Kiwi top cake

I had a kiwi in the refrigerator.It was ripe & firm as well.So decided to google a recipe for kiwi cake.

I saw this recipe for an eggless kiwi cake.I tweaked it a little & made a vegan kiwi top cake.

Ingredients, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup maida, 1 tbsp flaxseed meal , 1/2 cup applesauce, 1/2 cup jaggery  sugar, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, a kiwi , 3-4 tsps white sugar for sprinkling on kiwi slices .

Method : Pre  heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

.Mix whole wheat flour, maida, baking soda & baking powder nicely many times over .Keep aside.

Make apple sauce by pressure cooking an apple.Peel the apple. Remove the seeds.The apple can be cut into 4 slices or more.  Pressure cook it upto one whistle. Mash the apple pieces by hand or pav bhaji masher or mixer . Keep aside.

Alternatively, simply cut the apple into pieces. Pressure cook to 1 whistle. After it cools, de peel the apple pieces & de seed them.Mash the apples by hand or mixer or pav bhaji masher.

Soak flaxseed meal in 1/ 4 cup warm water for 15 minutes Keep aside.

Mix apple sauce, flaxseed meal soaked in water together. Add brown sugar.Mix all nicely.

Make a well in the dry ingredients mix & pour the wet mix into it. Blend all, such that,
no lumps remain in the cake batter.I had to add 1/4 cup water as the liquid content was less. Even 1 tbsp oil ( optional ) can be added & then some water drop by drop.Batter consistency must be liked idli batter.

Line a baking vessel with butter paper. Pour the cake batter into the baking vessel.Smoothen top of the cake batter with backside of spoon. Arrange kiwi slices on the top of the cake batter.Sprinkle white sugar generously  on the kiwi slices. Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 45 minutes or till a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

I bake in microwave mode for 5-10 minutes after the aforesaid convection baking of 45 minutes.

Cools the cake for 45 minutes-( 15 minutes in the oven ) & later outside the oven.Turn the baking vessel upside down on to a plate. Remove the butter paper sticking to the bottom & sides of the cake gently.Then turn the cake up. Cut into desired shapes & serve.



My cake turned out good.The texture was good. Sugar was just apt. Kiwi pieces taste tangy & it gives a nice flavour to the sweetness of the cake.

Vegan chocolate cake.

I wanted to make a chocolate cake after my friend posted her vegan chocolate cake on whatsapp.Her recipe used warm water & vinegar.I googled & came across this vegan chocolate cake recipe using applesauce. I thought, this was a brilliant idea to sneak in an apple into the cake !

I have posted an eggless chocolate cake which was baked in microwave, earlier on the blog.

I made just an alteration or two & my cake turned out super ! Except that it hardly tasted sweet.Because ,I used jaggery sugar & white sugar in 1 :1 ratio.So , I sprinkled powdered sugar on the cake & then rubbed fingers all over the sprinkled sugar.so it looks as if it is smeared over the cake.

Ingredients : 1 cup whole wheat atta, 1 tbsp maida ( In the original recipe,there was corn starch .I googled to learn that corn starch could be replaced by flour, flax seed meal etal ) ,1/2 cup sugar ( I used part jaggery sugar & part white sugar  as jaggery sugar got over) , 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp Coffee powder, 1 tsp baking soda,1/3 cup apple sauce, 1/2 to 1  cup warm water ,a pinch of salt.

Method  Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

Meanwhile as oven pre heats, mix all dry ingredients that is whole wheat flour, maida,sugar, cocoa powder, coffee powder, 1 tsp baking soda & salt. Mix all ingredients many times over so that all are thoroughly mixed with each other. Keep aside.

Cut an apple into 4-5 pieces.Deseed them.Pressure cook to 1 whistle. Cool. Deskin the apple pieces & mash them up.This mashed up apple mix is unsweetened applesauce.

Make a well in the dry ingredients mix.Add the apple sauce & mix thoroughly.I found that applesauce was less. The batter was dry...in fact not all flour had got wet even.So , I warmed some water & added to dry ingredients applesauce mix till I got a cake batter. Add water drop by drop or rather spoonful by spoonful.Add water carefully so that the batter does not get runny. If apple sauce amount is enough for cake batter , then ,there is no need to add warm water. Cake batter must have idli batter like consistency.

Take a bake able dish & line the insides of the dish with butter paper. Pour the batter into the vessel on the butter paper. Bake in oven at 180 degrees centigrade for 30-40 minutes. My cake was baked in 30 minutes.

Do the toothpick test. If toothpick comes out wet, bake in microwave mode for 2 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes.Take out the cake & cool outside oven for 15-20 minutes. Cut into desired shapes & serve.

My cake was not sweet at all....so please add more sugar.If adding white sugar, maybe a little more than 1/2 cup sugar would suffice.In case brown sugar or jaggery sugar is used, 3/4 cup sugar may be needed. I think ,even amount of coffee powder should be reduced .Maybe 1/4 tsp coffee powder can be used. Coffee powder can be skipped as some recipes use it & some recipes don't.

Apple sauce cake

I have been thinking of getting back into baking since long. Yet ,with the Microwave convection oven that I have , I had failed many times.Sometimes, the baking soda & baking powder were not up to the mark.At other times, I had forgotten to pre heat the oven.This time around,I wanted to be careful as I baked the convection way.

I looked at cakes using applesauce, flaxseed & wholewheat flour.I did come across a few recipes using wholewheat flour, applesauce ,flaxseed etal.Yet,they used just one or two ingredients.So ,instead of atta, maida was used,I wanted to avoid it. Hence, used my experience & made my version of cake.

Ingredients : 1 cup wholewheat flour, 1 cup homemade applesauce,1/3 cup brown sugar, 1  tbsp flaxseed powder , 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, ,a pinch of salt, optional :some streusel topping

Method : Cut 2 apples into 4 pieces each.Pressure cook them up to 3 whistles.Let the cooker cool.Take out the apple pieces. Depeel & deseed them.Alternatively , the apples can be de seeded & de peeled before pressure cooking them.Make pureee of the cooked apple pieces in mixer. Keep aside. Soak 1tbsp flaxseed powder in 3 tbsp water for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile mix atta with baking , powder & baking soda nicely with a whisk many times.Add brown sugar & salt.Mix thoroughly again.

Mix flaxseed water mix with applesauce.nicely.Pour this mix into the atta sugar baking powder soda mixture. Mix such that no lumps remain. Line a baking dish with butter paper. Pour this cake mix into the dish over the butter paper. Sprinkle  top of cake mix with  streusel topping .Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Bake  in preheated oven at 180 degrees for 30-40 minutes or till a knife poked into cake comes out clean. If ,bottom of cake feels moist, bake in microwave mode for 3-4 minutes.

Cool.Put cake upside down .Cut into desired shapes .

The cake was very moist & dense. Next time around,while using flaxseed meal ,less flour needs to be used. I had streusel topping at home.It was leftover topping of ready made muffin mix. Powdered sugar can be sprinkled as a topping on cake or even shrikhand can be smeared as a topping ! This cake was just aptly sweet.Brown sugar is less sweeter than white sugar.

Masala peanuts.

I attended microwave cooking demo class this week.The chef taught masala peanuts .It was simply amazing as this recipes makes no use of oil.And as far as I know ,this is deep fried snack.I knew that I had to try this.

I tweaked the recipe as the chef had used water .I used chaas,The chef had omitted use of ajwain or carom seeds.I added that as well.

Ingredients : 1 cup peanuts, 1/4 cup besan ,1/4 cup chaas ( not very thin ) ,1/4 tsp ajwain ,1/2 tsp red chilli powder,1/4 tsp haldi,1/4 tsp hing,salt to taste.

Method : Mix all ingredients nicely.If you feel the mix is too dry,add some more chaas or drop by drop water.Mix.

Take a microwaveable vessel.Put the mix in that.Turn on the microwave at full power.Put timer for 5 minutes.Keep the microwaveable vessel with mix in microwave.Turn on microwave.After 1 minute,press pause button.Take out the vessel & with aspoon try to seperate out all peanuts from each other.They would be sticking in bunches.Again keep in microwave for 1 minute.Puase.Take out & try to separate out bunches.Repeat this till 5 minutes get over .By the end of this ,the vessel will be in & out 5 times.Put off microwave.Take out the vessel.Let it cool for 5 minutes.Take a peanut & taste.It will be crisp & crunchy.If it i soft ,keep vessel in microwave on full power for 1 more minute.Put off microwave.

The snack was just apt for my consumption .My mom who eats less salt now said it was a tad bit salty.My friend said that more red chilli & ajwain could have been added.Accordingly ,more chilli powder n ajwain can be added.Same for salt.

Moong sprouts salad

Sprouts are said to be super foods.And so ,I decided to include sprouts in my food at least on some days.

Moong sprouts : Soak whole moong in water for 4-5 hours.Then drain the water & use the sprout maker to get moong sprouts,the next day.In the alternative use a thin cotton cloth to grow sprouts.Tie the drain moong into a clean cloth .Leave it over night.Next day ,moong will have sprouted.Keep sprinkling the cloth with water drops every 2-3 hours.In winter,sprouting may be slow as compared to summers.

I soaked 1/4 cup whole moong to get sprouts which I used in this salad.Trust me ,it makes 1 whole cup of salad.

Ingredients : 1/4 cup   grated  carrot,1/4 cup grated cucumber,1/4 cup finely chopped onions,1 tsp lemon juice,moong sprouts ( 1/4 cup moong soaked & sprouted ) ,1/4 tsp grated  ginger, 1 green chilli finely chopped ( optional ) salt to taste.

Method : Mix all grated veggies & sprouts.Add salt & lemon juice & mix nicely.Add green chillies if that is needed.The salad is ready !

Actually,even grated  beetroot can be added.Even red, yellow bell peppers,shredded cabbage,etal.The possibilities are endless !

Capsicum,carrot ,onion salad

I have been eating cooked food...I was craving for something raw ...raw carrots,etc.So decided to make a salad with whatever veggies I had at home.

Ingredients : 1 medium sized onion roughly chopped,1/2 capsicum roughly chopped & 1 small carrot cut into thin slices, 1/4 tsp chaat masala,1/2 tsp lemon juice,rock salt to taste.

Method : Mix all the chopped onion & capsicum pieces.Add the thinly sliced carrot pieces.Mix nicely.Add chaat masala powder followed by salt.Mix nicely so that  chaat masala & salt gets nicely blended with the veggies.Add lemon juice & blend it by tossing all the veggies.The oil free sald is ready !

Serve with pulao or rotis or eat it just like that !

Any salt can be used.If more spices are needed ,they can be added.I like mine with just a minimum of spices.Instead of chaat masla ,roasted pepper & jeera powder can  both be added.More raw veggies can be added.I prefer lemon juice instead of raw tomatoes.The possibilities are endless !And this salad can be eaten as a snack  by itself !

Methi cabbage onion salad

The other day ,my mom made this yummy salad ! It has just a few ingredients & tastes superb ! It gets ready in no time at all !

Ingredients :  1 cup methi leaves,cleaned & roughly chopped,1/3 cup  & cleaned finely chopped cabbage,1/3 cup finely chopped onion,1/2 lemon, salt to taste.

Method : Put all chopped veggies in a bowl.Squeeze lemon juice of half a lemon on to the veggie mix.Add salt to taste.Mix all nicely.the fresh salad is ready !

Tip : If the juice of half a lemon is too tangy,less can be added.

Soya cutlets with peanuts powder.

I had some soya chunks & did not find any use for them.I chanced upon this recipe @http://www.sharmispassions.com/2012/01/soya-chunks-cutlet-recipe.html.I wanted to try this out.I tried & they turned out quite nicely.I rolled the cutlets on peanut powder & put them on non stick tawa.The peanut powder release oil & the cutlets got cooked !I had read about this peanut powder technique in an interview by a nutritionist ,Ms.Venkat.

Ingredients : 3/4 cup soya chunks,2 medium sized poataoes,1 small carrot ,1 green chilli,1 sprig of curry leaves,1/2 inch ginger,1/2 tsp dhana jeera powder,1/4 tsp red chilli powder,1/4 tsp hing,1/4 tsp haldi,1 tsp lemon juice,salt to taste,4-5 tbsp peanut powder,1-2 tsp oil for greasing hands to make cutlets.

Method : Pressure cook potatoes & peel them.Keep aside.Pressure cook soya chunks for 1 whistle with 1 cup water.After cooling them a bit outside the pressure cooker,squeeze the soya chunks to remove excess water.Grate carrot & ginger.Chop finely the green chilly & curry leaves.

Mash potatoes,soya chunks nicely & mix.Add haldi,hing, finely chopped green chilly, grated ginger,carrot & thoroughly mix them.Now add lemon juice,red chilli powder ,dhana jeera powder & mix nicely.It will become a unified mass.

Grease hands with little oil & take abll of the mass & pat it into flat shape - round or oval.Roll it in peanut powder such that it is coated on all sides with it.Put it on a non stick tawa & shallow fry it.After 2-3 minutes ,turn it upside down & shallow fry on the other side.

Repeat till all the mass of potatoes,soya mix gets over.I was able to make 15-20 small cutlets.I liked the taste.

After pressure cooking soya chunks ,please run water on soya chunks to get rid of soya taste as per Sharmi of Sharmis Passions.