Author: Madhuram

Announcing Whole Grain Baking Event – Quinoa
Wish you all a very happy Tamil New Year! After a small hiatus, I thought its high time that I kick start the whole grain baking event with Quinoa (pronounced as Keenwah) this month. Quinoa is not exotic any more. I would say that the credit for the popularity of quinoa (and other similar healthy ingredients) goes to the enthusiastic food bloggers who bring it to light.

The protein content in Quinoa is very high making it very popular among vegetarians, vegans and athletes. In fact it is considered even superior to rice and wheat. It is also a good source of fiber, phosphorous, magnesium and iron. Another fact worth remembering is it is gluten free too. To know more about the benefits and nutritional value of brown rice check here.

Whole grain forms of Quinoa includes any type of whole quinoa, quinoa flour and quinoa flakes. Please do let me know if you are aware of any other form of whole quinoa.

Quinoa Recipe Ideas:
- Bob’s Red Mill
- Whole GrainsCouncil
- Quinoa.net
- Quinoa Flakes and Flour Recipes
- All Recipes
- Strawberry Scones with Quinoa
- Quinoa Applesauce Cake
- Super Easy Quinoa Cookies
- Cranberry Quinoa Power Bars
- Crispy Quinoa Cookies
- Quiona Flour Baking Recipes
Rules of the event:

1 Bake anything egg less using one or more of the whole grain forms of quinoa (whole quinoa, whole grain quinoa flour, quinoa flakes, quinoa cereal, etc).

2 Post it in your blog between April 14th 2010 and May 13th 2010. The dish can be anything sweet, salty or spicy. The recipes must be either vegetarian and eggless or vegan. If the recipe is from books/blogs/websites, please link back /mention the original source.

3 Multiple entries are more than welcome. Recipes posted prior to the announcement of this event are also welcome provided it qualifies the above criteria and is linked back to this event. Reposting is not necessary.

4 Email me your name, blog URL, name of the recipe, recipe URL, photo in 150w x 120h size to wholegrains(at)egglesscooking.com with Quinoa as the subject.

5 Non-bloggers you can submit your entries in Eggless Cooking Forums under Share Egg Free Recipes. You have to register first and it’s free! Send me an email after updating there and I’ll include it in the round up.
April 14, 2010
Eggless Pineapple Bran Quick Bread

It has been a while since I baked anything. So when I set to bake a quick bread during the weekend, I was so anxious and it felt as if I was baking for the first time. I was eager than ever to taste it. A couple of days back I borrowed the book “125 Best Quick Bread Recipes” from the library. The authors of the book are Donna Washburn and Heather Butt. As the name of the book suggests, it has 125 recipes for quick breads classified under a lot of categories ranging from sweet treats, low fat, gluten free, for the bread machine, scones, coffee cakes etc. I have already bookmarked quite a few and hope to try at least 25% of it.

I decided to try the Pineapple Bran Loaf first for many reasons. I have had a can of crushed pineapples in the pantry for quite some time now, so was the Fiber One Original Bran cereal too. Also I have never used “pineapple” anything while baking and haven’t tasted anything so far too. So I thought this will be a nice change from the usual flavors I’m used too. Although at the back of the mind I was thinking if we would like it or if its going to end up in the trash.

Luckily this quick bread recipe was a hit in our house. I would bake this bread again just for the aroma while its baking and after as well. The book suggested to let it stand overnight but it was definitely a challenge to resist when your entire house is filled with this amazing aroma. While I was measuring the ingredients I was going back and forth whether to cut back on the sugar/honey in the recipe but finally decided to follow the original recipe and I’m glad I did that because the sweetness was perfect. I thought that it would be too sweet but it was just right for us. For those who don’t know me (and my husband) yet, we don’t like very sweet cakes, cookies etc. Since the bran cereal does not have any sugar at all, the sugar, honey and sweetness from the crushed pineapple makes it just right.

I was wondering if my son would like it and surprisingly he liked it very much and so did my husband too. The quick bread had a nice nutty flavor from the bran cereal and the flavor of the pineapple was not at all overpowering like I thought it would be. So if you too are bored of the usual chocolate, banana breads give this pineapple bran quick bread a try.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Eggless Pineapple Bran Loaf

Dry Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour 1 and 1/2 cups

Bran Cereal (I used Fiber One Original) 1 and 1/4 cups

Granulated Sugar 1/4 cup

Baking Soda 2 teaspoons

Baking Powder 1/2 teaspoon

Salt 1/4 teaspoon

Wet Ingredients:

Oil (I used Canola) 2 tablespoons

Unsweetened Applesauce 1/2 cup

Honey 1/3 cup

Crushed Pineapple, with juice (See Notes 1) 1 and 1/4 cups

Yield: One 9×5 inch loaf.

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan. I also lined it with a piece of parchment paper to enable easy removal of the loaf from the pan.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the dry ingredients.

3. Similarly combine together the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Just stir it well with a whisk.

4. Pour the wet mixture of the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Over-mixing the batter will result in a tough bread. Having lumps is fine, just be sure that the dry ingredients are not visible.

5. Spoon the batter into prepared pan Bake in the preheated oven for 70-80 minute or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Mine was done around 75 minutes. (See Notes 2)

6. Let cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Since I lined the pan with a parchment paper, the loaf came off very easily without any mess. Let the loaf cool completely on the rack overnight.

My Notes:

1. Be sure you don’t drain the pineapple; just spoon juice and pulp together in your measuring cup. I used the dry measuring cups for this and not the liquid measuring mug.

2. If you don’t have a light colored loaf pan, I would suggest you to get one for quick breads like this which require 70-80 minutes of baking. I used a very dark non stick pan and the corners started browning around 30 minutes itself. I have read somewhere that pies which are browning too quickly can be saved by covering it loosely with an aluminum foil. So I tried the same trick for this quick bread too and I was able to avoid a disaster. Even then I would say that the top was very brown and it could have been better had I used a light colored pan.

3. I think adding a cup of chopped walnuts to the batter will make it even more tasty.

April 12, 2010
Vegan Mango Cake

How are you doing guys? Me, okay. Life is so very exhausting that I actually forgot my blog’s 2nd birthday. Yes, EgglessCooking.com turned 2 on March 15th. Earlier I used to mock at people who told me that they forgot their or their closed one’s birthday/anniversary etc. Now I realize that its really possible to lose track of things which are really important when something even bigger is happening. So I’m very sorry my blog child!

It has been a while since I baked anything. Back in February I baked a vegan mango cake from Vaishali’s blog. I sent this cake with my mother-in-law to India and everybody with a very sweet tooth loved it. The texture was very good but I felt that it was too sweet for us. So I would definitely bake this again but would reduce the quantity of sugar to 1/2 cup. The store bought mango puree already gives a lot of sweetness, so 1/2 cup sugar should be fine. I think the quantity of sugar mentioned in the original recipe should be good if you prepare your own mango puree from fresh mangoes without adding sugar.

Vaishali, thank you very much for this simple and delicious vegan mango cake recipe.

March 24, 2010
Oats & Brown Rice Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you are a novice baker looking for an easy recipe to be successful with or in a hurry to whip up a batch of delicious cookies then this brown rice flour chocolate chip cookie recipe should be your first choice. Unlike the regular chocolate chip cookie recipe, this one doesn’t need butter, so you save time on bringing it to room temperature. This is almost instant. Just mix together flour, sugar, oil and a couple of other ingredients and by the the time the oven is preheated your cookie dough is ready. So within 30 minutes warm, delicious, fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies is ready.

This recipe is based on this barley chocolate chip cookie recipe. I used a mix of oat flour and brown rice flour instead. Since cookies don’t need much of rising unlike quick bread and cakes, I think you should be fine using any other flour in this recipe. This cookie recipe is also gluten friendly. If you make sure all the ingredients are gluten-free, this is a wonderful recipe. It’s vegan too when you use vegan chocolate chips. These cookies remained crisp even after a week.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Oats & Brown Rice Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dry Ingredients:

Oats Flour 1 and 1/4 cups

Brown Rice Flour 1 and 1/4 cups

Baking Soda 1 teaspoon

Brown Sugar (I used light) 1 cup

Granulated Sugar 1/2 cup

Chocolate Chips 1 cup

Nuts 1/2 cup

Wet Ingredients:

Canola Oil 2/3 cup

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

EnerG egg replacer 4 teaspoons

Warm Water 7 tablespoons

Yield: Approximately 30 cookies

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven for 15 minutes at 375F/190C. Grease (use shortening/butter/non-stick spray) the baking sheets and keep it aside.

2. Whip the EnerG egg replacer powder with warm water in a blender until it’s smooth and frothy.

3. In a large bowl combine the dry and wet ingredients and mix well.

4. Drop by spoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

March 4, 2010
Baking with Brown Rice – Round Up

Hello friends, hope you are all doing great. Firstly I would like to apologize for taking off just like that. I didn’t think that my absence would be noticed until I started receiving emails and comments from fellow food bloggers and regular visitors. I really feel very blessed to know that there are so many people to care about me. Thank you very much friends for your concern and wishes. A couple of things are happening at my end (everything good though) not allowing me to blog regularly and answer your emails immediately. I think it’s going to take some more time for me to get back to the routine here. I sincerely hope that you will still remember me and extend your support to the blog once I come back.

Now to the round up. This is the first time that I have not even posted a single recipe for the whole grain baking event. I did bake some delicious chocolate chip cookies using brown rice flour but didn’t get the time to write the post. Hopefully I will get to that in a couple of days and include it in the round up later. I didn’t want to keep the round up pending just to include my recipe, so here it is. Thank you my dear food blogging friends for whipping up so many mouthwatering dishes with brown rice.

Brown Rice Bar Recipes

Champa’s Chewy Granola Bars

Champa’s Vegan Banana Brownies

Brown Rice Cookie Recipes

Champa’s Almond Coconut Cookies

Kizzy’s Eggless Persian Cookies

Priya’s Brown Rice Chocolate Cookies

Priya’s Savory Peanut Butter Cookies

Priya’s Vegan Chocolate Cookies

Madhuram’s Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Brown Rice Cracker Recipes

Priya’s Onion Sesame Crackers

Priya’s Vegan Rice & Oats Crackers

Sadhana/Muskaan’s Multigrain Crackers

Brown Rice Quick Bread Recipes

Champa’s Orange Cranberry Muffins

Kizzy’s Eggless Bluberry Muffins

Latha’s Baked Brown Rice Appam

Priya’s Multigrain Carrot Muffins

Sadhana & Muskaan’s Multigrain Bread

Sadhana & Muskaan’s Multigrain Pineapple Muffins

Sweatha’s Gluten Free and Fat Free Banana Bread

Sadhana & Muskaan’s Multigrain Chocolate Muffins

Other Brown Rice Recipes

Priya’s Brown Rice Patties (Baked)

Priya’s Multigrain Chocolate Cake

Winner

Congratulations Latha! Send me your mailing address and phone number using the contact form to claim your prize!

March 1, 2010
Jhiva For Life: Ragi/Finger Millet Round Up

When I chose ragi (a.k.a Finger Millet) for JFI I didn’t expect my inbox to be flooded with so many healthy recipes. Some of these ragi recipes are traditional, some very modern. There is something for everybody, so there is no more excuse for not using this healthy grain regularly. I thank my food blogging buddies for their enthusiasm in participating in this event and making this a grand success. Now let’s check the recipes.

The recipes have been classified under various categories. Please click the drop-down menu to see the recipes:

February 9, 2010
Homemade Chocolate Cereal using Ragi Flour

Ragi (finger millet ) has not been my favorite for a couple of reasons and this month I have tried my best to start liking it by using it in interesting forms and surprisingly I did like it. I think the one common reason why some people may not be excited about ragi is the dull appearance it lends to the cooked dish. I think that a dish should not only be healthy but it should look good too. So I was thinking of ways to make ragi look more appetizing and came up with this idea.

I usually do not buy sugary cereals. It is always Fiber One and plain old Cheerios. My son likes both. Others which I get occasionally are corn flakes, puffed brown rice, puffed millet and puffed corn. I once tried the cocoa pebbles and felt that it way too sweet. My son keeps asking for chocolate flavored cereal and I keep telling him that I cannot get it because it is not healthy. Finally I got the idea to make my own chocolate cereal.

I decided to mix cocoa powder with ragi flour; sweeten it with maple syrup; form a smooth dough and try to cut out small circles and bake it. After I was done preparing the dough, I was able to roll it out but was not able to remove the circles off the surface. It was sort of sticky. So I decided to score it into diamonds instead and bake it like crackers. Even though I was not able to do exactly what I had planned to but the experiment did end well. My son loved this homemade chocolate cereal. Keeping the recipe I have given as a base one can try this with a variety of flours and come with a lot of healthy variations.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Homemade Chocolate Cereal

Dry Ingredients:

Ragi (Finger Millet) Flour 1/2 cup

Whole Wheat Flour 1 tablespoon

Flax Seed Powder 1 tablespoon

Cocoa Powder 4 teaspoons

Wet Ingredients:

Vegetable Oil Spread 1 teaspoon

Maple Syrup 3 tablespoons

Water 3 tablespoons

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Yield: Approximately 2 cups.

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven at 375F/190C for 15 minutes. If using a cookie sheet with edges, flip it over (so you get a flat top) and grease it with some oil spread. Or you can use a flat cookie sheet and grease the same. You will be requiring 2 sheets.

2. Meanwhile combine together the dry and wet ingredients into a smooth dough.

3. Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll each half directly on the greased cookie sheets. Roll as thin as possible and using a knife/pizza cutter score it into diamonds/squares directly on the cookie sheet; do not separate. Bake for 8-15 minutes. The baking time depends on the thickness of the rolled out dough.

The first set I baked was thicker than the second set. So the first one took approximately 12-13 minutes but the 2nd was done in about 8 minutes itself. You can smell the cocoa and also can see that the pieces around the edges turning sort of black. Keep a watch and remove the pans immediately out of the oven.

4. The pieces will start coming off while you are removing it from thee sheet. Spread it on a plate or another cool sheet. Once the chocolate squares have cooled completely store it in an airtight container.

How to serve it?

This chocolate cereal is not crispy like the store bought ones. The texture is like that of a cracker. So I would suggest to warm the milk before adding to the cereal so the heat will soften it up and give the right texture. I served this for my son with some warm almond milk and a hint of maple syrup and he loved it. He was asking for more on the same day. He also had it as a snack by itself.

This ragi chocolate cereal goes to this month’s JFI-Ragi hosted by me and originally started by Indira.

January 28, 2010
Announcing Whole Grain (Egg Free) Baking Event – Rice
Shall we bake with whole grain rice this month? Whole-grain rice is usually brown – but, unknown to many, can also be black, purple, red or any of a variety of exotic hues. So for this event you can bake with any whole grain rice which is easily available.

Why brown rice is considered to be nutritionally superior to white rice when both have similar amounts of calories, carbohydrates and proteins? Like any other whole grain, brown rice (or any other whole grain rice) has the bran and germ intact. The outermost layer of the rice (husk) is only removed in brown rice whereas the husk, bran and germ are all removed leaving the starchy endosperm alone in white rice. In this refining process several vitamins and minerals are lost too, thereby making brown rice the best. To know more about the benefits and nutritional value of brown rice check here.

Whole grain forms of brown rice (or any rice) includes long or short grain rice, brown rice flour, cream of brown rice and even brown rice puff cereal. Make sure that the package reads whole grain or 100% whole grain. Recently I discovered brown rice farina also known as cream of brown rice. Bob’s Red Mill has a huge collection of whole grain stuff. So be sure to check for this brown rice farina too in the organic aisle of grocery stores or health food stores. Brown rice flour is also available from the same company. I have used both brown rice flour and cream of brown rice in Indian cooking instead of its white counterpart and the dishes turned out very good. Can’t wait to use it while baking.

Recipe Ideas:
Rules of the event:

1 Bake anything egg less using one or more of the whole grain forms of rice (whole grain rice, whole grain rice flour, cream of whole grain rice, whole grain rice puff cereal etc).

2 Post it in your blog between Jan 18th 2010 and Feb 17th 2010. The dish can be anything sweet, salty or spicy. The recipes must be either vegetarian and eggless or vegan. If the recipe is from books/blogs/websites, please link back /mention the original source.

3 Multiple entries are more than welcome. Recipes posted prior to the announcement of this event are also welcome provided it qualifies the above criteria and is linked back to this event. Reposting is not necessary. As always there is prize for this event too and old entries will also be considered.

4 Email me your name, blog URL, name of the recipe, recipe URL, photo in 150w x 120h size to wholegrains(at)egglesscooking.com with Rice as the subject.

5 Non-bloggers you can submit your entries in Eggless Cooking Forums under Share Egg Free Recipes. You have to register first and it’s free! Send me an email after updating there and I’ll include it in the round up.
January 18, 2010
A New Beginning!

The title must have made you curious right? Before I proceed to make the announcement I would like to wish all my Hindu readers a very Happy Pongal/Makara Sankranthi.

At this point I just want to tell what the news is, but I’m trying to build some suspense here. It’s going to be difficult though because the one thing I’m very bad at, is writing interestingly. I especially admire my friends Dee, DK, Srivalli and Sunshinemom for their style of writing. They can turn even a simple recipe post into something very special. Me on the other hand, I have an interesting news to share with all of you and I’m already struggling for words.

I don’t know if you all have noticed a pattern in this blog over the past couple of months? I know that some of you did, from the emails I have been receiving. Any guesses? It’s that it has been ages since I have posted any non-baking recipes in EgglessCooking.com. In the past 8 months I have posted only 2 non-baking recipes and the remaining were all egg free baking recipes. It did not happen just like that but I have been doing this on purpose. I felt that posting other cooking recipes might distract the attention of the visitors who come here looking for just eggless baking recipes. I didn’t want to dilute the essence of this blog by posting other recipes. So I started to post only egg free baking recipes here. I still was cooking a lot of interesting stuff and was taking pictures of it too. I don’t know for what though. At the back of my mind I had this idea of having another blog for all those recipes but things were not coming together. We started the Forum, I made a trip to India, came back and started taking the Wilton’s Cake Decorating courses and lot of other things were happening.

In the meanwhile I also started receiving mails from some of the regular followers of this blog telling that they were missing the vegetarian and vegan cooking recipes I used to post earlier. This made me thinking and with a lot of pressure from my husband I decided to do something about it. Just a quick digress, I’m still trying to find out if it is a good thing or a bad thing that your husband is very supportive of your blogging! I completely agree that this blog will not be what it is now without his hard work but sometimes it is too much to take.

Now back to where I left. Finally I did decide to start another food blog to feature other vegetarian and vegan non-baking recipes. So that’s my news. We have been working on this for a couple of weeks now and wanted to make it public on the 1st of January 2010 but then we were going back and forth and felt that everything was not perfect and wanted to improve a lot. Later we realized that improvisation is a never ending process so it is better to get it done when you still have some enthusiasm left for the new project. So we decided to go public today because it is believed by Tamilians around the world that the month of Thai (beginning today) is auspicious and it paves way for new and better opportunities.

So here we are to present you with www.VegCorner.com This blog will be veg*n friendly, meaning it will feature both vegetarian and vegan recipes. I have already posted few recipes to give you the feel of what one can expect in this blog. We extend a warm welcome to all of you. We hope you will like what you are about to see and will extend your support as always.

January 14, 2010
Whole Cornmeal Recipes Round Up

Baking with whole cornmeal was difficult than I thought. So I wasn’t expecting a lot of entries this time but my foodie-buddies have proved me wrong again by sending in a lot of whole cornmeal recipes, more than I expected. This time I had trouble baking with cornmeal because I couldn’t get the fine grind variety. What I was able to get was the medium grind and it gave a very gritty texture to the baked goods. I had to powder it again and again; sift it and powder it further to use it. This really drained my interest and I was able to come up with only 3 recipes. So if you are planning to bake with whole cornmeal be sure to get the fine grind. If you are able to find the medium grind only then be sure to look for recipes which use the medium grind originally.

I wanted to try soaking the cornmeal in buttermilk or water for an hour or so and then use it, but couldn’t get to it. I have some more cornmeal left and hopefully I will try that method and will record my observations here when I’m finished. Maybe the soaking will soften it and yield a better texture in the baked goods. I have seen a couple of recipes wherein rolled oats was soaked for a good amount of time before baking. So I think this trick should work for whole cornmeal too.

Now to the cornmeal recipes round up.

Champa’s Mexican Corn Bread

Priya’s Portugese Yeast Corn Bread

Priya’s Vegan Cornmeal Dinner Rolls

Sadhana & Muskaan’s Quick Corn Bread

Champa’s Vegan Peanut Butter Cornmeal Cookies

Madhuram’s Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Priya’s Tutti Fruiti Cornmeal Cookies

Swathi’s Eggless Almond & Cornmeal Cookies

Champa’s Hot Cornmeal Muffins

Priya’s Cheesy Corn Muffins

Priya’s Vegan Cornmeal Mini Muffins

Renu’s Eggless Cornflour Strawberry Muffins

Madhuram’s Cornmeal Snack Cake

Madhuram’s Vegan Blueberry Coffee Cake

Priya’s Caramel Popcorn Crunch

Winner

Congratulations Champa! Please forward your mailing address using the contact form.

January 13, 2010
Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake
In my previous post I mentioned about the Taste of Home website for a huge collection of baking recipes and how I like to linger around there. Another website I often visit is Weight Watchers. Whether your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight or not I think it is always better to look for healthy meal ideas and what better place to look for than Weight Watchers. They have a good collection of dessert, baking recipes too. I have tried a couple of recipes from that site as well with some tweaks here and there and have liked it very much.

The following chocolate banana cake recipe too is my version of the Dark Chocolate Cake recipe in that site. The cake recipe is egg free already. All I did was to substitute a cup of pureed sauerkraut with a cup of pureed banana and made it vegan by substituting canola oil for the melted butter. I also used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour. What is sauerkraut? I too was not aware of such a thing until I saw it mentioned in the cake recipe. I understand that it is fermented red cabbage pickle in laymen terms. For detailed information check this sauerkraut recipe, which has detailed instructions with pictures.

As for my chocolate cake with bananas, it came out very well. One of the reason I chose to bake this cake was, I recently purchased a bundt pan and was waiting for a chance to use it. I saw that this cake recipe too used one and was egg free too. Another reason being, I had very ripe bananas at home which I didn’t want to throw it away. So I decided to use it in this recipe and I’m not regretting it at all. The flavor of bananas in the cake is very mild. I was expecting that the banana’s flavor would be dominating but was surprised that it was not so. The cake was moist, had a very good texture; neither dense nor crumbly, perfect for decorating for birthdays and anniversaries. The only change I would make in that case is to use butter instead of canola oil to give it a rich taste.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake

Dry Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Pastry Flour 2 cups

Granulated Sugar (See Notes) 1 and 1/3 cup

Cocoa Powder 2/3 cup

Baking Soda, 1 and 1/2 teaspoon

Wet Ingredients:

Canola Oil 1/4 cup

Hot Water 1 and 1/2 cups

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Bananas, mashed or pureed 1 cup

Yield: 1 Bundt cake. (I think it will make two 8-inch layers or one 9×13 inch cake as well)

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven at 350F/180C. Spray a bundt pan with non stick cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and keep it aside.

3. I pureed 2 small size bananas with little water to measure 1 cup of puree.

4. To the flour mixture add the canola oil, hot water and vanilla extract; mix well.

5. Now add the pureed bananas and blend thoroughly.

6. The cake batter is quite “water-y”. Pour the batter in the prepared pan and bake for approximately from 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. The original recipe mentions 55-60 minutes, but mine was done after 45 minutes itself.

7. At this stage I did see some cracks on the cake. Move the bundt pan to a cooling rack and let it cool for 10-20 minutes. Place a baking sheet on the pan and slowly invert the pan holding the sides of the sheet to remove the cake from the pan. Then carefully transfer the cake to the wiring rack and let it cool completely before you frost. I didn’t frost mine.

My Notes:

1. The original recipe used all purpose flour but we did not realize that the cake was made with whole wheat pastry flour. The cake had a wonderful texture; moist but not sticky and not gritty. This can very well be a birthday cake; but I would use butter in that case.

2. You could also increase the quantity of sugar to 1 and 1/2 cups if you are not frosting this chocolate banana cake. You could also sprinkle some chocolate chips instead. Since I wanted to make a vegan cake I did not add any. I prefer mild sweetness so the 1 and 1/3 cup was perfect.

3. The cake was surely moist but I felt that it did not taste rich. The original recipe uses 1/2 cup of melted butter for the fat which I replaced with 1/4 cup canola oil and some mashed bananas. So I think we could use 1/4 cup of melted butter or margarine instead to give that richness. If you want to use entire 1/2 cup batter, you can reduce the quantity of mashed bananas to 3/4th cup.

4. The next time I try this recipe I’m going to use cooked beet puree instead of mashed bananas. I’m pretty sure that its going to be so good.

This vegan chocolate banana cake goes to:
- Cakes and Cookies event at SpicesEtc
- Show me your cake event at Dil Se
January 6, 2010
Vegan Orange-Cranberry Muffins

I have used a lot of dried cranberries while baking but am picky about the fresh ones. So far I have tried only one recipe using fresh cranberries. It is this cranberry bars recipe from the Joy of Baking website. Although it did come out well and tasted good, somehow I did not develop a liking for this beautiful red fruit. I think part of the reason is my quirky food likings. I usually don’t like sweet and sour or sweet and spicy together. A dish has to be either fully sweet or fully spicy. So its obvious that I do not like the combination of tart cranberries and sweet in baked goods. Anyhow I decided to give it a shot once again this cranberry season.

Lately I have been seeing a lot of Indianized cranberry recipes. Cranberry rice, cranberry pickle, cranberry dal, etc. just to mention a few. So I decided to try at least that if at all not baking with cranberries. Recently I also got hooked to the Taste of Home website. I have got a baking book published by that magazine and am a fan for those recipes. I have had a 100% success rate with those recipes. I don’t know what stopped me from visiting their website all these days. A couple of days back I borrowed a Taste of Home Cookies book from the library. It has 623 recipes and I was so tempted to get one for myself. That’s when I decided to check out their website to see if they have free recipes online and I was overjoyed to find the same. I looked for some cranberry recipes in there and bookmarked this cranberry muffins recipe. It was a simple straight forward recipe and the egg substitution was easy too. I decided to use flax seed meal as the egg substitute like I used for the vegan cranberry quick bread recipe and it turned out great.

For the past couple of months I have been incorporating a lot of whole grains and whole grain flours while baking. So I decided to used plain all purpose flour this time. Partly the reason being, my phobia for cranberries. Since I was not sure if I would like cranberries I didn’t want to use whole wheat flour and mess it up further. Surprisingly these cranberry muffins did not fail me. It tasted pretty good with mild sweetness, occasional tartness from the cranberries here and there and a nice crunch from the pecans. I would definitely try this recipe again but would increase the quantity of sugar a little bit.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Vegan Cranberry Muffins

Dry Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour 2 cups

Brown Sugar 3/4th to 1 cup

Baking Powder 2 teaspoons

Pecans, chopped 1 cup

Wet Ingredients:

Canola Oil 1/3 cup

Orange Juice, freshly squeezed 2/3 cup

Flax Seed Powder 2 teaspoons

Water 1/2 cup

Orange Zest from 1 orange

Fresh Cranberries, coarsely chopped 1 cup

Yield: A dozen cranberry muffins.

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven at 375F/190C. Grease or line a muffin tin with paper liners.

2. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients and keep it aside.

3. In a blender/food processor blend together the flax seed powder and water until its nice and frothy.

4. Measure orange juice in a liquid measuring mug, add water until you reach 1 cup measure in the mug. To this also add the flax seed mixture, orange zest and stir together well.

5. Pour the liquid ingredients to the flour mixture and mix until just moistened. Fold in the cranberries too. Do not overmix.

6. Spoon in the batter in the greased muffin tins. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

7. Move the muffin tin to a cooling rack and let it cool for just 5 minutes. Then remove the muffins from the pan and cool it completely on a wire rack.

My Notes:

1. The quantity of sugar mentioned in the original recipe was 3/4th cup and I used the same, but felt that the muffins could have been a little more sweet. So you can increase the quantity to 1 cup.

2. I always prefer freshly squeezed orange juice in baking recipes. I have found out in my experience that the store bought orange juice is slightly bitter and the bitterness reflects in the baked goods too.

3. If you wish to use frozen cranberries, do not thaw it. Use it directly from the freezer otherwise the berries will start bleeding turning the batter red.

January 4, 2010
Announcing JFI – Ragi/Finger Millet

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2010. JFI was the first food blog event I ever participated after starting this blog. Now I’m a proud host of the same. Thank you very much Indira for giving me this opportunity.

JFI means Jhiva for Ingredients and every month a natural ingredient relating to India or Indian cuisine is featured. I couldn’t think of any ingredient other than Ragi (Finger Millet). I feel that this grain is being neglected by us (or at least by me) like many other healthy Indian food ingredients. We are generous enough to embrace ingredients from other parts of the world, not that its wrong, but I feel that we should do justice to cereals and grains grown in our home country too.

From this year onwards I’m going to take a resolution to try at least one Indian ingredient every month, which I have been neglecting all these days, starting with Ragi in Jan 2010. Are you with me on this? Thanks to the Internet and food blogs, I’m seeing a lot of ragi recipes off late. So it should not be a problem to prepare at least one healthy meal, if not more using whole ragi or ragi flour.

Send in your entries (old and new) and let us create a hub for ragi recipes to benefit everybody. Please note that the ragi flour we get in Indian grocery stores is devoid of the bran which is rich in fiber. So its not a whole grain flour, but this should not stop us from using this quite often, because something is better than nothing. If possible try to use the whole ragi by soaking and sprouting it.

Now for the rules of the event.

Rules

1. Cook with any form of ragi (whole ragi, sprouted ragi, or store bought flour etc) and post it in your blog between Jan 1st 2010 and Jan 31st 2010. Any form of cooking is okay too; steaming, baking, frying, etc. Keep it lacto-vegetarian (egg free and vegetarian) or vegan.

2. Please DO NOT HESITATE to send more than one recipe or the recipes you have already posted in your blog. Remember, we are trying to create a database of ragi recipes. Reposting of the old recipe posts is not necessary but link it back to this event announcement.

3. Send in your entries, with your name, recipe URL and picture of the dish (250×250) to ragi[at]egglesscooking[dot]com.

4. Don’t have a blog but would like to participate in the event? No problem, send me a mail to the above email address with your name, recipe and picture and I’ll include it in the round up along with the other entries.

December 31, 2009
Almost Vegan Cornmeal Snack Cake

I was looking for some cornmeal recipes for the Corn event and remembered that I had bookmarked one healthy snack cake recipe from my friend Viji’s blog. Her blog has an amazing collection of traditional and innovative recipes. I have made a couple of changes to the original recipe keeping the measurement same. Since her blog is private, I’m reproducing her recipe (along with changes made by me) here with her permission.

To make it vegan friendly, I used brown rice milk instead of dairy milk, canola oil and unsweetened applesauce instead of butter in the original recipe. If you are able to find vegan chocolate chips or use carob chips this snack cake recipe will be 100% vegan. Even after all these changes the cake tasted very good.

Speaking of which, brown rice milk is a new addition in our diet. Earlier I have baked with regular rice milk and almond milk, but this is the first time I have used brown rice milk. I prefer rice milk to soy milk, especially while baking. I feel that some brands of soy milk leaves an unpleasant odor in baked goods. I have tried a couple of vegan cake recipes with soy milk and felt that the texture was not good too, very sticky. So I usually go with rice milk or almond milk. Now brown rice milk is my favorite too. It tastes good by itself too. My son has it with his cereal. So if a 4 year old likes it, then it should be definitely good, right?

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Almost Vegan Cornmeal Snack Cake Recipe

Dry Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Pastry Flour 1 cup

Whole Cornmeal (use only fine grind) 1 cup

Quick Cooking oats 1 cup

Almond Meal 1 cup

Walnut Meal 1 cup

Raisins 1 cup

Pistachios, coarsely chopped 1 cup

Dried Cranberries 1/2 cup

Flax Seed Meal 1/2 cup

Brown Sugar 1/2 cup

Mini Chocolate Chips 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon

Baking Powder 3/4 teaspoon

Baking Soda 1/2 teaspoon

Cardamom Powder 1/2 teaspoon

Wet Ingredients:

Canola Oil 1/3 cup

Unsweetened Applesauce 2/3 cup

Bananas, mashed/pureed with little water 1 and 1/4 cups

Brown Rice Milk 1 cup

Water/Milk as needed

Yield: 16 pieces (I used a 9×13 inch pan)

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven for 15 minutes at 175C/350F. Grease a 9×13 inch baking pan with butter/non stick cooking spray. I lined it with parchment paper and then greased it also with cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl combine together all the dry ingredients reserving the 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips.

3. Mash 1 large ripe banana with a fork. I chopped the banana and used some of the milk to grind it into a creamy paste. Mix together all the wet ingredients together and stir it well.

4. Pour the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine it well without any lumps. I used another 1/4 cup of water to get the required consistency.

5. Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Smooth it out with a spatula dipped in hot water and top it with the reserved chocolate chips.

6. Bake it for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Mine was done in 22 minutes.

7. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let it cool completely before you can remove the cake from the pan. After it is completely cooled, invert the cake pan to remove the cake and cut it into pieces.

My Notes:

1. I have included a couple of healthy substitutes to the already healthy snack cake. Instead of 1 cup of regular size butterscotch chips, I have used 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips. Instead of 1 cup of melted butter I have used 1/3 cup of oil, 2/3 cup of unsweetened applesauce and increased the quantity of mashed bananas from 1 cup to 1 and 1/4 cups.

2. I have also used brown rice milk instead of dairy milk. The original recipe used whole wheat flour and regular cornmeal, which I have substituted with whole wheat pastry flour and whole cornmeal.

3. Where I live I was able to fine almond meal and walnut meal ready made. If you are not able to find it readily, process nuts of your choice in a food processor until its finely powdered.

4. The sweetness was just right for us. Viji had used 1 cup of dates, which I replaced with 1/2 cup of dried cranberries and also included 1 cup of chopped pistachios. Maybe that’s the reason my cake was not very sweet. I think if I had used the dates the cake would have been very sweet.

5. With so many ingredients in the cake, we couldn’t feel the presence of cardamom. So if you are a spice fan increase the quantity to 1 teaspoon instead of 1/2 teaspoon.

6. I was on a tight schedule on the day I was going to bake this cake. So I prepared the dry ingredients the previous night itself. So it was just mixing in the wet ingredients and baking the next day.

This cornmeal snack cake goes to my Whole Grain Baking Event – Corn.

December 28, 2009
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

It’s Christmas season or cookie season to be more apt. I wanted to bake some cookies for my son’s teachers. I bought Wilton’s cookie sheet (large one) from Michael’s. The sheet came with 2 festive cookie recipes. One for chocolate chunk cookies and another one for thumbprint cookies. I would rather call the chocolate chunk cookie recipe as oatmeal chocolate chip cookies because it has a good quantity of oatmeal. I decided to try that recipe for the teachers because it made a huge batch and anything with chocolate chips and walnuts has to be definitely tasty.

After trying these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I came to one conclusion that Ener-G egg replacer works best in cookie recipes and especially chocolate chip cookies. So if you have never used Ener-G before but want to use it, start with cookie recipes. Simply substitute EnerG according to the instructions given in the pack, for the eggs mentioned in the recipe and that’s all you have to do and the cookies turn out perfect. My two cents is to use lukewarm water and also use a blender to blend together the powder and water instead of just whisking it with a fork. Using a blender makes the mixture very frothy and in turn gives desired results. So in this recipe too, I didn’t think twice before substituting Ener-G for the 2 eggs in the recipe. The cookies came out perfect as I expected.

Recipe

Ingredients:

Rolled Oats/Quick Cooking Oats 2 and 1/2 cups

All Purpose Flour 2 cups

Baking Powder 1 teaspoon

Baking Soda 1 teaspoon

Salt 1/2 teaspoon

Unsalted Butter 1 cup

Granulated Sugar 1 cup

Brown Sugar, packed (I used light) 1 cup

Ener-G Egg Replacer Powder 4 teaspoons

Warm Water 7 tablespoons

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Semisweet Chocolate Chips 1 an 1/2 cups

Walnuts, coarsely chopped 1 and 1/2 cups

Yield: 4 dozen (48 cookies)

Procedure:

1 Process the oats in a food processor/blender. The texture of the powdered oats was not mentioned
in the original recipe, so I chose a consistency in between coarse and fine.

2 In a medium size bowl combine together the powdered oats, flour, baking powder, soda and salt; mix well.

3 In a blender, blend together the EnerG powder and warm water until it’s frothy; set aside.

4 In another large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluff. Beat in the EnerG mixture and vanilla.

5 Add the flour mix to the sugar mixture; mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

6 Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and chill the dough at least for an hour.

7 Around the 45th minute, start preheating the oven to 350F/175C for 15 minutes.

8 Scoop out heaping tablespoons of cookie dough; drop it on ungreased cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Bake on middle rack for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. For crisper cookies, I would suggest flattening the dough instead of just dropping them. The scooped out dough doesn’t spread much, so it’s very chewy in the middle. In that case I think the baking time will also reduce by a minute or two. I used an aluminum pan, so mine took about 13 minutes. The baking time will vary if you are using a dark coating non stick cooking pan. Be sure to check it earlier. I used to 2 cookie sheets at a time. So I shifted the pan from the middle layer to the bottom layer and vice-versa after 6 minutes.

9 Remove the baking sheets from the oven and place it on wire racks. Let the cookies stand for 5 minutes because the cookies will continue to bake. After 5 minutes, transfer the cookies to the cooling racks directly using a spatula and let it cool completely before storing it in an airtight container.

Taste These oatmeal chocolate chip cookies tasted very good, crispy on the edges and chewy in the middle. I guess the cookies would have been more crisp had I flattened the dough.

My Notes1 I think the next time when I make it I would reduce the quantity of chocolate chips to 1 cup and also substitute the all purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour.

2 The 2 and 1/2 cups of oats when powdered measured to 2 cups. So I think we could also use 2 cups of oat flour instead.

December 23, 2009
Gluten Free, Egg Free and Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

Until recently I had not tried my hands on gluten free baking because I thought that gluten free and egg free baking is quite a challenging one. I have a book called Vegetarian, which I got from Barnes and Nobles and there is one recipe for gluten free chocolate chip cookies using cornmeal and rice flour, but of course with egg. Since I’m hosting the Corn event this month, I thought that I should give that cookie recipe a try using an egg substitute.

I have already baked eggless chocolate chip cookies using EnerG egg replacer powder and was floored by the result. So I decided to use EnerG in this recipe too. I also had some brown rice flour along with whole cornmeal and that’s what I have used in this recipe. I was really surprised (this is an understatement) that these gluten free cookies tasted as good as any other chocolate chip cookies. You have to actually try this recipe to believe me.

Recipe

Ingredients:

Vegetable Oil Spread/Margarine 6 tablespoons

Light Brown Sugar 1/4 cup

Granulated Sugar 1/4 cup

Ener-G Egg Replacer 2 teaspoons

Warm Water 3 tablespoons

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Brown Rice Flour 3/4 cup

Whole Cornmeal (use fine grind) 3/4 cup

Baking Powder 1 teaspoon

Salt A pinch

Semisweet Chocolate Chips 2/3 cup

Walnuts, coarsely chopped (optional) 1/4 cup

Yield: 16 cookies

Procedure:

1 Preheat the oven to 375F/190C for 15 minutes. Grease 2 baking sheets.

2 In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and sugars until light and fluffy.

3 In a blender blend together the EnerG and warm water until its frothy. Add this and vanilla extract to the creamed sugar mixture and beat it well.

4 Fold in the brown rice flour, whole cornmeal, baking powder, salt, chocolate chips and nuts (if using).

5 Drop tablespoonfuls of dough on the baking sheets leaving space between each cookie. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned. I took out mine after 13 minutes. If you are using a dark coating non stick pan, be alert as the bottoms tend to brown very quickly. I used an aluminum pan, so mine took 13 minutes.

6 Place the baking sheets on cooling racks. Let the cookies stand for 5 minutes. Transfer the cookies to the wire rack using a spatula. Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

TasteTake my word on this and bake these cookies as soon as you can. You won’t believe that these are egg free and gluten free cookies also made with whole grain flours. It tasted just like the usual chocolate chip cookies, crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. Since I couldn’t find fine grind whole cornmeal, I had to powder and sieve the medium grind cornmeal a couple of times before using. Even then it was little gritty. Otherwise there were no issues at all with this recipe. I’m definitely making this again and again at least with the regular fine grind cornmeal available in the supermarket.

My Notes1 Be sure to check that all the ingredients you are using is gluten free if you are baking these for gluten allergic people.

2 The original recipe uses regular cornmeal and white rice flour. I have used whole cornmeal and brown rice flour to incorporate whole grains.

3 The ratio of EnerG and water given in the pack is 1 and 1/2 teaspoons and 2 tablespoons of water. The EnerG egg replacer powder I’m having is almost a year old. So I wasn’t sure if it was good enough, so I increased it to 2 teaspoons and 3 tablespoons of water and this did not affect the cookies. In fact the cookies came out very good, the shape, texture and taste was awesome.

These gluten free cookies goes to my Whole Grain Baking Event – Corn.

December 21, 2009
Vegan Blueberry Cornmeal Coffee Cake
I would say that blogging has definitely made me more responsible than I ever was. Since so many people are visiting the website, I have to be very careful about the authenticity of the information I post and for that I’m doing quite a bit of research too. When I announced the Corn event, one of my blogger friend had a doubt if the makai ki atta (maize flour) available in India is whole grain. I also had a similar doubt, if Masa di harina I see in the stores here is whole grain. So I set off to find some information on the following:
- What is masa de harina and makai ki atta?
- Are they one and the same?
- Is it the whole grain form of corn?
From the information I have gathered so far I’m pretty sure that masa di harina and makai ki atta are one and the same. To get both, maize (corn) is dried and soaked in a lime solution. The process is called slaking. The hull loosens after soaking, which is removed and then the damp corn is ground into fine flour. Actually this flour is nutritionally superior to cornmeal (I’m thinking that the cornmeal mentioned here is the degerminated cornmeal and not whole cornmeal) because the lime water adds calcium to the corn and makes the niacin in the corn nutritionally available.

Now that we know that masa de harina and makai ki atta are one and the same and they are nutritionally superior too. Are they whole grain forms of corn? I’m guessing the answer is “no” because the hull is removed during the slaking process. That being said I think that it is less refined than all purpose flour and also has the added benefit of calcium. This is my take on this topic. Please feel free to share your views here and correct me if I’m wrong.

Shall we move on to the recipe now? If somebody asks me to pick my most favorite recipe, it would be without a doubt this low fat blueberry coffee cake. I have sung it’s praises in that post and am going to do it again here because it is that good. Before trying that cake, blueberries was not in the list of my favorite fruits, but after baking that coffee cake I stock blueberries so much that one day my husband (and others too) might start calling me “that crazy blueberry lady”. So one day last week, as I was raiding my fridge, what do I find? 3 packs of blueberries and a cup of blueberry soy yogurt. You know what I would have decided to do. Of course bake the blueberry coffee cake, but with few changes. Since I’m hosting the “Corn” event, I wanted to incorporate that too in the recipe and now here we have a very light, not so sweet, vegan blueberry cornmeal coffee cake.
Ingredients & Procedure

All Purpose Flour 1/2 cup

Whole Corn Meal 1/2 cup

Sugar 1/2 cup

Baking Powder 3/4 teaspoon

Baking Soda 1/4 teaspoon

Unsweetened Applesauce 1/4 (dry measuring) cup

Soy Yogurt, blueberry flavor 1/2 cup

Vegetable Oil Spread, melted 2 tablespoons

Apple Cider Vinegar1/2 tablespoon

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Almond Extract 1/4 teaspoon

Blueberries, fresh or frozen (I used fresh) 1 cup

Almonds, sliced 1/2 cup

Brown Sugar 1 tablespoon

Ground Cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon

Yield: 9 servings

Procedure

1 Preheat oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Grease a 8 inch square baking dish. Line it with parchment paper and spray with non stick cooking spray. In a small bowl combine the almonds, brown sugar and cinnamon; set aside. The oil spread can be melted on stove top or microwave oven or even in the oven while it’s preheating.

2 Combine together the flour, whole cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. I found medium grind whole cornmeal. It is not as fine as the regular cornmeal you find in the grocery stores. So I had to powder it in the food processor a couple of times, to get a fine texture.

3 The original recipe uses 1/2 cup buttermilk. Since I wanted to make it vegan and also had some blueberry flavored soy yogurt I decided to use that. So I measured approximately 1/3rd cup of yogurt blended it with water to get 1/2 cup measurement. To that add the melted butter, extracts, vinegar and applesauce. Whisk until well blended.

4 Stir the wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just moistened. Fold in 2/3 cup blueberries. If using frozen blueberries, do not thaw before adding to batter, because the color will bleed.

5 Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Top with remaining blueberries. Sprinkle the almond mixture on top. Tap the pan lightly a couple times so that the topped blueberries and almonds sticks to the batter.

6 Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool the pan on a wire rack.

7 Remove the cake from the pan after 10 minutes and transfer the cake directly to the wire rack. The cake is quite light, so you will have to be very careful while tilting the pan.

Taste

This blueberry cornmeal coffee cake was as good as the one which I had baked earlier with all purpose flour. This time I did have the almond extract and it definitely gave a nice flavor to the cake. As I have mentioned in my earlier post, this cake is very light, so handle with care while removing it from the pan. I thought that using cornmeal would give a harder texture than using all purpose flour alone, but it was light only. The sweetness was just right. So if you have a sweet tooth you can add another 2-3 tablespoons of sugar. We liked it just the way it was.

My Notes1 Butter and buttermilk was used in the original recipe which I have substituted with vegetable oil spread and soy yogurt to make it vegan.

2 I used Bob’s Red Mill brand of medium grind whole corn meal. I test baked something with the cornmeal just like that and saw that the corn did not cook completely. It was gritty. So either find fine grind whole cornmeal or process in a food processor/blender thoroughly if using the medium grind. I see that even coarse grind is available, I would suggest not to get that unless you have a food mill or a very efficient food processor, because the medium one itself took a lot of time for me to get a fine texture.

This vegan cornmeal coffee cake goes to my Whole Grain (Egg Free) Baking Event – Corn.
December 14, 2009
Announcing Whole Grain (Egg Free) Baking Event – Corn
This month in the whole grain baking series we are going to experiment with whole grain forms of corn. Corn is a good source of vitamin A, manganese and potassium and it contains protein. In fact a new study shows that corn has the highest level of antioxidants of any grain or vegetable – almost twice the antioxidant activity of apples.

List of whole grain forms of Corn:
- Whole Cornmeal/Stone Ground Cornmeal (fine, medium or coarse)(Note that most of the cornmeal (read Quaker brand’s) found in regular supermarkets in the hot cereal aisle is de-germinated, in the sense, it is not whole grain. You can find whole cornmeal in the organic aisle or health food stores. The label should mention either whole or stone ground.)
- Popcorn
- Whole Grain Corn Grits (whole kernels chopped into bits. For whole-grain corn grits, search for those labeled “speckled heart grits”, one of the few types processed from whole kernel corn. Cooks in about 50 minutes).
- Hominy (a type of dried corn that has been cooked with an alkali to separate the inedible hull from the kernel. Cooks in about 90 minutes after overnight soaking. Available forms: whole kernel, grits).
Storing:

Like any other whole grain flour whole cornmeal too should be stored in an airtight container in the freezer, to keep the oils in the germ from going rancid. This would give a shelf life from 4 to 6 months. Store dried whole kernels and popcorn in sealed plastic or glass containers. This should keep good for a year.

Baking with corn:

Since cornmeal is gluten free, it has to be accompanied by some wheat flour. I was able to find Bob’s Red Mill brand medium grind whole corn meal in the organic aisle of the grocery store. What I noticed was the corn meal being medium grind the cake I baked was gritty. It did not cook completely. So I processed the remaining in the food processor a couple (this is an understatement, I had to do it a lot) of times to get a finer texture. So I would suggest getting the finer one or have the patience to grind it.

Sources for the above information:
- King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking
- Food Network
- Whole Grains Council
Recipe Ideas:
- King Arthur’s Flours
- War Eagle Mill
- King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking (This book is worth buying or at least borrow it from your local library. The collection of recipes is amazing).
Rules of the event:

1 Bake anything egg less using one or more of the whole grain forms of corn (whole corn meal, popcorn, hominy).

2 Post it in your blog between Dec 10th 2009 and Jan 10th 2009. The dish can be anything sweet, salty or spicy. The recipes must be either vegetarian and eggless or vegan. If the recipe is from books/blogs/websites, please link back /mention the original source.

3 Multiple entries are more than welcome. Recipes posted prior to the announcement of this event are also welcome provided it qualifies the above criteria and is linked back to this event. Reposting is not necessary. As always there is prize for this event too and old entries will also be considered.

4 Email me your name, blog URL, name of the recipe, recipe URL, photo in 150w x 120h size to wholegrains(at)egglesscooking.com with Corn as the subject.

5 Non-bloggers you can submit your entries in Eggless Cooking Forums under Share Egg Free Recipes. You have to register first and it’s free! Send me an email after updating there and I’ll include it in the round up.
December 10, 2009
Whole Grain Baking Event – Barley Flour Recipes

I would be lying if I told that I was expecting a lot of entries for the Barley event. I knew that I won’t be receiving as many entries as I received for the whole wheat and oats event, because whole barley flour is not easily available like the other two. I thought this time for the round up I would be posting only my entries. Fortunately Priya, Sadhana & Muskaan, Sweatha and Swathi came to my rescue sending 11 entries in total. Thank you very much dear friends for supporting this event.

From cookies to cakes, quick breads to yeast breads, the participants have proved that barley flour is as versatile as whole wheat flour or even better. So check out these stunning barley flour recipes.

Breads & Rolls

Priya’s Potato Stuffed Vegan Barley Flour Buns

Priya’s Butternut Squash & Chocolate Breakfast Bread

Sadhana & Muskaan’s Vegetables Stuffed Rolls

Priya’s Vegan Whole Grain Breadsticks

Priya’s Banana and Almond Quick Bread

Cake

Madhuram’s Vegan Barley Chocolate Cake

Madhuram’s Vegan Barley Flour Brownies

Madhuram’s Vegan Barley Flour Sponge Cake

Cookies

Swathi Spicy Onion and Barley Crackers

Priya’s Spicy Cumin and Barley Cookies

Madhuram’s Vegan Barley Cookies

Sweatha’s Barley Raisin Cookies

Muffins & Scones

Priya’s Pumpkin and Multigrain Scones

Sadhana & Muskaan’s Vegan Multigrain Muffins

Sweatha’s Jam Filled Barley Muffins

Winner
Congrats Priya for winning again. Will send you a mail with the details of your giveaway.

December 8, 2009
Vegan Victoria Sponge Cake using Barley Flour
Course 3 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating Series covers some more designing with buttercream icing, royal icing and fondant. I was eagerly waiting for this course thinking that dealing with fondant would be easier than decorating with the other icings. I couldn’t have been any wronger. Fondant is very high maintenance and at least it was very difficult for me to handle. It’s going to take a lot of practice for me before I can decorate something decent. Taste wise too, I prefer buttercream icing to fondant.
The place where I attended the courses is not offering the 4th part of the course, Fondant and Gum Paste. So I think this is it for me right now. I think I will have to wait until next summer to take the 4th course.

The following were covered in Course 3:

Buttercream Icing
- Cornelli Lace
- Sotas
- Brush Embroidery
- Drop Strings
- Ruffles
Royal Icing
- Lily
- Poinsettia
- Petunia
- Morning Glory
Fondant

For everything about how to decorate with Fondant check here for exhaustive details.
- Fondant Rose
- Fondant Curlicues
- Fondant Bows
Coming to the cake recipe which I used for the class, I found it on the box of Ener-G Egg Replacer. It’s a recipe for an egg free Victoria Sponge Cake. I made 2 changes to the original recipe. Used barley flour instead of all purpose flour and canola oil instead of vegetable shortening.
Ingredients & Procedure

Whole Barley Flour 2 cups

Light Brown Sugar 1 cup

Baking Powder 3 teaspoons

EnerG Egg Replacer 1 teaspoon

Canola Oil 1/4 cup

Warm Water 1 and 1/3 cups

Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon

Yield: One 8-inch cake

1 Preheat the oven to 375F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square/round pan with parchment paper and grease it with non stick cooking spray.

2 In a large bowl sift the barley flour and mix together the remaining dry ingredients.

3 Add the oil and mix well. Add the water and flavor and mix for another 2 minutes.

4 Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

5 Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Then remove the parchment paper from the sides of the pan and slowly invert the pan to remove the cake. Transfer the cake to the wire rack and let it cool completely before frosting.

Taste & My Notes The original recipe had used 2 cups of all purpose flour which I substituted with whole barley flour. So the cake was not spongy as the name implies. It was quite dense. Maybe I should I have added another teaspoon of baking powder. Vinegar would do the trick too but I’m not for it in this particular recipe. Since I needed a layer cake, for the second layer I tried another similar recipe but added 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and felt that the flavor of vinegar was over powering. You can see in the 2nd picture that the first layer is reddish in color than the bottom layer, it’s because of the apple cider vinegar. It was airy but I prefer the dense cake minus the vinegar smell/taste. Maybe just 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar should be fine or adding some almond extract might reduce the after taste. This is again a guess only.

The sweetness was right. If you are going to frost the cake, the quantity of sugar in the recipe is okay otherwise I think adding another 2-3 tablespoons of sugar should be fine for those with sweet tooth.

Do I recommend baking this cake? Well it depends on the individual taste. In our family we are trying to include more whole grains and in general to eat more healthy. So we don’t mind the denseness. Especially me baking quite often I cannot be using all purpose flour so frequently. I’m not lying when I tell that everybody in my family liked this cake. I think our taste buds have accustomed to the texture and flavor of whole grains.

It’s not all times that whole grain flours give perfect results while baking. So if you want to use whole barley flour and also want a cake to suit everyone’s taste buds I would suggest you to bake the vegan barley chocolate cake instead of this sponge cake.

If you are looking for a vegan sponge cake recipe to bake for some occasion like a birthday, anniversary etc I would suggest you to try the exact same recipe but with all purpose flour as mentioned in the original recipe. I too am going to try it and will post my findings here when I’m done.

This vegan barley sponge cake recipe goes to my Whole Grain (Eggless) Baking Event – Barley.
December 3, 2009