Eggless Pineapple Bread

I opened a large can of chopped pineapple while experimenting with different toppings for my English muffin pizza. Apparently I used about two table spoon of it and the rest went into the refrigerator. Every time I opened the fridge I kept thinking of how to use the left over fruit.With new job and all I didn't have any time to browse for a new baking recipe with pineapple and finally decided to bake my favorite pineapple bread, which I have already blogged here. On a Sunday evening when I was all set to bake I realized that I ran out of butter and hence went ahead with oil and made it eggless too, nevertheless the bread turned out moist and soft.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1 tin chopped pineapple (approx 2 cups)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 tblsp flax meal(powder) mixed with 3 tblsp warm water


Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F/180C.
Butter  or line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
Mix the flax seed powder with 3 tblsp of warm water  and set aside for 10 mins.
In a bowl add the dry ingredients flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, mix well to combine.
In a large bowl  mix in the oil, sugar, flax meal and vanilla extract. Beat well to combine.
To this add the dry ingredients and gently mix to incorporate. Do not beat or over mix.
Now add the chopped pineapple along with the liquid and stir to combine.


Transfer the batter to the loaf tin and bake for 45 - 50 mins.
The time can vary depending on the oven.So check periodically after 40 min's,a knife or toothpick inserted in the middle should come clean.

Note: If you want a mildly sweet bread reduce the sugar to 3/4th of a cup.
Replace the flax meal and water with 1 egg if you want to try with egg.

Lemon Blueberry Bread

I had a packet of frozen blueberries in the freezer with the idea of making a smoothie. Tried it once and the kid didnt like it at all. So I used half of them in this blueberry muffins earlier and the rest went into this delicious blueberry bread. Do try this recipe, its definitely a keeper.

Source - JoyOfBaking
Ingredients:
 1 1/2 cup All purpose flour
1/2 cup butter softened at room temperature 
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tblsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberrries
1/2 cup milk


For the lemon glaze:
 2 tablespoon white sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice.


Method:
Preheat the Oven to 350F
Prepare a loaf pan by buttering up the sides and bottom.
In a large bowl add the flour, baking powder and salt, whisk well to combine.
Take a table spoon of this flour mixture in a small bowl and gently coat the blueberries.

In an other bowl cream the butter with the electric mixture until soft.
Add the sugar and beat for another 2 -3 minutes till it becomes creamy. 
Add the egg one by one and beat well to incorporate.
Scrape the sides of the bowl using a spatula and beat the mixture till its smooth and pale.
Now add the flour mixture in three additions alternating with the milk, ending with the flour.
Gently fold in the blueberries. Do not overmix.


Transfer the batter to the prepared loaf pan and bake for 50-60 mins or until the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For the glaze:
Place the pan on a wire rack. 
In a microwavable bowl add the sugar and lemon juice , warm it up for 20 secs or just until the sugar dissolves.
Poke holes on the bread with a tooth pick and then gently brush the top with the warm liquid. 
Remove from the pan after 20 minutes.

Notes:
If using frozen blueberries , do not thaw, toss with flour and directly add to the prepared batter.
Do not skip the glazing part, its not too sweet and gives the bread a moist texture.

Apple Almond Cake

Here's yet another cake for this season. I baked this over the weekend, the recipe  from Dragon's kitchen. I had bookmarked this recipe as soon as she posted in her blog, but it took about a year for me to make it. When the cake was baking, the house was filled with wonderful aroma of cinnamon ,apples and almonds  typical flavors of December. The cake was moist and delicious, a perfect dessert cake with a scoop of vanilla Ice cream.

Recipe source : Dragon's Kitchen
I almost followed the recipe with a slight change from my side. I increased the cinnamon to 11/2 tsp and used brown sugar for the topping. I also used vanilla essence instead of almond extract.


Ingredients:
11/2 cup All purpose flour
3/4 cup Granulated sugar
11/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup yogurt
1/4 cup butter melted


3 apples peeled and sliced thin
1/4 cup slivered /sliced almonds
3 tablespoon Sugar/Brown sugar
11/2 tsp cinnamon

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
Prepare a 9'' springform pan
Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder , soda and salt in a bowl.
Break in the eggs one by one in a separate large  bowl, stir in the yogurt  and melted butter and vanilla essence. Beat well for a min.
Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir well till incorporated.
Pour the batter to the prepared pan. Arrange the apple slices over the batter.


In a small bowl mix the almonds, cinnamon and the brown sugar.Sprinkle on top of the apple.
Bake in the oven for 50 - 60 minutes. Mine was done in 50 minutes. So start checking from 50 mins


Serve warm with whipped cream or Ice cream

Sending this off to Champa's Bake-off event at the Versatile Kitchen 

Cakes and cookies - Xmas event at "My Culinary Creations"

Its time to jingle again - at AsanKhana

Apple cinnamon muffins

I had bookmarked this recipe from Baking bites long back but didnt get to it.Whenever I think of trying this recipe either I will be short of apples or the apples will not be fresh.Since Iam travelling to India on a three weeks vacation Iam planning my menu everyday such that no vegetables or fruits are left out in the refrigerator.Veggies I can manage, but fruits ! with only three days left there is a lot of fruit (peaches,cherries, pears, apples)to be finished thanks to the visit to the farmers market..So dont be surprised if there is an other post on something with peaches.(ya I have a bookmarked recipe of peaches too..)

I didnt use the recipe as such, made a few changes like avoided eggs and used milk instead of buttermilk.I also used whole wheat pastry flour.The result was soft moist and delicious muffins.

Recipe adapted from Baking Bites

Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract ( I used vanilla sugar)

1 cup milk

2 cups diced apple

3 tbsp coarse sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnomon

Method

Preheat oven to 375F (190C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices.

In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar , melted butter, vegetable oil and vanilla.

Working in two or three additions, alternately stir in flour mixture and milk, ending with an addition of flour and mixing only until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter.

Stir in diced apple.Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups filling each to the top, or slightly over.

In a small bowl, stir together coarse sugar and additional 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon.

Sprinkle generously over muffins.Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Mine made 9 large Muffins.



The theme for this month's Think Spice event hosted by Sunita herself being "Spiced sweet treat" these gorgeous Apple Muffins spiced with cinnamon and ginger makes their way to the event.



Sending these healthy muffins to the "Show me your muffins " event by Divya at Dil-se

Cherry cake

Baked this beautiful cake past weekend with some leftover cherries from the farmers market.

Browsed a lot of recipes from the net and finally settled on the one from Joy of Baking.

I followed the recipe as given, but had to replace the sugar with brown sugar, as I realised that I ran out of white sugar, after beating the eggs.

But the cake baked beautifully and was delicious.I made this in the evening and the cake plate become empty by the time we had tea.

Ingredients:

1 pound (454 grams) fresh cherries, pitted
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup (150 grams) brown sugar
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup (80 ml) milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).

Butter and flour an 9 inch (23 cm) spring form pan and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
Rinse, dry, and pit all the cherries. Cut the cherries as desired.

Take about 1/4 (about 15) of the cherries (to be placed on the top of the cake during baking) and cut them in half.
In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl , beat the eggs and sugar until thick and lemon colored (about 3-5 minutes).

Add the melted butter, milk, vanilla, and lemon zest and beat just until incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and stir just until moistened. Gently fold in the whole pitted cherries.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with an offset spatula.
Bake for 15 minutes then remove from oven.

Quickly arrange the remaining cherries, cut side down, on the top of the cake.

Return the cake to the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the cake portion comes out clean.
Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool slightly.
Serve warm or at room temperature with a dollop of softly whipped cream.
Makes 8 - 10 servings.

Source : Joy of Baking

Strawberry Cake and Muffins

It was raining strawberries at home last week. My toddler just started eating strawberries and he likes it a lot even if its soar.Just the fact that my son has started a liking towards these pinkish beauties made my husband go for loads of them.Yes, he brought home a whole bag of it.

The best part of it is that he didnt know that strawberries doesnt have a longer life even if its refrigerated. So two days later I started browsing for some recipes to use the left over fruit, and came across two wonderful recipes.

The first one was Aparna's Strawberry muffin.

The recipe was so simple I immediatly baked them. As she mentioned in her post I added some sugar to the berries before mixing as mine was very sour.But the muffin tasted really good with no trace of the sourness.

The next one was a Strawberry spring cake from Asha's Foodie's hope.

This recipe was already book marked by me when she posted it last month, waiting for some neglected strawberries, and so baked that wonderful soft cake the next day.

Over all the recipes were so good and welcomed by all , that I baked them twice.

Iam posting the recipes here for keepsake:

Strawberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar*

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped (not too fine) Strawberries

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

1 egg (or flax seed substitute**)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Put the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl and whisk lightly to mix well.

Add the strawberries to the flour mixture and mix to ensure they are well coated with flour.

In another bowl, lightly beat the egg/ flax seed substitute, vanilla extract, milk and oil together. Add this to the strawberry-flour mixture and gently mix together, in a folding motion, about 4 or 5 times. Do not over stir, or the texture of your muffins will suffer.

The batter will be lumpy and slightly floury.

Grease the muffin tins/ cups and divide the batter equally between them, so that each one is about 2/3rds full.

Bake at 180C for about 25 minutes till the muffins are done and lightly golden brown on top.

Cool for 10 minutes, unmould them and cool completely on a rack. This recipe makes 8 muffins.

Note : I used whole wheat flour completly for this recipe, and somehow my batter become a little thin , but my muffins came out just fine.

Strawberry cake

:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup ( 1 stick) softened butter,

2 eggs,

1 cup regular white sugar,

1 tsp vanilla essence,

1 3/4 cups plain flour,

1/8 tsp salt,

2 tsp baking powder,

2/3 cup fresh red ripened Strawberries pureed.

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F/190C.

Spray cake pan with no-stick oil or butter well and keep aside.

In a mixer bowl, beat the sugar and butter first until fluffy.

Add in the eggs,mix. Then add in the vanilla.

Sift flour and baking powder, add to the creamed butter mixture and mix again gently on low speed until everything comes together.

Now, stir in the strawberry puree, beat until batter is well mixed and evenly pink.

Pour into the prepared pan, tap on the kitchen counter to top get the bubbles out.

Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden and skewer comes out clean form the center.

Take it out of the oven, let it sit for 5mins. Invert gently on the cooling rack.

When cool, sprinkle powdered sugar on top to serve or you can use Vanilla icing.

I served it with whipped cream.It was delicious.

Hence ended my starwberry saga for this season and No more for this year ! :)

Sending these Muffins and Cake to 'The Strawberry Feast' hosted by Happy Cook at 'My Kitchen Treasures'

Healthy Peach upside down cake.

Well, this post is a result of a huge bag of peach that I brought from the farmers market two weeks back. Not only Peach I also brought Plums and Cherries. Could not resist them as they were fresh , glowing and not to say they were on Sale too!!!. Thats why I love summers. While cherries and plums got over by sunday evening peaches were not touched. As my Husband hates peaches, the whole week I managed to finish off most of them by myself.

Finally I had 5 more ripe peaches left in the basket, and I started looking for a peach cake recipe. As usual I mix and matched few recipes and came up with this healthy version(no butter , no egg but some oil though) which made a delicious snack for our short trip over the weekend. Here is the recipe.





Ingredients:
For the base.
4-5 ripe but firm peaches
2 tblsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnomon
1 tsp flour
1 tsp vanilla powder/essence

For the Cake:
1 cup All purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1tsp Baking soda
1 tsp cinnoman
1 tsp vanilla essence/powder

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F /180 C
Coat the baking pan with a tsp of melted butter.

Blanching:
Boil a pot of water, remove from the heat and put the whole peaches in it, close with a lid. Peel the skin after 10 minutes.



Slice the peaches and place in a plate. Sprinkle cinnomon, brown sugar and vanilla essence and flour over it. Carefully toss it using a spoon so that its well coated.
Arrange these slices on the Baking pan. Reserve the left over juices from the fruit.









For the cake beat the sugar and oil well, and the add milk beat well. Sift the dry ingredients once or twice and then add to the sugar oil mixture. Add the reserved juices and blend well.
Pour the mixture over the arranged peaches. Bake for 30-35 mins










Invert the cake after its completly cooled.

Serve warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.
















Since Peaches are very much in season here in july and august off this dish goes to the "Eating with the Seasons" hosted by Maninas