Showing posts with label vanilla essence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vanilla essence. Show all posts

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Carrot Cake Muffins

I have been craving for these for over 2 years now (appro the gentle push of a friend I have got down to baking these with my sous chef, and guest of today's article Nisha S Das aka NSD. :)



Things you will need for this muffin:

  • 1 cup (100 grams) walnuts
  • 340 grams raw carrots (finely grated)
  • 260 grams flour/maida
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 8 egg whites
  • 360 grams white sugar
  • 120 grams butter
  • 120 grams olive oil / any other vegetable oil
  • 3 tsp pure vanilla extract
First I asked NSD to finely grate the 2 1/2 carrots that approximately weighed 340 grams on my analogue food scale. She did so,  effortlessly. 

I made NSD grind 4 cinnamon sticks to a fine powder. 

In the meantime I roasted the walnuts on a dry heated pan for about 2 minutes, by stirring them continuously without adding oil and keeping the heat at medium. After 2 minutes I set them on a plate to cool.

I sifted the flour baking soda, baking powder, flour and cinnamon and set aside.
Photo

Now I separated the egg whites from the eggs.
 Photo

I weighed out 120 gm of butter and put it in microwave for 30 secs to melt it. Then I added 120 ml oil & 120 gm of molten butter, sugar &  vanilla extract.
Photo

Then I added it to the electric mixer and I let it whip for a minute or two. I poured this into a deep vessel and slowly folded in the flour to the mixture, followed by carrots and walnuts. 

Before I start baking, I always do a quick microwave test for 2 minutes to check texture and taste. It tasted very good and it was something to keep us satisfied till the real thing came along.




















Now comes the real part: Arrange the muffin tray. I have a silicon muffin tray so I filled the tray with muffin cups. I took 3 tbsp olive oil in a small bowl and dip my fingertips in the oil and lubricate these cups so that the batter doesn't stick to the paper once it's done baking. I tried initially with 1/2 cup batter but then I fill the cups to 3/4 with batter and set the timer for 20 minutes. The oven has a tendency to burn the cake from below so I add in a bowl of  salt water at the base of the oven to maintain temperature @180F. Normally it should take 10-15 minutes.

The 1/2 filled muffins took 15 minutes but the 3/4 filled took 20 minutes.
At this time a fork poked(actually a tooth pick should be inserted, but since i didn't have that) should come out clean or bake it  for a minute or two, more , but  be out on the lookout,  not to over cook it.











This is how the 1/2 cup muffins look.



Later I tried 3/4 filled cups, this is how the muffins looked.














Ideally this should be served with cream cheese frosting but by this time it was 2 AM in the morning and I was beyond tired after a hard day's work. I thought I'll do the cream cheese frosting some other day. And some other day I did.

Stay tuned for my pumpkin muffin with cream cheese frosting recipe. :)

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Quickest biscuit pudding for the lazy souls !

Looking for an easy dessert recipe? Here's one - The pineapple biscuit pudding!

Prep time - under 15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • Marie biscuit - 24 numbers/as required
  • Pineapple Jam
  • Unsalted butter - 100 grams
  • Sugar - 2 table spoons
  • Vanilla essence - 1 table spoon
  • Egg - 1
  • Coffee powder
This may not be the best looking pudding ever, but trust me, it tastes too good for the effort put in.  

All you have to do is melt the butter and mix it with some pineapple jam, sugar, vanilla essence and egg yolk in the quantities mentioned above. Using a blender is always easy! The mix would look something like this -


Keep this aside. Heat some water and add some coffee powder to it (as the pic below). 

Dip the biscuits in the coffee and arrange a layer of it in your tray/container. Spread some of the mix over this layer of biscuits, and repeat the process by arranging a second layer of biscuits (dipped in coffee, of-course!) over it. 


Repeat the process, until you're done with the biscuits. Spread the final layer of the mix on top. Beat some egg white untill it becomes foamy, and spread it on top.

It would then look something like this (or even better!) - 



Refrigerate it for 10 to 15 minutes, and it's ready to serve !!!

Additional tip : You can add a layer of chocolate sauce on top and sprinkle some nuts over it!