Granola Bars

I got the motivation for making these bars from Pavithra.  I have bookmarked couple of granola bars from her blog and wanted to try for a long time now.  This weekend, I somehow managed to find time to make this.  This did not take that long to make.  Here is what I did.

Banana Almond Butter Muffin

The goal for this new year is to use very less sugar in whatever I bake.  While going through many sites, I came to know that honey can be substituted as sugar along with fruits which are naturally sweet. I tried this muffin recipe this weekend and it came out spongy. I took the basic banana peanut butter recipe from allrecipes.com and changed the ingredients according to this muffin. Here goes the recipe.

Banana Walnut Bread

This is another goodie I baked during the Thanksgiving break this year! Saw bananas going bad on the counter top and wanted to make something with it.  Immediately this bread came to my mind.  Unfortunately my girls hate walnuts and bananas. When I said I need their help in baking this, they said a big NO. But I gave a bribe saying we will add some white chocolate chips along with the nuts.  It sounded like a good deal to them and we started our prep work :). Again I got the recipe from allrecipes.com and adjusted the ingredient quantity according to our requirement.

Jam Filled Cookies

 I baked these cookies last week when my kids had Thanksgiving break.  It came out really really good.  I never thought I could really bake a buttery textured jam filled cookies.  I was browsing the allrecipes.com website and came across this one. I changed the measurements to adjust the required quantity. Here goes the recipe.

Pineapple Muffins - No Guilt Snack

So, I call this a no guilt snack.  Why? Reason is I used few ingredients which are really good for health and you don't have to feel bad for eating a sweet.  First thing here I used Whole wheat atta instead of APF. I used EVOO for butter, Low fat yogurt for full fat sour cream, egg whites for 2 eggs and Xylitol instead of sugar.  You can read about the goodness of this sweetner here.

Eggless Dates & Nuts Cake

I made this cake after reading the post from Sony's Kitchen.  I almost followed the same recipe except I used dark brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar.  When we melt the sugar in milk/oil, it will ooze out little bit more water than the regular white sugar.  So I had to add more flour to this cake than the original recipe.

Spicy & Salty Potato Crackers

I made these crackers today for evening snack.  As usual got the recipe from Priya's blog. I almost followed the same recipe except included Ashirwadh atta along with APF.  Here goes my version of spicy crackers.

Honey Bunches of Oats Muffin

I got the recipe from a book called 1001 Cupcakes, cookies & Other Tempting Treats.  I got the book from Barnes & Noble couple of months back and finally started trying few goodies from it. The original recipe is made with Museli. I replaced Honey Bunches of oats for Museli. It came super good and I added few chocolate chips in each muffin. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:-

1. All Purpose Flour - 1 cup
2. Baking powder -  1 tbsp
3. Honey bunches of Oats Cereal - heaping 1 1/4 cups
4. Brown Sugar - 1/2 cup (I used regular white sugar)
5. Eggs - 2 ( I used 1/3 cup of egg whites)
6. Buttermilk - 1 cup 
7. sunflower oil - 6 tbsp ( I used canola Oil)
8. chocolate chips - 1/4 cup

Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper lines or spray it and keep it ready. Sift together the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir the cereal and sugar.  Place the eggs in a large pitcher and beat lightly. Then  beat in the buttermilk and oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten liquid.  Stir gently until just combined.  Spoon the batter into paper liners. Sprinkle chocolate chips. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until well risen, golden brown. Let it cool for 5 minutes and serve warm. 

I am sending this post to Cooking with Love -  Granddad Event, hosted by Shama.

cake pops

I love the cake pops we get in Starbucks.  I wanted to make some when my girls have winter break.  I made these last week and it came out pretty good. I would not say that it looked professional but the taste was good. I used the pre-packed Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix for basic cake and betty crocker chocolate frosting for mixing the cake.

I followed the recipe from the site Love from the Oven.  Check out this site and its an awesome site with lots of cookie recipes.

Strawberry Muffin

I got this Strawberry Muffin recipe from AllRecipes.com. I followed the same recipe and the outcome was awesome as you can see in the picture. The taste was also wonderful..

Microwave Black Forest cake

Well most of my blogging friends know that this recipe is from Madhuri's Cook - Curry Nook.  I followed almost the same recipe except for few changes.. Here goes my recipe.

Ingredients:-

1. All Purpose Flour - 3/4 cup
2. Cocoa Powder - 1/4 cup
3. Oil - 1/4 cup
4. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
5. Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
6. Salt a pinch
7. Honey - 1/4 cup
8. Dates syrup - 1/4 cup ( I used Lion Dates syrup)
9. Flax Seed Powder - 2 tsp (Mix it with 1/2 cup warm water & keep it aside)
10. Warm water - little less than 1/4 cup
11. Chopped walnuts - 2 tsp (optional)

Mix all the dry ingredients APF, Cocoa, Baking powder, Baking soda, salt together. Add flax seed powder mix, honey, dates syrup and mix it well. If necessary add little bit of water.  The original recipe is for cupcakes, Since i dont have microwaveable cups, I just used the pie tray and made cake. Pour the ingredients and microwave at high 900 W for 3 minutes. Cooking time differs from MW to MW. Original recipe finishes by one minute. But mine took 3 minutes to cook. Let it cool for few minutes & Enjoy!!

I replaced brown sugar with honey & dates syrup. So I had to use little bit of warm water than the original recipe.  Also i did not add vanilla essence. Adding chopped walnuts is not there in the original recipe.

Sending this to this month MW cooking Event hosted by Priya, an event by Srivalli.

Oatmeal chocolate chip Muffins

These muffins I made last week. Kids really loved it. I followed the recipe from my all time favorite allrecipes.com.  I exactly followed the same recipe except the addition of sugar. I reduced the quantity of sugar.

Ingredients:-

1. 1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
2. 1 1/4 cups milk
3. 1 egg
4. 1/2 cup vegetable oil
5. 1 /2cup sugar (the recipe asked for 3/4 cup brown sugar)
6. 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
7.   3/4 cup chopped walnuts
8. 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
9. 4 teaspoons baking powder
10. 1 teaspoon salt

Combine oats and milk and allow to stand for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease the muffin tray/cups.  Stir egg, oil, 1/2 cup of the sugar, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of the walnuts into the oat and milk mixture. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add oat mixture to flour mixture, stirring until just moist. Fill each muffin cups 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with the remaining walnuts. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes. According to the original recipe, you will get 12 muffins from the above ingredients. I used three different sizes of muffin cups (thanks to Delhi markets) and I managed to get 20 muffins.

Wheat-Walnut-Raisin Muffin

After moving back from US, I didn't do any baking. We bought a convention oven here but I am kinda scared to try baking in convention oven. But then kids started asking me for cookies. We were buying cookies from shops. They started getting their stomach flu very often. We were not sure whether its because of cookies. Not to blame anybody, instead of buying those biscuits and cookies, I thought of start baking them again. This muffins I baked today and it came out pretty good.

Ingredients:-

1. Wheat Flour - 1 cup  (I used Pillsbury multi-grain atta)
2. Baking powder - 1 tsp
3. Egg - 1
4. Salt - 1/4 tsp
5. Milk - 1/2 cup
6. Sugar - 1/4 cup 
7. Butter - 1/4 cup
8. Cinnamon - 1/2 tsp
9. Raisins - 1  tbsp
10. Walnut - 1 tbsp (chopped)

Mix the dry ingredients well. Incorporate the wet ingredients (Milk, egg, Melted buter) one by one and mix everything well. Add raisins & walnuts to it. Mix it well. In the mean time, pre heat ovento 220 degrees.. Now pour the batter in muffin cups and bake it upto 25 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean. I baked it for 24 minutes.  I got 8 muffins from the above said quantity.

I am sending this muffins to Srilekha's EFM- Cakes & Bakes along with my

Blueberry Muffins,

Banana-Mango Muffin

& Eggless Apple Muffin

Eggless Apple Muffin

Well I got this recipe from Trupti's blog. I almost followed the same recipe except cinnamon powder and apple sauce. My husband doesn't like cinnamon and I didn't have apple sauce. So I had to skip those two. Other than that, I followed the same. Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:-

1. All Purpose flour - 2 cups
2. Sugar - 1/2 cup
3. Baking powder - 2 1/2 tsp
4. Apples - 1 (if it is big or two if it is medium/small)
5. Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup (I used canola oil)
6. Sour cream - 1/2 cup ( I used fat free sour cream)
7. Raisins - 2 tbsp
8. Salt - 1/2 tsp

Preheat over to 400 degrees. Line the muffin pan with liners. Mix the dry ingredients well. Grate the apple into thin strips or chop it finely. In a small bowl, whisk sour cream and vegetable oil well and keep it aside. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients, raisins, grated apples and the wet ingredients well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4th and bake it for 230 to 23 mts until golden brown or till a tooth pick comes out clean from it. I let my twins to fill the muffin cups. Thats why my muffins are in different shapes...

Pizza...

Well friends this is not a pizza made from scratch. All of a sudden, my girls wanted to bake cake. I had nothing in my pantry. They started crying immediately. I went to the local grocery store and bought the pillsbury pizza dough and I asked them to spread the dough in a cookie sheet, spread the sauce, arrange the toppings, and asked them to add the cheese too. Of course I helped them put it in the oven. The final result was really amazing and the crust was very soft and it was really delicious.Lol.. my girls were very happy and they had couple of pieces too.. Here I am just sharing the toppings and the quantity of cheese I used...

Ingredients:-

1. Pillburry Pizza Dough - 1 roll (store Bought)
2. Cheeze - 3/4 cup ( I used the shredded mexican blend)
3. Pineapple - 1/4 cup
4. Black Olives - 1/4 cup
5. Pasta Sauce - 3 tbsp
   

Pre heat Oven for 450 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with oil. Roll the pizza dough, spread the pasta sauce, arrange the toppings accordingly, spread the cheese, bake it in the oven for 13 mts or till the edges become brown. Enjoy.. Since I didn't want to discourage my girls to try. I am really happy that my girls tried something and it came out really well.

Mango & Banana Muffin

I can eat mangoes any time. I love this fruit. While I was reading a post in Ramya Bala's blog, I came across this recipe which tempted me to try and I followed the same recipe with some changes. Here is the recipe I followed.

Ingredients:-

1. All purpose flour (maida) - 1 1/2 cups
2. Salt - little less than 1/4 tsp
3. Baking Soda - 1 tsp
4. Baking powder - 2 tsp
5. Sugar - 1/2 cup
   
6. Eggs - 2
7. mango Pulp - 1/2 cup
8. Mashed Banana - 1/2 cup
9. Butter - 1/2 cup **

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients well so that it mixes together. In a separate bowl, beat eggs adding a teaspoon of water. Add it to the dry ingredients along with mango pulp and mashed banana. Mix the batter well so that no lumps are formed. Arrange the muffin cups and fill the cups with 3/4th of batter. Bake it for 15 mts or until it becomes golden brown. Check it inserting a tooth pick and it should come out clean. The final result was really amazing. My husband said, it tasted like banana nut muffin. But i didn't added nuts. May be next time I will add nuts instead of mango pulp.

** - I added crisco instead of butter. the measurements will be given in the crisco box that how to replace it in the place of butter. I followed the same instruction to replace butter

Chocolate chip cookies

Everybody here likes to eat a soft chocolate chip cookies.. I can have two :) My girls are very big fan of this chocolate chip cookies and every time I go to the grocery store, I buy a packet of this freshly baked cookies for them. This time I wanted to try by myself. Even though it didn't come in a pretty good circle shape, it was moist, soft and yummy. I was really thrilled to eat the cookies. I followed the recipe from allrecipes.com . Here is the recipe I followed....

Ingredients:-

1. all Purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
2. Butter - 1/2 cup softened
3. White sugar - 1/2 cup
4. Packed brown sugar - 1/2 cup
5. Egg - 1
6. Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
7. baking soda - 1/2 tsp
8. Hot water - 1 tsp
9. Salt - 1/4 tsp
10. Semisweetened chocolate chips - 1 cup
11. M&M chocolate pieces - 1/2 cup

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Cream together butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. beat in the egg, then stir in vanilla extract. Dissolve baking soda in hotwater and add it to the batter. Stir it well. Now add the salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, m&m chocolate pieces. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans. Bake for about 10mts in the preheated oven or until edges are nicely browned.

Blueberry Muffins

When my girls were 2 years old, they watch Barney everyday and in that series, I like the Muffin Man song. Somehow or the other I sing that song everyday... I donno why but I like to sing that song. Whenever we go out to lunch or dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, I eat this blueberry muffins there with a dallop of butter. Their muffins are really moist and soft...Even though my muffins were not that professional, it came out pretty good. Recipe I followed to make this muffins...

Ingredients:-

1. All Purpose flour - 1 cup
2. Baking powder - 1 tsp
3. Salt - 1/2 tsp
4. Egg - 1
5. Milk - 1/2 cup
6. White sugar - 3/4 cup (acc to taste)
7. Blue Berries - 3/4 cup ***
8. Margarine - little less than 1/4 cup
9. Vanilla Extract - 1/2 tsp
10. All purpose flour - little less than 1/4 cup

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin tins, or line cups with paper liners. Sprinkle little less than 1/4 cup flour over blueberries, and stir to coat berries thoroughly. In a small bowl, whisk together a cups of all purpose flour(ingredient 1), baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, cream margarine, and gradually mix sugar. Beat egg and stir into creamed mixture along with vanilla. Stir in milk alternately with flour mixture, mixing well after each addition. Fold in berries. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake for 25 mts. The above said ingredient is enough for 12 muffins...

*** - I used a full cup of fresh blueberries, but that was too much for the muffins.

My First Cake

When it comes to cake, I would say " I am a good eater than a baker". I like to eat all kinds of cakes. But when it comes to baking, I am scared to try that part. As Jaishree has mentioned in her blog, cooking regular dishes for more 10 people(in my case) is easy to me than bake a cake. But all of a sudden, my girls wanted to bake cookies. So I got the pre prepared refrigerated cookie dough from grocery store and helped them to bake the cookies. They enjoyed baking cookies and they shared it with their friends in their class. Now they want to bake a cake. Well truly speaking, baking a cake with kids around is really a hard task. First I tried a simple chocolate cake, where my girls wanted to put all the ingredients and I allowed them to do that even though I know that this is not gonna work, I just want to encourage them. They put all the dry and wet ingredients in a bowl and tried hard to mix those and I helped them mix it and popped it in the oven for 40 mts. I came out like a chocolate cookie... Well they were happy and were satisfied with what they did and had a whole bowl of those chocolate cookies and started playing. But I was not satisfied personally, cos I just wanted to bake a cake. Again I browsed most of the websites and got a recipe for simple cake and tried the same day itself and it was really a success. Now I am thinking of joining a short term course in baking cakes... Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:-

1. All purpose flour - 2 cups
2. Egg-3
3. Sugar - 1 cups (acc to taste)
4. Butter or Margarine - 1/4 cup
5. Milk - 1 cup
6. Baking powder - 3 1/2 tsp
7. Salt - 1 tsp
8. Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees F(175 Degrees C). Grease and flour one 9 x 13 inch pan. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. set it aside for some time. In the mean time, in a large bowl, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, beating just to combine. Finally, stir in vanilla. Pour batter into the pan. Bake at 350 degreesF for 40 to 45 mts. or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Frost and enjoy. As far as frosting is concerned, I used the store bought frosting and sprinkles which I asked my girls to do it. We shared the cake pieces with the kids in their class and they all enjoyed it. I have taken print out of Jaishree's chocolate and Pineapple cake. Hopefully will bake it during the weekend.