Healthy Baking: The Really Gingery Ragi Biscuit

Ragi, flaxseed, jaggery, ginger, sesame seeds - you might wonder what these utterly healthy ingredients are doing in a cookie! You might even think it's a complete madhouse of an idea. Ragi / nachni / mandwa / finger millets have been an Indian superfood well before everyone and their uncle started pestering relatives abroad to get them boatloads of quinoa for their daily consumption instead of rice. India, being the world's largest producer of millets, it's high time we showed some respect for our own grains, rather than scrambling after every latest food trend in the world. Ragi, like most other millets, formed a part of prehistoric Indian meals, then completely ignored and considered downmarket in the years that followed, where the rich ate rice, and now slowly the awareness of these prehistoric grains as being nutritional powerhouses is coming back. 

For those who haven't tasted ragi flour, it does have a coarse texture and wont feel as smooth as a refined flour in your mouth. The coarseness comes from the fiber content in ragi. Among all millets, ragi has the highest calcium content (370mg/100g). Its calcium content is nearly 10 times that of wheat (41mg/100g) and 35 times that of rice (10mg/100g). 

Sesame seeds, not only make these cookies look pretty, they are also rich in calcium and good fats, and with flaxseeds rich in omega-3, this is one uber-healthy recipe, perfect for your kid's lunch box treat or with your afternoon cup of tea. If you've baked cookies using traditional cookie recipes, you'd know that most of them call for 1-2 sticks of butter, upto 250 grams! Here, you get 20 biscuits with just 3 tbsp butter. You can, by all means, try substituting butter with ghee, for a richer, deeper flavour. 



Regarding flaxseeds, their nutrients are only absorbed if the seeds are powdered. You get powdered flaxseed in several supermarkets (Nilgiri's in Bangalore) and health food stores. If you don't find them, get the whole seeds, lightly toast 100 grams flaxseeds and powder it in the mixer. Keep in airtight container in the fridge. 

Recipe for Ragi - Ginger Biscuits
Makes 20
Time taken - Under 30 minutes

Ingredients
1/2 cup ragi flour
1/2 cup maida
2 tbsp skimmed milk powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
5 tsp powdered jaggery
1/2 cup crystal sugar
2 tsp flaxseed powder
1 tsp dried ginger powder (sonth powder)
1/2 tsp finely grated ginger*
1/2 tsp chai masala or 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces
3-4 tbsp cold milk
1 tbsp black sesame seeds + 1 tbsp white sesame seeds (or entirely white)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven at 180 C.
2. Keep a baking tray ready, lined with silicone mat or a greased tin foil or parchment paper.
3. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except butter and milk, until well combined.
4. Add the butter pieces and with finger tips rub the mixture together until it feels like bread crumbs
5. Add milk 1 tbsp at a time and knead gently till it comes together like a dough. 
6. Divide into 20 equal balls, rolling each between lightly greased palms. Gently press each ball on the sesame seeds laid out on a plate, only on one side and place the flattened ball, sesame seeds side up, on the baking sheet, leaving a little space between each cookie, for they'll expand.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C until the tops are browned. Cool and store in air tight container.

Tip
*To get finely grated ginger for salad dressings, tea and ginger cookies, store the cleaned ginger roots in a ziploc bag in the freezer. They stay forever, don't get soggy and when grated, give finely powdered fresh ginger. 

Read More...

Easy Eggless Choco-Vanilla Cookies

"If I hear "I'm hungry" one more time, I'm going to check myself into a nearby hotel and switch off my mobile phone!"

 That's me telling my four year old, who tells me he's hungry every 15 minutes and the minute I rustle up something, he conveniently forgets about his hunger and runs off to rebuild a Lego castle for the 500th time. But yesterday, I went out for a beautiful wine evening at The Sheraton #socialhour- it's when people at Sheraton Hotels around the world come together for a toast at the decided time. What's more, the wine served at each hotel across the world is from the same winery, for that week. After multiple cabernet sauvignons & rieslings, a good night's sleep at my cousin's place & breakfast with a wonderful friend at the legendary Veena Stores, I'd had enough of me time and couldn't wait to get back home to my mischief monger boy. So today, when he said "I want cookies, mummy" - my guilt pushed me faster than a runaway train to start the oven and then think of something to bake on the spur of the moment.


It started with creaming some butter & sugar, added flour and one thing led to the other. I ended up with these oh-so-cute brown & cream cookies. When I posted the pics on Twitter & Saffrontrail FB page, I was goaded into doing this quick post on how I made them. I'm sorry I'm unable to provide very exact measurements, I hope it's very close to the quantities I've used. Anyway cookies aren't as unforgiving as cakes, so they should turn out okay! They only take 20 minutes, and I promise it will make your child (or the inner child in you) smile :-)

Recipe for Half & Half Cookies
Takes under 30 minutes
Roughly 30 cookies of ~ 2" diameter

Ingredients
4 heaped tbsp soft unsalted butter (if salted, reduce the salt by a pinch)
1/2 cup sugar + 1/2 tsp sea salt - pulsed in mixer for few seconds
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract or powder
1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cocoa powder
few tsp cold water 
1-2 tsp cold milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 180 C.
2. Line a big baking tray with tin foil or parchment.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar-salt mix with a spoon for 2 minutes, adding in the vanilla extract, until well combined.
4. Sift the flours and baking powder together on a sheet of paper or mix it with a fork in a bowl and add it to the creamed mix.
5. Mix well until it forms a dough, adding 1-2 tsp of cold water or milk to bind, if required.
6. Divide roughly in half. Keep one half aside. To the other half, add the cocoa powder, a few drops of cold milk and knead gently to make a smooth but stiff dough (or you cant slice them).
7. Now you'll have two rounds of dough, one white and one brown.
8. Divide each into two logs, to get two white logs and two brown logs.
9. Join one white log and one choco log and roll into a log on a clean smooth surface. It's not necessary, that the white and brown parts are exactly half and half, don't stress out over this-just make sure each log as some white and some brown.
10. At this stage you could refrigerate for 15 mins or so and then slice into 1.5 cm thick slices or go ahead without chilling.
11. Place each slice on the baking tray leaving some space between each cookie.
12. Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes, until the white parts start turning golden. At this point they will still be very soft, so don't overbake. They will crisp up as they cool
13. For chewy cookies, remove them a little earlier.

Note
You can bake as many as you want at a time and freeze the remaining logs / slices to bake as and when required. You dont need to thaw the dough. Slice frozen dough and bake as it is in a preheated oven-adding 1-2 minutes extra for fresh cookies on demand :)

What people who tried this have to say!

Cookie making debut. Made choco-vanilla cookies for the wife and kids. instagram.com/p/ZdS0Gnpeog/
— Obstetrix (@ScissorTongue) May 18, 2013

@saffrontrail wow luks super.. hey i made the kung fu panda cookies today.. turned out well :) thks for making my kid happy too :)
— sowmya (@vishalsowmya) May 17, 2013

Read More...

The healthiest cookies I have ever baked

I don't bake cookies often. Just one simple reason - the quantity of butter that most cookie recipes ask for, totally intimidates me. But a few weeks ago, I was baking cookies for days in a row, starting with these unbelievably healthy flourless, butterless, eggless and almost sugarless cookies which I stumbled upon on 101cookbooks.


I adapted slightly, adding a little honey to sweeten them up a bit, as it was for the kids in the playgroup. The teacher wrote me a note saying they were delicious and no one wanted to share them with anyone. So much for the notion that nothing healthy can ever be delicious.


Thanks Nikki for sharing it with us butter-phobics via Heidi's blog. 

Oats - Banana - Almond - Chocolate cookies 
Makes around 3 dozen bite sized cookies
Time taken - under 30 minutes


Ingredients
3 bananas, peeled and mashed (riper, the better)
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1/4 cup rice bran oil
2 cups oats ( I used Saffola brand)
1/4 cup almonds - roughly pulsed in mixer [if allergic to nuts, use 1/4 cup cornmeal instead]
1/3 cup scraped coconut, fresh or frozen (if frozen, microwave for 30 seconds to soften it)
4 tbsp of honey or brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
150-200 grams of chocolate bar, chopped roughly [Morde or Selbourne is good]


Directions
Preheat oven at 175 Celsius.


In a large bowl, combine mashed bananas, vanilla extract and oil with a whisk.
In another bowl, mix all dry ingredients except the chocolate. 
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mix until combined. 
Stir in the chocolate chunks at the end.


Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. If you have a smaller oven, bake in batches convenient to you.
Drop heaped teaspoon fulls of cookie dough keeping an inch of space between the cookies.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.
These will be chewy when cooled. 


Notes
These make a perfect healthy snack for you or your kids. Also simple enough and non messy to bake together with young kids. 
The batch I sent to school, I skipped the almonds as some kids could be allergic to tree nuts. The cornmeal worked well in that. Another batch I baked with almonds, that had a beautiful flavour and crunch, to which I added almond extract.

Read More...

On growing strawberries and recipe for Eggless Strawberry Yogurt Cake

My three year old son and me have a morning routine nowadays. After his drink of milk, we go to the garden and check if there's any red peeking out of the strawberry patch. If we didn't do this, the squirrels and ants, who have been blessed with a better foraging sense than us human beings, will get to the juicy berries before we do. We don't get too much, but a small handful a day, to add to cereal or to make a couple of muffins, or to eat as it is. The latter doesn't happen often as I am not very tolerant to acidic fruits and I'm yet to taste lusciously sweet strawberries grown in India. Here, strawberry needs sugar as a partner to make it more palatable. 


But, however little, that sense of joy we get from having watched something grow for nearly eight months, and finally bearing fruit, is such a fulfilling one. These strawberry saplings were planted in June and they quickly propagated and covered the ground, but there was not a single flower in sight even after six months. The newbie gardener that I am, I quickly lost hope. Patience is clearly not one of my virtues, hence I stand to benefit a lot from gardening. I am slowly learning that nature doesn't work at the speed of a 4Mbps internet connection. It takes its own sweet time. And what sweeter time than spring time? I don't need my neighbours to drench me in permanent colours (albeit organic) and hose me with tons of water, to announce the arrival of spring (I'm talking about the one festival I dread, Holi). The new blooms and fruits in my garden had already whispered to me a few weeks ago that spring is not far away...

Just plucked strawberries basking in the morning sun

A few years ago, if someone told me that I could grow strawberries in India, I would have laughed it off. But Bangalore weather is somehow to conducive to growing almost anything. Like my friend @abithaanandh tweeted this morning -

 "Am willing to overlook 11pm deadlines,bad infrastructure,forever 90s music loop- all 4 those few precious hrs in the garden! Tk U #Bangalore"

It is so true. I'll continue to grow strawberries next year too. I'm told they bear better fruit in the 2nd and 3rd year. Only, I'll be growing them in hanging baskets, so I dont have to compete with the ants to pluck the fruit!


I've been wanting to bake a strawberry cake for a while now. Not the types where the fruit is pureed in, but stands out like red jewels, slightly mushy from the baking and a burst of flavour in the mouth, when you bite into it. And somehow, I wanted to pair it with yogurt as I couldn't use eggs in this. A Foodblogsearch didn't find me the kind of recipe I had in mind, so I did my own improvisation. Yesterday afternoon, just before the baking session, I found a bottle of strawberry essence at Nilgiri's, so the fruit, the essence and the jam made the taste pretty intense, but not in the cloying sort of way.


The recipe I'm sharing with you seems to be the most low-fat and healthiest version among all those that I went through as a result of my various searches.

Pin It

This is a tea cake or a weekend breakfast cake. I'm not asking you to believe that it's dessert. Umm...may be with ice cream, yes :)


The texture was very moist and delicate despite not using eggs or butter.
Do give it a try before the strawberry season bids us a goodbye.

Recipe for Strawberry-Yogurt Cake
Eggfree / Eggless / Lowfat
Tea time or breakfast cake
Makes 1 tall 8" cake

Ingredients

¾ cup yogurt
¼ cup milk (skimmed or toned, as you prefer)

¼ cup rice bran oil (or any cooking oil)
¾ cup sugar
2 generous tablespoons of strawberry or mixed fruit jam
1 tsp Strawberry essence or mixed fruit essence (gives a more fruitier flavour, if you don’t have either, use vanilla extract 1 tsp)

1.5 cups all purpose flour OR 1 cup AP flour + ½ cup whole wheat flour (atta)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt

Roughly 1 cup finely diced strawberries
Handful of tutti-frutty (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 180 C
2. Grease an 8” round cake tin. If using silicon pan, no need to grease.
3. In one bowl, whisk the oil, yogurt, milk, sugar and jam.
4. In another big bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well. Add the whisked wet ingredients. Fold until they come together. Over enthusiastic beating / whisking is better avoided.
5. Towards the end, fold in chopped berries and tutti-fruity.
6. Scrape the batter into the greased tin / silicon mould and bake at 180 C for around 45-55 minutes, checking with a tester if it comes out clean.
7. After 10 minutes, unmould and cool on a wire rack.
8. Cut into wedges, dust with icing sugar and serve with tea.

The same recipe will work with raspberries or blueberries to make a blueberry yogurt cake or a raspberry yogurt cake.

See what people have to say about this cake! (via Twitter)

Dear @saffrontrail i tried your strawberry yogurt cake recipe and it came it out so well. Thanks :) — Marie Gold (@OyeMaria) March 11, 2012

@saffrontrail Love your blog.Just baked your eggless strawberry yogurt cake ,its superb!wanted to thankyou.Hope you wud reciprocate!:)
— nitisha kashyap (@nitishakashyap) March 11, 2012

Cake done. Waiting to cool ! @saffrontrailI can't find you on FB so the update is here! twitter.com/thingyimajig/s…— MushyPeas (@thingyimajig) March 10, 2012

@saffrontrail hey, just made the strawberry yoghurt cake.. came out amazing! I just wished my strawberries weren't so sour though :-( — Priya A (@priya_arun) March 9, 2012

@saffrontrail Yeah... Sounds like a healthy cake. Will probably make it before the strawberry season ends. — LoveFoodEat (@chinmayiebhat) March 11, 2012

Tempted to bake @saffrontrail's strawberry yoghurt cake tonight. But waistline concerns are there : — S (@wastrelette) March 11, 2012

Read More...

Fruit Cake for Christmas - Two versions (With eggs and Eggless)

What's Christmas without Fruit Cake? As a child, my mom would buy the most delicious Plum Cakes from a cake-seller who would come to their bank each year. These fruit cakes are no replacement for those childhood memories of rich-dark cake, but do come close nevertheless.

I have been making Fruit Cake for Christmas since the last five years, but not putting down the recipes in one place always made me hunt high and low for the perfect recipe for me, weeks before Christmas. The perfect recipe for me would be low on butter or oil and also an eggless recipe that tastes as good as the eggy one, if not better.

The eggless version, I got inspiration from Anushruti's Divine Taste. The idea of using smoothly mashed potatoes in place of eggs was a first for me. And since it worked beautifully for her, I had no doubt that it would for me too. I am glad to report that my eggless version is yummier and softer that the one with eggs.

The recipe with eggs is adapted from Raaga's blog. I used the same recipe last year too, with much success.

Both recipes have a common starting point which is soaking the fruit a few days ago and then making the caramel a few hours before starting the final cake making.
Although, fruitcake covered with white frosting is popular, i have never been a fan of any kind of icing or frosting, whose only purpose is to send us on a sugar overload. So here are the two recipes that I have used this year with much success.


Prepare in advance
3 cups of mixed dried fruits, citrus peels (raisins, apricot, fig, currants, tutti fruitti, glaced cherries soaked in 1 cup rum with 1 tsp cinnamon powder - for one week-1 month

[Chop the apricot, cherries and fig into small pieces before soaking] I use half this fruit (two cups) per recipe - so 4 cakes for this quantity of fruit.
One batch caramel - reqd per recipe that makes two 8” cakes.

Making caramel

Place ½ cup sugar in heavy bottomed pan. Keep ¾ cup water to boil on the side. On a low heat, let this melt. When it is melting, stir it until it is dark brown in colour. Once sugar has reached this stage, carefully add the boiling water little by little stirring well, until you get a smooth caramel syrup. You can make this ahead as it needs to be completely cool before using in recipe.

Recipe for Christmas Fruit Cake using Eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1-2 tsp instant coffee powder

1 cup oil
1 cup fine sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp ginger powder
2 tsp vanilla essence or 1 tsp mixed fruit essence
3 eggs
¼ cup mixed nuts and seeds (chopped)
3 tbsp Cointreau or Limoncello (optional)
2 cups of soaked fruit

Directions
Grease two 8” round tins and line with parchment paper. You can also bake in multiple foil tins for gifting away smaller cakes. Baking time will be less in case you are using smaller foil tins.
Preheat oven at 175 C.
In a large bowl, beat together oil, sugar, cinnamon and ginger powder, vanilla essence and 3 eggs.
Add the cooled caramel. Whisk well.
In a large dish, sieve the flour, soda, baking powder and instant coffee powder.
To the wet ingredients, add the dry ingredients in batches, folding well to incorporate.
Once nearly done, add 2 cups or half the soaked fruit, nuts and the liquor. Mix well and pour equally into the two greased tins.
Bake for 30 minutes at 175 C and another 15-25 minutes at 150 C covered by foil.
Test the center of the cake if it is done. Cool for 15 minutes in pan. Remove along with paper onto a cooling rack.
Poke holes with a skewer or toothpick and pour two tablespoons of rum or any other liquor. Once cooled, cover with parchment paper and keep in a tin. Repeat the rum-soak every other day for a week or so (optional)



Christmas Fruitcake - Eggless version / Low fat version

Ingredients
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1-2 tsp instant coffee powder

1 cup finely mashed potatoes (pressure cook 3 medium potatoes. Remove skin when cool and mash with fork, removing any lumps) Bring to room temperature.
1 cup yogurt plus keep ½ cup yogurt if batter too thick
½ cup oil
1 cup fine sugar
Caramel made using ½ cup sugar and ¾ cup water
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp ginger powder
2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp mixed fruit essence
3 tbsp Cointreau or Limoncello (optional)

Directions

1. Grease two 8” round tins and line with parchment paper. You can also use multiple foil tins for gifting away smaller cakes. Baking time will be less in case you are using smaller foil tins.
2. Preheat oven at 175 C.
3. In a large bowl, whisk well the oil, yogurt, mashed potato, sugar, caramel, spices and vanilla.
4. In a large dish, sieve the flour, soda, baking powder and instant coffee powder.
5. To the wet ingredients, add the dry ingredients in batches, folding well to incorporate.
6. Once nearly done, add 2 cups or half the soaked fruit, nuts and the liquor. Mix well and pour equally into the two greased tins.
7. Bake for 30 minutes at 175 C and another 15-25 minutes at 150 C covered by foil.
8. Test the center of the cake if it is done. Cool for 15 minutes in pan. Remove along with paper onto a cooling rack.
9. Poke holes with a skewer or toothpick and pour two tablespoons of rum or any other liquor. Once cooled, cover well with parchment paper and keep in a tin. Repeat the rum-soak every other day for a week or so (optional)

Tip

For both versions, let the cake sit overnight before slicing or it may be very crumbly.

So Merry Christmas to all of you. Eat all the good stuff in moderation and save yourself from guilt pangs. Revel in the festive spirit and close 2010 on a high.

Read More...