as he had some odd hour(midnight) official stuff going on with his companies international offices and again some meetings lined up in the morning so he's working from home & it was all set on Monday only so no guessing work for me.....I told Kiddo to buy lunch from school, for snack she's taking home made applesauce.

For breakfast I made some Eggless, Low fat, whole wheat applesauce cupcakes/muffins yesterday only, and yes  chocolate flavour.....they are good at their own, use of applesauce & vinegar make them soft from inside but I suggest having them with some tea/coffee or milk as they are low in fat and also half of the flour is whole wheat, which makes them little dry. It's a healthy & tasty treat, perfect for breakfast.

What I used :

Dry Ingredients :

• 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup atta(wholewheat flour)
• 4 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon powder
• pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients :

• 2 tablespoon unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce(recipe here but now I pressure cook, one whistle on low)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup regular sugar
• 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoon of milk

 Other Ingredients

• 1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar(regular kind can be used)
• 1 tsp. vanilla

quick Info : India done with their turn.....target set for other team :261 runs, fingers crossed as this is not a very high target for the opposite team......time for break....hubby dear is lucky today as India's turn got over just 5 minutes before his meeting start....

What I did for muffins :

1. Sift together all the dry ingredients.
2. In another bowl mix all the wet ingredients
3. Add dry ingredients to wet in 3-4 parts, mixing thoroughly making sure no lumps are there, I prefer to use whisk her(manual to electronic mixer).
4. Add vinegar & vanilla.Mix.
5. Fill in the prepared pans. Bake at 350 degree.
6. This batter should yield U 12 regular size muffins, but I could not decide which pan to bake them in as I wanted mini muffins but batter was more then I needed for them, so here's what I baked from this batter:  12 mini muffins, baked for 14 minutes . 6 regular size muffins, baked for 17 minutes. 1 small 4 inch round cake, baked for 24 minutes.
7. Once they were cool I brushed them with melted butter & decked up with come sprinkles.

Note : If U are new to baking I really suggest sticking with one kind of pan at a time in the oven as different pans mean different timings & that mean opening the oven again & again, which is not a good thing, but luckily all the muffins/cake came out good.

Healthy Banana Bread loaded with all the good stuff....not only Whole Wheat but Eggless too

It's been little busy over here, summer vacation is over. Trying to set some routine after 2 & 1/2 months of  break. Mind is working hard again to find interesting options for school lunch & after school snack, on top of that this year in 3rd grade they have to take snack too. So here's this simple recipe which I feel is a very good option for any time of the day snack, we have been eating this as morning breakfast with a glass of milk or coffee. It's quite filling & healthy too. It's Banana Bread but not regular kind, I'm using not only whole wheat flour but oats also in this. I had no plans of making this bread but thanks to my little one she has found one new hobby, whenever she can grab a banana she likes to peel it, until now she usually would eat it too, but now-a-days she only peels them & she's done. Now what do I do with 3 peeled bananas in a day. So I twisted my regular banana bread recipe added few more things to it and here goes the recipe(please do check the variations at the end of the recipe, got whole wheat version too) :

What U need :
dry ingredients :

• 1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp. all purpose flour (I used maida)
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour(I used atta-flour used for making Indian style flat bread)
• 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1 /1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. dry ginger powder(optional)

wet ingredients :

• 3 med. size ripe bananas
• 3 Tbsp. veg. oil
• juice of 1 orange
• 4 Tbsp. honey
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar

good stuff :

• 2 Tbsp. dry roasted flax seeds
• 1/2 cup roasted, chopped almonds
• 10 dates chopped

What U do :

1. Take all the good stuff(nuts & dry fruit etc.) & sprinkle 1 Tbsp. of flour on them & mix them with the hand so they get good coating of flour. It  helps preventing them from sinking to the bottom of the pan.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients using a fork making sure no lumps are formed.
3. In a big bowl mash bananas using the back side of fork & add rest of the wet ingredients from the list.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet ones. Gently mix them.
5. Add mixture of good stuff to the batter, fold it in.
6. Bake it in the greased loaf pan for 35-40 min.(till the tooth pick comes clean) at 350 degree F.

Note :

This bread was little crumbly but very flavorful, it reminded me of fruit cake & was quite soft even for next couple of days. I did made this for 3-4 times in this month but every time with little variations. Actually this recipe is very forgiving one can easily adjust the ingredients according to the availability or taste. All the variations had almost same amount of oats.

Variations :
First was with half all purpose flour & half whole wheat flour.

 Second was with totally whole wheat flour, came out really good without any compromise on taste.

Third was again totally whole wheat flour but I added 2 Tbsp. of Ragi(finger millet) flour & 1 Tbsp. of flax seed(alsi) meal(powder) also. Instead of almond & dates I only used around 1/2 cup of black raisins & I didn't had any oranges so I added 1-8 0z. carton of apple juice, reduced oil to 2 Tbsp. only(works fine) also reduced the sugar a little bit. Bananas used were also one & a half only. I baked them in mini bundt pan so baking time was reduced to 16 min. only at 350 degree F(recipe yielded 12 mini bundt cakes-I had filled each cavity to 3/4 level). I highly recommend this recipe if you are trying to bake with whole wheat flour as it was light & not at all heavy texture. And these were not at all crumbly. Here's the click...

And this wonderful healthy bread/mini bundt cakes  goes to Champa for her weekly bake-off.

Blueberry Muffins with Orange streusel and Eggless too

Summer means berries, berries & more berries. This Sunday when he got few packs of fresh blueberries, he told me to make blueberry muffins. I have made these quite a few times & we all love these over the regular kind of blueberry muffins. First time when I ate these on one of our road trip I absolutely loved these....moist & nice crumb with lots of blueberry flavor & nice crunch on the top, to me it's perfect. I will prefer these over any other kind of muffins. I have used Orange zest for topping one can easily change it to lemon zest if they like, also if you wish store bought jam(chunkier kind) can be used but I really recommend sparing 10 minutes & making a small batch of jam. Recipe below is for 12 regular size muffins.

What U need :
for muffins
2 cups + 1 Tblsp. unbleached all purpose flour
2 & 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 & 1/4 cup light brown sugar
4 Tblsp.(1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
4 Tblsp. veg. oil
1 cup buttermilk(I use 3/4 cup plain dahi/yogurt + 1/4 cup water)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup blueberries rolled in 1 Tblsp. of flour

for jam
1 cup blueberries
3-4 Tblsp. regular sugar

for streusel topping
2 Tblsp. regular sugar
zest of 1 orange

What U do :
1. Make jam

• Cook blueberries with sugar on med. heat for about 7-10 minutes till u get the jam like consistency. Mash the berries with the back side of the spoon. Use more or less sugar as per your taste & tartness of berries. Let it cool.

2. To make streusel topping mix sugar & zest, keep aside.

3. Make muffins

• Heat oven to 425 degree F. Prepare muffin tin with non-stick spray or line muffin tin with paper liners.
• In a large bowl whisk flour+baking powder+salt.
• In another bowl mix sugar with oil & melted butter. Add buttermilk & vanilla, whisk everything together.
• Now add wet mix to dry mix & gently mix everything, using a hand whisk. Batter will be thick & might have some lumps, BUT DO NOT OVER MIX.
• Using a spatula fold in the berries coated with flour.
• Spoon the batter into muffin tins. Now using a small spoon add some jam to the center of the tin & with the back side of the spoon swirl the batter in the muffin.
• 
  
  Lastly sprinkle the streusel topping on the top of muffins & bake them for around 15-18 minutes(mine were done in 15 minutes).

Enjoy these muffins when they are still hot or keep them in the fridge for next morning breakfast or late night snack, warm them in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds or enjoy it cold if you like it that way.

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.

All dressed up Eggless Carrot Cupcakes- A Thank You gift

It's officially summer here, with DD's school closed for the school year. For this year when I asked her what she wants for her teacher as a thank you gift, she asked me to bake carrot cupcakes for her with little carrot decorations on top....she remembered from one of her conversations, that her teacher loves carrot cake. So we baked these goodies for her second grade teacher & other staff, which they really liked.

But I really like to share one of her classmates opinion on those cupcakes(they didn't get to eat cupcakes....school district policy no home made goodies for students).....a compliment given by an 8 yr. old(her best friend), which she told me about after coming back from school.........S said  " I want your mom to bake cake for my next b'day as I think she's a professional"......wooohhhoooo, she made my day......these cupcakes are not the prettiest one but I was amazed that how an 8 yr. old can get so happy by just looking at simple things....isn't being child a greatest thing in this world.

For cupcakes I used my old trusted eggless carrot cupcake recipe & for icing :

1. 4 Tblsp. butter
2. 4 Tblsp. veg. shortening
3. 4 oz. cream cheese
4. 1 tsp. clear vanilla extract
5. 2 cups confetioner sugar

Cream first 4 ingredients, slowly add sugar & mix till everything gets together & smooth. I was left with almost a cup of icing after frosting dozen cupcakes. So one can easily half this recipe if making for dozen cupcakes. Carrots for decorations were made using fondant & for leaves tinted little icing with green color & piped it using leaf tip.

Note : I used veg. shortening because it was very hot day....temperature reaching almost 93 degree on that day & was not sure that if cupcakes will get a chance to sit in the fridge or not in the school before they are consumed. Only butter & cheese would have made frosting little runny consistency I guess, but you can totally leave shortening out & increase the amount of butter or cream chesse acc. to your taste.

Also made a little shell bookmark using crochet, as DD told me that my teacher loves reading so much that sometime she stays up late in the night just to read her fav. books.

Savory Semolina Muffins and No Bake Date & Nut Fudge

Today's post is all about trying recipes from the fellow bloggers. Almost a decade back when I started to have adventures in my kitchen, Bawarchi.com was the main or I should say only place where I would go searching for the Indian recipes. But many a times even I liked the recipes but because of lack of photos I never tried those. I always love reading cookbooks also with food photos. Fast forward o 2009, I discovered food blogs while looking for some recipes and instantly loved that how everything is given with photos. Result is my list of bookmark recipes, sometime I feel, to find a bookmarked recipe I need some sort of search program....I can't help bookmarking, because the details and pictures in the recipe make me go "try this one...try this one". So, to solve that problem I try to make the recipe same day I discover it(provided I have everything on hand plus time to make it). My first trial was Ragi Roti and in the past couple of weeks I tried 2 more recipes : No Sugar Nuts Fudge from Creative Saga and Savory Semolina Cake from Red Chillies, they have also adapted these recipes from other food blogs.

Now for the recipes I mainly followed the actual recipes but with some changes according to my taste & availability of ingredients.So for actual recipes please check the respective blogs as I'm going to mention only the changes I made.

1) No Bake Date & Nut Fudge actual recipe NoSugar Nuts Fudge(Creative Saga) :

Actual recipe doesn't ask to soak the dates but I did soaked them in 2 Tblsp. of warm milk as that made it easy to puree them. But that also add little extra moisture, so for that add either more oats or nuts. But I added sesame seeds & wheat germ which balanced it. Also, I kept only few pieces outside & rest in the fridge as I've used milk in it.

I made two versions, first version was for kids so I used almond meal instead of coarsely grind almonds & I didn't used any walnuts in this. Added 2 Tblsp. of Wheat germ + 1 Tblsp. of instant oats.

Second version : Coarsely grind almond & walnuts. I also added around 1 Tblsp. each brown & black toasted sesame seeds and 1 Tblsp. of wheat germ.

NOTE : a) If you are new to black sesame seeds, it's better to use them in combination with regular sesame seeds you use, as the flavor is really strong, but they have more calcium, for more details check here.

b) Wheat germ is a concentrated source of several essential nutrients & essential fatty acids. Which is naturally found in whole wheat flour. I use it in my baking & cooking whenever I'm using any other flour than whole wheat flour. I don't remember the actual source from where I read it but it said it should be used sparingly as it is concentrated form of nutrients and it also need to be stored in fridge as it can easily become rancid if not stored properly.

2) Savory Semolina Muffins actual recipe Savory Semolina Cake(Red Chillies)

Changes I made in this recipe were :

• chopped broccoli florets instead of peas
• no sugar I used only salt
• 2 Tblsp. of wheat germ
• baked them as muffin in regular muffin tin for 22 minutes at 375 degree F.

Loved the taste of Upma & the ease of baking it in the evening & having it for weekday breakfast next morning.

Thanks to Sowmya & Supriya for sharing these recipes. I feel this is the best way to celebrate my 50th post in this blog world by saying thanks to my blogger friends & enjoying some of their recipes.

Worm in the Mud Cupcakes

"Whatever Cupcakes"

I know Halloween is gone but I wanted to share these "whatever cupcakes" I made this Halloween. Why I'm calling these whatever cupcakes, because in my mind I planned to make my regular cupcakes but then I realized that DD wanted Chocolate one this time.....so i added little bit of cocoa powder then I noticed I don't have enough buttermilk & I also like to throw in a spoon or two of almond meal to make things little bit more healthy. So this recipe is more of a guideline then exact......

Ingredients :

• 1 cup all purpose flour (maida)
• 2 tblsp. whole wheat flour(Chappati atta)
• 2 tblsp. cocoa powder
• 2 tblsp. almond meal (fine or coarse grind almonds)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 2 squirts of honey
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar(sugar is less then regular b'coz I planned to do icing)
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup regular milk
• approximately 1/4 cup orange juice(water or milk can be used)
• around 6-7 Oreo cookies broken into pieces.
• few gummy worms

As I wrote above one thing lead to another, so I basically used muffin technique. Mixed all the dry ingredients in one bowl. Take another bowl mix together buttermilk, milk, honey & sugar using a whisk. Now add dry stuff to wet mixture & whisk it together, if you feel batter is too tight add little bit of orange juice at a time, mix together till u get nice cupcake consistency batter.

Now pour approximately 1 tblsp. of batter into each muffin mould then sprinkle few broken pieces of cookies & then pour rest of the batter on top(that's for the surprise when u bite into it, alternatively you can use choc. chips or coarsely grind nuts also). Bake them at 350 degree F for around 20 minutes, till the toothpick comes out clean.

Once cool do your favourite icing & then again sprinkle them with few broken pieces of Oreo cookies & for worm part just make a hole in the cupcake using the backside of wooden spoon(the one which have round handles) & stick a gummy worm in it .

Note : I didn't used any butter or fruit sauce & buttermilk is also less then how much I use regularly, so these are best eaten at room temperature or warm. If you eat them direct from the fridge you might feel them little hard & also less sweet,but warm tasted very good.

Eggless Carrot Cupcake

My last post was applesauce which in my house means that next thing is going to be cupcakes or muffin......so this time it was eggless carrot cupcake or can we call those muffin ??? well what's in a name....a cupcake by any name will still be a cupcake......just a little frosting and kids are happy.

These were really moist & soft cupcakes because of two reasons: first the carrots of course & second buttermilk.....I've noticed when I substitute buttermilk for eggs, cakes are really moist, soft & light(not very dense).As I wrote in my previous post i eat my cupcakes when they are still hot right out of the oven.....this time I finished half of them(to be exact 6) in less then 1 day. And after that I decided now onwards, I will make half of them with whole wheat & half regular.....my DD eats the whole wheat ones, but not every time, may be every other time.....but wait a sec....I did used handful of oats & almonds plus they are carrot cupcakes, so do you think these count as healthy bites......

Ingredients :

• all purpose flour(maida) 1 cup + 2 tblsp.
• almond meal 2 tblsp.(grind almonds using coffee grinder,can do coarsely or fine as per your taste)
• handful of instant cooking oats
• pinch of salt
• baking soda 1 tsp.
• cinnamon 1/2 tsp.
• buttermilk 1/2 cup
• vegetable oil 2 tblsp.
• light brown sugar 6 tblsp.(carrots & applesauce will also provide some sweetness)
• unsweetened applesauce 1/2 cup
• vanilla 1/2 tsp.
• grated carrots 1&1/2 cup(with their juice)
• a handful of chopped nuts or chocolate chips(optional)

Method :

1) Sift the dry ingredients then mix almond meal, oats & sugar to it.

2) In another bowl mix buttermilk,veg. oil, applesauce, vanilla & carrots, that's all the wet ingredients.

3) Now mix dry mix to wet mix. Mix everything together gently(no need to mix it for longtime).

4) If using nuts/chocolate chips fold them into the batter.

5)Bake them in the greased or lined muffin pan for around 20-23 minutes in 350 degree F oven.This recipe should yield around 12 cupcakes.

I usually make muffins/cupcakes once a week, so most of the time i kind of eyeball many ingredients & I do substitute one for the other, depending on what I have on hand.....like if I don't have buttermilk I might use apple juice or carrot juice.But one good thing(there are many other too) about blogging is, that I've started to measure the ingredients for these kind of recipes and also now my recipes have one place, where whenever I want I can find them....hopefully no longer they will be hiding from me somewhere on the piece of paper in some cupboard or on the last page of my personnel notebook & now my phonebook will finally have only phone nos. in it & not "flax seed instead of egg in cupcakes" kind of notes written on it.

And now, here are my first Awards passed to me by SE of Denufood, thanks a lot dear. I feel like a little school girl again...Happy.....And I'm passing these awards to some of my favourite blogs....few blogs I'm reading from last few months then there are few to which I'm new but really like them....

To Soma of ecurry, Supriya of Redchillies, Yasmeen of HelathNut, Shilpa of Aayi's Recipes and also back to SE of Denufood.

Banana Oat and Wheat Muffins

As I mainly do egg less baking and to replace eggs I use different fruit sauces. But banana is one thing I use only for banana bread & not for muffins or cupcakes because the smell of it overpowers all the other flavours and then I have to admit it to my DD that it's not real cupcake(Secret : many times I bake apple bread batter in muffin tins dress it with whip cream top it with sprinkles and yeahhh.....cupcake is ready & DD is happy). This time I had two over ripe bananas and I decided that no matter what I've to bake banana muffins and back of mind I knew that I might be ending up eating these so I thought, why not make it little bit more healthy and I changed my basic recipe for muffins to adjust these changes.

Ingredients :

1. 2 ripe bananas
2. 3/4 cup whole wheat flour(I used regular chapatti flour)
3. 3/4 cup all purpose flour(Maida)
4. 1 cup instant cooking oats
5. 6 tablespoons of brown sugar(little less then 1/2 cup)
6. 2 tsp baking powder
7. 1 tsp baking soda
8. pinch of salt
9. 1 cup reduced fat/fat free milk(I used 1%)
10. 1/2 tsp vanilla
11. 1/4 C frozen blueberries mixed with 1 Tbsp flour(Optional)
12. Handful of semi sweet choc. chips(Optional)

Method :

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2) In a bowl, combine all the dry stuff : flours, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, soda & salt.Mix it with the fork.

3) In another large bowl, mash both the bananas using the back side of the fork then add milk and vanilla combine thoroughly.(Use whisk to bring everything together).

4) Add dry mixture into wet mixture until just combined. then add choc. chips to it & fold them into the mixture.If using blueberries, at this point fold them also into the mixture.

5)Place in muffin tins (greased or lined with paper cups). Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 mins. or until lightly browned and toothpick comes out clean.

In the picture few muffins show some x'tra chocolate on the top that was to impress my DD. I topped few of them with some choc. shavings. As I said in the beg. smell of banana....when muffins were almost towards the end of baking she came running what's that smell...it's so good.....so both of us ate one each, right away, the moment it came out of the oven.I loved it, gonna make it more often. She didn't liked the blueberries in it but otherwise she enjoyed it.

Note : As I was using non-stick muffin pan, so I didn't lined them, neither did I grease them & muffins came out fine.
Vegan version : Simply use Soy milk instead of regular milk.
I'm sending these delicious Oat & Wheat Muffins to :
1) CFK-Wheat guest hosted by Sireesha of Kidz Delight, event authored by Sharmi .
2)Srilekha's EFM-Oat Series.
3)Madhuram's Wholegrain Eggless Baking Event - Oats .