Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

It’s close to two months since I baked something. Last two months we had lot of festivals. And finally after Navarathri, I wanted to bake something, before the preparations for Diwali begin. There were many bananas to be used up. So baked Dates Banana muffin during the last weekend. I didn’t use any all purpose flour or maida. The reason being it not available in my pantry. So used whole wheat flour/atta and 1/2 cup of arrowroot powder. It came out very well - moist and light. I expected a denser muffin. I think the arrowroot

powder contributed to the texture. This was my first bake where in APF is not used at all.  And I was really happy with the result. So I decided to try my luck with whole wheat cookies. On browsing for a suitable recipe, I found one at AllRecipes.  I tweaked it to suit my pantry and made it eggless too. Now I have a whole wheat cookie recipe. I think with this as base, you can work on it for different flavor and combinations of nuts etc.

Yields: 20 Nos.
Temp: 190 C
Time - 18 minutes


Ingredients


Butter - 1/2 Cup

White sugar - 1 cup

Vanilla essence - 1 tspn

Flax seeds powder - 2 tspn

Water - 1/4 cup

Whole wheat flour/Atta - 1 1/2 cups

Baking powder - 1/2 tspn

Salt- 1/2 tspn

Chocolate chips - 1/4 cup



Method

Cream butter and sugar until creamy and light. Add vanilla essence and flax seeds powder  mixed in water.

Sift together wheat flour, baking powder and salt. Gently combine the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Mix until it’s just combined. Fold in the chocolate chip cookies. Don't knead. Just gather the dough together. Pinch off a lemon sized dough and shape it. I didn’t shape it much. Just flattened it little with a fork to get a rustic look.

Bake in a preheated oven at 190 c for 18 minutes or till you can find brown specs on top. Leave it on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes. Don't try to remove them immediately. It will be very soft and will harden on cooling. The cookies were crunchy. It is a treat to have with tea or a cup of milk.

I am taking these healthy cookies to the High Tea  hosted by Aparna as part of Meeta's Monthly Mingle

Durian Cake

I've got few boxes of durian in the freezer. Other than thinking to make some cream puff or ice cream. I would like to try out some new stuffs which I've not tried before. I ate a durian cake weeks ago bought from my neighbour, it's very delicious!

So, thinking to make it myself. I made a simple swiss roll sponge cake and cut them into very thin round shape to layer the cake. For the cream, I mixed 270g of durian flesh with 135g custard and folded in 200ml whipped cream. This is truly a rich and creamy durian cake. I didn't add gelatin for the mixture so it's a bit runny, however it set after sitting in the fridge for few hours.

I would like to try out a next batch with gelatin one to find out the difference. Perhaps adding some gelatin would be easier to do the decoration. For the simple one, this batch is very yummy indeed! Must do it again for some celebration party.

How I made it:

Ingredients for a thin sponge 28 x 35cm: 4 eggs / 80g sugar / 67g plain flour:

Place the eggs and vanilla extract into a bowl. Gradually add in sugar and whisk until pale and thickened. Sift the flour into the bowl and fold together. Pour the sponge mixture into a baking tray with baking paper and bake for 10 minutes at 200'C preheated oven. Place the cooked sponge on a wire rack and place the sponge together with the wire rack into a plastic bag for cooling down.

Ingredients for custard: 2 egg yolks / 133ml milk / 40g sugar / 13g flour / 1 tsp vanilla extract / 6g butter / 2 tsp Rum (optional):

Mix the egg yolks with two teaspoon of milk in a bowl until well combined. Then, mix in the flour and make sure there is no lumps. Place the milk in a saucepan with vanilla extract and sugar, bring to the boil. Once the sugar dissolve in the milk, gradually pour onto the eggs mixture and stir then pour back into the pan. Return to the heat and using a whisk, lightly stir the mixture to thicken, do not boil. As the egg yolks warm, it will thicken to create custard. Keep stirring until it coats the back of the spoon. Remove from the heat and keep stirring and add in the butter. When the custard slightly warm add in rum. Pour the custard into a shallow bowl and cover with cling wrap. Place it into the fridge when it completely cool down and ready to use.

To assemble, blend 270g durian flesh (you could add more if you like) and 135 custard just combine. Don't over blend the mixture. Whip 200ml of fresh cream and fold it into the durian mixture. Put the durian cream into a piping bag and refrigerate for 1 hour. Use a 6cm cake rings or round mould to cut out 21 pieces of round sponge. Place a piece of transparent cake paper around each cake rings and fit in a sponge cake then generously pipe in the durian cream. Place another layer of sponge and pipe in the cream again. Finally add the remaining durian cream on the top and let it sit in the fridge for 3 hours.

Remove the cake rings and transparent paper. Ya, look around the see anyone around and now you could lick the transparent paper. Enjoy!

Kai Murukku ~Amma's Special

For so many years, murukku meant only the kaimurukku for me. We called murukku only  that. Later on, I realised its a more general way of referring murukku, muthuswarams or thenkuzhal...Okay, you got the drift. When I posted this month's ICC, I had mentioned about kai murukku. While on twitter, Aparna asked me about the recipe for the murukku and I promised her I shall post it soon. These pics have been lying in drafts for more than 4 months. Thanks to Aparna, that it finally came to the light of blogosphere. Before you all jump to the conclusion that I an expert on this, let me confess, I am merely documenting my Amma's recipe. It was she who did this when she was here. To be frank, I haven't made any serious attempts on this regard.

And my Amma is an expert and unfortunately me and my sister doesn't seem to inherit that genes.

Things to keep ready

Fresh rice flour is used for making murukku. I am not sure how best result you might get with store bought flour. Since I have seen only made with fresh flour. As with all Indian  avories, this recipe also requires you to soak the raw rice for 1 hour. Drain and shade dry. Then pound in the mixer grinder or near by flour mill. Seive the flour.

Split urad dal is to be roasted on low fire till it is pink. Cool and powder. Sieve to get fine powder. Ura dal flour can be prepared a day ahead or so.

Solid hing gives a better flavor than the powdered ones. If using solid hing,soak it in warm water for half an hour. If hing powder is used, then also dissolve it in the water.

The proportion of rice flour :urad dal powder is 7: 1. Measure using the same cup. Its not necessary that you use the standard measuring cup. Any size cup can be used provided you measure both the ingredients with the same cup. Quantity of the rest of the ingredients are indicative. So adjust according to the size of the measuring cup you use.

Now on to the recipe,

Ingredients

7 cups of fine raw rice flour

1 cup of roastedd and powdered urad dal

Butter - 3 tblspn

Jeera/Cumin -1 tblspn

Hing -

Salt

Water to make the dough

Oil to deep fry

Method

Measure rice flour and urad dal powder into a wide vessel. Add butter, jeera . Dissolve the salt in the hing water. Add the hing,salt water. Mix the ingredients well. Add water to make  pliable dough. When making in large quantities, its ideal to prepare the dough in batches.

Spread a cotton cloth. Take a lemon sized dough in your hand and start making murukku. I should have taken a video but I missed. I shall surely do that next time. You can apply some coconut oil on your hands. This will help to make the swirls with out breaking.

Leave it for 15 minutes to dry on the cloth, before you deep fry. Meanwhile heat oil in a  kadai. Slowly lift the murukku from the cloth using a flat spatula (Dosa thiruppi) and transfer to a plate. Slowly slide them into oil. When one side is fried, flip with a slotted spoon. When both sides are cooked, it will have a golder color. And also the sizzling of the oil around the murukku ceases.

Drain and when cool, store in airtight containers.

These are crunchy but not the melt in your mouth kind. If you add more butter, it will drink more oil also, thought it might not be very hard.