Choclate petals biscuits

Well I shared the pinwheel cookies earlier and though the recipe needs some patience, the beautiful and crunchy cookie completely deserves it. So in another attempt to make some beautiful looking cookies I tried making one flower imprinted by chocolate. Though I couldn't get the complete flower design I was looking for when I started making them, to my surprise the one I got was equally amazing. It looked like petals of a flower or imprint of a cub's footprints (I could relate more to latter). In any case they were nice, crisp and smelled like heaven fresly out of oven. For any kind of cookies I bake, I feel they taste best fresh put of oven. Though you can't really finish them all up that way and you don't want to if you want to keep some to enjoy later. But I personally prefer eating most of them fresh from oven. 

Ingredients:

1 cup wholewheat flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder 

1/4 cup butter 

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoon milk

Recipe:

Cut the butter into small pieces and mix with flour. Rub together using hands till the mixture resembles crumbles. Add powdered sugar and knead dough using milk. Divide dough in two parts. To one part add cocoa powder and knead using more milk if needed. Cocoa should mix well with dough and appear brown. Cover both dough balls and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Remove dough from refrigerator. Take the cocoa one and divide into 4 equal parts. Roll each one of them into 1/2 inch width cylinder. Make sure they all are of same size. Take white dough and roll it to a rectangular shape . Its length should be as much as of chocolate cylinder shape we made. Pictures below would make it clear to understand. Now this is the mostly difficult part of preparation so keep some patience and do not worry if you need to roll them over again a couple of times to get desired shape and size. Once white dough is rolled out in rectangular shape , place the chocolate one along the length one after the other. Gently and carefully start rolling from one length of base taking over the chocolate one till next end. Make sure there is no gap left inside else it will cause holes in cookies when we cut them later. Cover the roll with cling film and leave in freezer to harden up . Aftet half an hour take it out and remove cling film. It should have hardened to make it easy to cut into slices length wise. Gently slice them using a knife into 1/3 inch discs. Preheat oven to 180C . Place cookies onto greased baking tray and bake for around 20 minutes. They will be little softer first but will turn firm after cooling down.

Date syrup, banana coconut bread

I love everything with coconut be it cookies, cheese cake, chutney, ice-cream or macrons!
It kind of have calming and soothing effect, at least on me , not to mention what a humble fruit it is which is used for so many things from core to leaf which is amazing. Desiccated coconut has some oil retained so it adds extra moisture to cake. It blends easily and gives pleasant aroma and flavor.
Now for this one I cut short the sugar off my list and relied completely on natural sweetness from data syrup and  ripe banana. I gave up on butter long back so most of my recipes use canola oil. I did use some of white flour though with coconut . Chocolate chips really added the extra punch to the coconut and banana flavor so do add them. In case you do not have date syrup, just cook the finely chopped dates (de-seeded) in some water and use the paste .

Chocolate chips tend to settle down at bottom of pan and thus might make it difficult to remove the cake from pan. To avoid this, layer the pan with greased baking sheet or aluminium foil which makes it easier to remove the cake. This one is really moist and soft cake so need to be handled with care.
Wait for it to cool down completely before removing from pan or slicing. Well I could not resist the aroma and indulged into it as I removed it from oven, so could not slice evenly and it kinda crumpled giving in to my impatience, but who cares if you get a slice of life freshly baked from oven !

Ingredients:

1/2 cup White flour
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
2 table spoon chocolate chips
1 ripe banana
1/2 cup date syrup
1/2 table spoon baking powder
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 180 C. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl - flour, coconut, baking powder.
In another bowl put together all wet ingredients - oil, banana, date syrup, egg, vanilla extract.
Blend together using a electric mixer. Make sure no lump remains in batter. Now add dry ingredients and mix gently just so everything comes together . Finally throw in the chocolate chips and bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.

Almond biscotti

Almond Biscotti is a famous Italian biscuit, Biscotti actually means 'twice baked'. Reason for baking twice is to make it dry so that it can be stored over a longer period of time. They were used to carry as non perishable food for long journeys in traditional times and hence the name. But to us it is that crunchy, flavorful and the best companion to evening tea or coffee. Its is harder and denser than the other conventional cookies we make and little less sweeter too.Normally they are made from white flour but being a whole grain fan I am, I replaced it with whole wheat flour and didn't see any difference in the taste and texture. Also I used little less sugar but you may add some more, though biscotti are made less sweeter than other cookies. Initially I thought of coating them with dark chocolate and covering with nuts for a better texture and look but believe me once they were done I had no patience (and need) to improvise any more, they were  just awesome as it is. So maybe next time I am gonna try that.

Well enough said let's get to business now!

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tablespoon baking powder 

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract 

3/4 cup toasted almond

1-2 tablespoon toasted pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

Recipe:

Toast the almonds and seeds on a pan for around 5 minutes. Crush them coarsely after they cool down. Beat the egg, sugar, butter and vanilla extract using electric mixer. Stir in the flour , baking powder, nut-seed mixture and bring everything together as dough. It will be sticky so apply oil on hands and make a ball of dough. Shape it like a log and place on greased baking tray. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes take it out and chop into slices gently as it would be crumbly and soft.
Put back to oven and bake for another 20 minutes turning over midway.

Let it cool completely before transferring a storage container.

Oats wholewheat bread

Well why would one want to bake his own bread when it is so easily available down the street. For one it gives me sheer joy of being able to make my own bread . And although it might take you a little while to get that perfect one, it is totally worth the effort and time. I have found making cake easier than bread as with the former you don't really need a lot of time but with bread you need some effort in steps and keep an eye on progress.

The white bread is light and has little chances of failure but as you start adding wholesome ingredients is becomes dense. I avoid the white flour as much as possible as we already consume it in all processed foods and somehow I consider it is devoid of any nutrition and a by-product left in processing whole-grain. Well not to wonder its linked with many ailments and is not recommended by dietitians. It okay to have in moderation though but not daily as a staple.

Well anyways , I had tried bread recipes earlier but none with oats. Making a 100% wholewheat bread itself is not short of any challenge and to add oats elevate the risk. But I was pleases with the results this time and best part is its wholesome. I baked in a night before and had it with strawberry jam(I made at home, you can find recipe here) and hummus. But you can just toast it, make an open sandwich or use in any way you please. I added the seed in dough at last step rather than covering loaf with then, that makes it a little difficult to cut the slices off from loaf so you can just use them to sprinkle on top.

I am a little lazy in clicking pictures at every step but I have tried me best and got one for all crucial ones. Hope it helps.

Ingredients:

1 cup oats (quick cooking)
2 cups whole wheat flour (a little more for kneading)
1 table spoon honey
1/2 cup milk
1 cup water
1.5 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 table spoon oil (I used canola but anything would do)
3 table spoon - flax seeds, pumpkin seed, sunflower seeds
salt to taste

Recipe:
Mix the milk and water in a bowl and heat it to make is luke warm , in microwave that would be 45 seconds. It is very important that its not very hot else it will kill the yeast and dough will not rise.
It should be warm to touch. Add the yeast and honey and keep aside for 10-15 minutes. It will turn frothy on top as in picture below.

Put together the 1 cup oats flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, salt. We will not add entire flour now but keep it to be added gradually as we knead. Add the yeast mixture to this. It will be on wetter side but that's okay. Using an electric mixer with kneading bladed, churn it together, if you don't have one, use a wooden spatula which works just fine. I will not be ready to knead yet so after beating for 5 minutes we will start adding flour gradually. As it starts forming a dough now, transfer it to a clean surface dusted with flour . We will again knead it here for another 5-10 minutes till it becomes smooth. This is important to form gluten in dough. Grease a bowl with oil and keep the dough in eat rolling it to cover with oil. Seal using cling film or just cover using a kitchen towel.

Keep it to rest in heated oven(turned off) for over an hour. It will rise to double. Remove from bowl, punch in down to let the excess air pass. Knead for another 5 minutes and shape in desired size for loaf, Roll it over the seeds. Again keep to rest for an hour in warm oven.
After an our bake at 180C for around 50 minutes.

Let it cool completely before cutting any slices.

sweet corn croquettes

Well this recipe has been pending for a long time now and was lying drafted in my inbox. By this time when I am actually sharing it on my blog I have made it a couple of times and that too with variations! But this is quite a simple recipe. I am sure once you try it you will play around with the ingredients replacing one for other like using banana for potato, tofu for paneer so on and so forth!
I cooked these in air fryer but you can also bake them in oven (180C) for around 30 minutes turning them around mid way, shallow fry in pan or ofcourse deep fry which I would not recommend. 

So here it goes.

Ingredients:

1.5 cup sweetcorn - I used 1 and half from corn cob

2 medium sized potatoes 

50 grams paneer/cottage cheese 

salt

1 tablespoon oil

ginger garlic paste- 1 tablespoon 

grated cheese - 2 tablespoon 

breadcrumbs- from 2 breads (wholewheat)

1 tablespoon cornstarch 

Recipe:

Boil sweet corn for around 7-8 minutes in microwave or gas stove with salt. Drain and keep aside. Boil the potatoes, you can use the water left from drained corns.

crush the corns using flat knife or churn them in mixer . Do not coarse fine but keep them chunky. Mash the potatoes in a bowl and add corn to them. Add salt, paneer and cheese and mix everything together with hands. potatoes will help everything to bind together. Mix 1 tablespoon cornflour to 4 tablespoon water . stor it well to ensure corn starch doesn't settle down at bottom. Take the breadcrumbs in a playe. I made crumbs from whole wheat bread by toasting it in oven at 200C for 8 mintues. Other way is to keep bread slices uncovered in fridge overnight to dryout. It takes a little longer. once bread is hard just grind in mixer . 

Shape the corn mixture in oval/cylinder shape or any orher shape ypu wish to.  Dip in cornflour water paste and rollover crumbs. It should be completely covered in crumbs. Make all of them ready. You  can now either bake them in preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes or fry in air fryer for around same time. Dont forget to brush them with oil. Keep an eye on them so that they don't turn too brown. they will become crisp from outside but will be soft inside. enjoy hot with mayonnaise!

Peanut butter oats cookies

Well how innovative can you go with cookies, with all those permutations and combinations there are countless number of recipes and you can not go wrong with any of them. I am not a big fan of peanut butter and can not ignore its over powering taste. So this time round when I bought on jar of peanut butter I decided to make the cookies. Peanut butter is very good in binding and has enough fats so I completely removed the butter or oil from recipe. Only bad thing that goes in is sugar and I would not mind it. I had not followed any recipe in particular and kind of put everything together I could get my hands on to use the peanut butter in particular while keeping a check on using white flour,butter and sugar. But to my surprise this turned out to very moist, dense and yet guilt free indulgence .
Next time round I am going to try some desiccated coconut too but for now this is just awesome and a must try!

Ingredients:

4 tablespoon peanut butter

5 tablespoons oats flour

1/4 tablespoons vanilla paste

1 tablespoon choclate chips

1-2 tablespoon milk

5 tablespoon brown sugar 

Recipe: 

Blend the peanut buttet, sugar and vanilla extract together. Add milk to make smooth consistency. Add oats flour and choclate chips. Mix well . Using a spoon drop cookies on greased baking tray. Using a spoon give a cross cross design on top. Slice almonds into halves and place on center of each cookie pressing gently. Bake in preheated oven at 180 C for 12-15 minutes. Let me cool down completely before removing from tray. They will be very soft and will crumble down if you do it too early!

Rose tart

I have seen these tarts while browsing through other recipes but never went down to checkout the recipe or even ingredients as I presumed that its going to be a little time consuming and demanding recipe and I delayed looking at it until I had to find something beautiful to make but with limited ingredients and time available at hand!

I was really surprised with the simplicity of the recipe and could not believe it would be so easy to make with just a bunch of ingredients . And to top it all it's not so high on calories either. What else one wants.
I wasn't very sure of the success of the results and did not take ample pictures for each step but would surely do so next time I can make this, but for now sharing what I have.

I had frozen pastry sheets in freezer and they came in very handy but don't worry if you don'y have them. just make the samosa dough (without salt) and roll it out in thin rectangular shapes and you should be good .

Ingredients:

2 small sized apples

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon sugar

Pastry sheet - 3

1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

1 cup water

1 tablespoon cinnamon powder

Recipe:

Melt the butter in microwave for 2 minutes. Cut the apple into half and remove the core . Thinly slice the apple ensuring the size and width remain same for all slices as much as possible.

Add lemon juice and sliced apple to water in a bowl and heat in microwave for around 3-4 minutes. This will make apple slices easy to bend and shape while lemon will keep them from turning brown.

Thaw the pastry sheets. Take one sheet and spread it on a plate. Spread melted butter on top and sprinkle cinnamon powder and sugar . Now place apple slices one after other overlapping midway over next slice . Spread along entire length of the sheet. Roll the sheet along the width . Apply some butter on upper half .Again roll it from left towards right gently such that it makes a rose. Arrange on tart mold and bake in preheated oven for around 20 minutes.