Baking

Horlicks Cake: (Eggless)

April 26, 2024

The recipe came to light to finish off the stock of Horlicks powder. When you are against wasting food/groceries, this is what happens. I was thinking of Horlicks mysorepak, and after seeing both of my daughter’s faces, I turned around and worked out on baking the tea cake instead of one more greasy stuff.

The trial was a big hit and was baked twice after that by demand. After a long gap, I am sharing this “hit” recipe with my readers.

The recipe is –

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour – 1 cup

Horlicks powder – 1 cup

Baking soda – ½ tsp

Baking powder – ½ tsp

Walnut – ¼ cup (chunks)

Choco chips – ¼ cup

Butterscotch chips -little (optional)

Salt – ½ tsp

Sugar – ½ cup

Curd – 1 cup

Ghee – 4 Tbl sps

Milk – as needed (to adjust the consistency of the batter)

Method:

-Grease the cake tin, line it with the butter paper, and keep it ready.

-Take one bowl, add flour, Horlicks, baking soda, and baking powder, and mix thoroughly using a wire whisk or sieve everything together a couple of times. Add Choco chips, butterscotch chips and walnut chunks and mix thoroughly with dry flour.

-In another bowl, pour curd, ghee, sugar, and salt. Beat nicely until sugar dissolves.

-Pour the wet content over the dry ingredient and fold in the flour. If the batter looks stiff, add extra milk to adjust the consistency of the batter and adjust accordingly.

-Don’t over-mix the batter; use the spatula to fold the batter.

-Pour the ready batter into the cake tin, and bake in a preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes until done at 180®C.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 30-35 minutes or till done.

Vegetarian lasagna:

June 11, 2023

Who doesn’t love Lasagna/lasagne? It is a baked dish consisting of layers of cooked sheet pasta, pureed tomato sauce, and a preferred filling, such as vegetable or meat and topped with cheese.

It is an ultimate one-pot meal, and when it is homemade, without using All-purpose-flour nothing is like it. Here I am, sharing my slightly healthier version lasagne pasta recipe.

Lasagne made from scratch:

I have used a circular glass baking pan that is 10” wide.

For dough:

For 4 circular thin lasagne sheets, I took –

Flour – 1 ½ cup ( ¾ cup whole wheat + ¾ cup All purpose flour)

Salt

Water

Olive oil – 2 tsp (approx.)

Method:

For the Lasagne sheet:

Take Flour, and salt, make a stiff dough using sufficient water, knead until soft, apply oil and keep it resting until you make other things.

For Marinara /Red sauce:

-Blanch 4 tomatoes ( take ½ cup of water, chopped tomatoes, microwave for 3 min), cool, grind.

-Boil with required seasoning ( garlic salt, oregano, little jalapeno seasoning etc.) and two tablespoons of Hot and sweet tomato ketchup and adjust the consistency by adding water.

For Bechamel/ white sauce:

I usually make the veggie-loaded sauce and use it as a filling. ( ½ of zucchini, yellow and red bell pepper, half onion)

-Roast 2 tsp of whole wheat flour OR all-purpose Flour with little butter, whip in a mixer jar with a cup of milk, and keep it ready.

-Heat tawa, add little butter /olive oil, and fry the onion until it turns light brown. Add veggies and fry for a while. Add all the seasonings according to your choice. I usually use garlic salt, red chilli flakes, oregano, and a little jalapeno seasoning.

-Next, add Flour mixed with milk, adjust the consistency by adding extra milk, boil and keep it ready.

Final Layering:

Prepare lasagne sheets one by one. Heat water in a wide vessel, take out the ready dough, divide it into 4, roll it into a circular one, and put it into boiling water; when it is done, it pops up. Remove, drain, and cool it by spreading. Repeat the process.

-For assembling, take the glass bowl in which you bake. Spread one layer of marinara sauce.

Place one cooked sheet, then spread one layer of veggie-loaded white sauce.

-Repeat the process once again. Marinara, lasagne sheet, veggies, last, end with the marinara sauce and grated cheese, and bake at 180 °C preheated oven until the top layer is light brown. Remove, and serve hot.

Eggless Chocolate Banana Cake:

August 8, 2021

After trying my hand in Homemade Pure Cocoa powder, I thought of using Cocoa powder in several recipes; I first wanted to include it in my all-time favourite banana cake. It is an ideal recipe to finish off overripe bananas and the perfect tea time snack for anyone, including small kids. The cake, which has whole wheat flour, natural cocoa, natural vanilla as well as milk. If you want to make it vegan, replace it with vegan milk and proceed to bake.

Let us see how I have done it –

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat flour – 1 1/3 cup ( I took 1 cup of whole wheat flour + 1/3 cup of Emmer wheat flour)

Fresh/Desiccated coconut – 2 tbl sp

Baking soda – 1 tsp

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp

Milk – ¾ cup

Coffee powder – 1 tsp

Pure Cocoa powder – ½ cup (unsweetened cocoa powder)

Brown Sugar – ½ cup

Oil – 1/3 cup

Vanilla – 1 tsp (I have used pure powdered vanilla)

Bananas – 2 ( ½ to ¾ cup of pulp)

Chocolate chip or Cocoa nibs – 3 tbl sp

Method:

-Mix dry ingredients like flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, desiccated coconut in a bowl and keep aside.

-In a saucepan, heat milk, mix in cocoa, coffee powder and make a concoction. Add in vanilla, Sugar and oil one by one. Beat well.

-Next, make a puree of banana and mix in, beat well. Now, the wet ingredient is ready.

-Fold in dry ingredient to wet ingredient. Don’t over mix.

-Pour the mixture into a lined loaf pan, top it with the choco-chip or cocoa nibs and bake at 180°C preheated oven for 40 minutes or until it is done.

-Take out, cool the cake and slice it and enjoy. It stays good for 3 to 4 days under refrigeration.

-Reheat the cake for 30sec in the microwave and enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea.

Savoury muffins:

February 14, 2021

Perfect for small eats, lunch boxes, travels for all age groups and it is so good to grab and have on the go, or have while working or have while study break or have while feeling indulgent.

In my opinion, it is one healthy guiltfree, cheesy and feels good snack. This cheesy flavoured muffin stuffed with my daughter’s favourite veggies, like sweet corn and capsicum, added the goodness of millet and unbleached flour. It is one more recipe from my millet calendar project, published in 2018.

The recipe goes like this –

Ingredients:

Foxtail millet Rava – 1 cup

Whole wheat flour – 1 cup

Cooking soda – 1 tsp

Garlic salt – 2 tsp

Sugar – 2 Tbl sp

Oregano – 1 Tbl sp (pizza seasoning)

Red chilli flakes – 1 Tbl sp

Curd – 1 cup

Water – ¼ cup (to adjust the consistency)

Vegetable oil – ½ cup

Grated cheese – 2 Tbl sp

Chopped veggies – 1 ½ cup (sweet corn, ½ capsicum, ½ onion)

Method:

-Dry roast Rava, cool.

-Mix flour, Rava, chilli flakes and chopped vegetables and cheese.

-In another bowl, beat curd, oil, sugar, salt, oregano, cooking soda and mix until you see bubbles.

-Now pour this liquid over flour and veggie mix. Adjust the consistency by adding water.

-Batter should be little thick but droppable.

-Pour this in a lined cupcake baking tray in a preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes at 170°C.

Guava Cake:

January 3, 2021

This cake was totally experimental and turned out to be a soft, delicious coffee cake with the mild taste of guava with a sweet tinge. One more thing, I am happy about this cake is the usage of cake seed and 100% whole wheat. Usually, when I attempt a new flavour, I prefer half and half.

Here, cake seed is nothing but Caraway seeds, which has a distinct flavour.

If you need to make eggless, please go ahead with any egg replacer. I usually use flax gel as an egg replacer, and it turns out best and gets an additional nutrition quotient.

For flax gel: -To make flax gel: The necessary ratio is 2 ½ tsp of flaxseed powder and three tablespoons of hot water, and then you whisk in the mixture until it becomes gelatinous to replace one egg.

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour – 1 ½ cup

Baking powder – ¾ tsp

Baking soda – ¾ tsp

Salt – a pinch

Caraway/Cake seed – 1 tsp

Eggs – 2

Butter – 100 grams

Vanilla – 1 tsp

Sugar – 1 cup (used brown sugar)

Guava puree – ½ cup ( recipe is here)

Milk – 2 to 4 tablespoons (to adjust the consistency)

Method:

-Dry mix all the dry ingredients-whole wheat flour, salt, caraway seed, baking powder and soda, by sieving 2 to 3 times or with a wire whisk.

-In another bowl, beat guava puree, butter, eggs by adding one by one. Add sugar, vanilla essence and beat until sugar almost dissolves.

-Fold in dry ingredients, adjust the consistency by adding milk. The batter should be a little stiff.

-Take a loaf pan, line with parchment paper, pour the dough, bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 40 -50 minutes or until done.

-take out, cool and slice.

Barbeque Oyster Mushrooms:

December 5, 2020

Oyster mushrooms are Fan-shaped, soft, with a mild Umami in flavour, when compared to button mushrooms. They appear in different colours starting from white, baby pink, cream, light grey etc. Mushroom is known for its low calorie, rich in protein, low in calorie aspects.

According to my daughters, it tastes much better than the button mushrooms and one of my twins who doesn’t love button mushroom started loving mushrooms by eating a pink variety of Oyster by seeing its cute colour :D. My family prefers simple olive oil, garlic salt and pepper tossed Oyster or Barbecue style (My jugaad style 😉 ) / marinated and baked version as a side dish or salad with fried rice or noodles.

How I made:

Ingredients:

Oyster Mushroom – 2 packs

Sriracha sauce – 1 tablespoon

Tomato ketchup – 1 tablespoon

Vinegar – 1 tsp

Soy sauce – 1 tsp

Brown sugar or Maple syrup – as needed

Black Pepper powder – ¼ tsp

Olive oil – 1 to 2 tablespoons

Method:

-Clean the mushrooms, drain thoroughly.

-Heat the olive oil, drop Mushrooms, roast it, and remove.

-Prepare the sauce by mixing all the sauces from Sriracha to black pepper. Marinate the roasted mushroom in this sauce for 10 to 20 minutes.

-Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 10 minutes and serve as you wish.

Note: You can use Iron Tawa to roast, instead of the oven.

Almond Vanilla cake :

November 29, 2020

Hey, Anushree here! This is my second guest post on my mom’s blog ( My first one was a red velvet cake, if you haven’t checked that out, click right here).

So, it is my parents as well as my mom’s Blog anniversary today, and since my sister and I are home, and the world has come to a pause (pretty much), I thought it would be a good idea to make something for their special day. My mom doesn’t like chocolate much and loves milder flavours. My dad pretty much loves all desserts, so I decided to make a healthy, and yummy almond and vanilla cake, with a glaze instead of frosting as we aren’t too fond of the cream icing. So, while frosting, instead of new age cream cheese, I have opted for an original Ermine icing, which is also known as boiled milk frosting. Here, instead of All-purpose flour, I have used a mixture of Almond flour, oats flour, and whole wheat flour.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Almond flour/ meal – ½ cup

Whole wheat flour – ½ cup

Oats flour – ½ cup

Sugar -¾ cup

Baking powder -1/2 tsp

Baking soda- ½ tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp

Butter – 2 tablespoons

Curd – ½ cup

Egg – 1

Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

For the Glaze:

Milk – 1 cup

Almond flour – 5 tablespoons

Arrowroot powder – 1 tablespoon

Butter – 50 grams

Sugar – ½ cup

Vanilla – 1 tsp

Slivered Almonds – As needed

Method:

To Bake the cake:

-Preheat oven for 180° C . Line the baking tray and keep it ready.

-Measure every ingredient and keep it ready. Melt butter and keep aside.

-Take one glass bowl, beat egg, then sugar, melted butter, curd, vanilla beat everything until it is well mixed and keep aside.

-Now take one more bowl, put all the dry ingredients, all the three flours, salt and baking soda, baking powder. Sieve a couple of times or dry whisk and keep it ready.

–Pour the previously prepared wet mixture to dry ingredients and fold the batter by using any spatula.

-Pour the batter in the lined baking tray and keep this for baking for 40 -50 minutes or until done.

-Before removing, check with a knife by inserting, in the baked cake. It should come out clean.

-Cool the cake completely before doing the frosting part.

Method for Frosting:

-Take milk, Almond flour, and Arrowroot powder in a saucepan. Boil the mixture until it is cooks and becomes creamy.

-Switch off the flame, add in butter, sugar, and vanilla, mix well. Cool the mixture and keep it in the fridge to cool further making it thicker. ( I have not kept it in the fridge)

-Now, slice the cake, make a 2-equal slice, Apply the frosting on the first layer and cover it with the second slice.

-Now pour the frosting on the top, we like the sauce texture and left it like that.

-Decorate the cake with slivered almonds and serve and enjoy with the family <3

Jackfruit Cup cake:

May 24, 2020

My idea behind this cup cake is our very own, traditional Jackfruit Kottige or Idli, that we have been making for ages. When I wanted to try cup cake, somehow, I was not convinced to use All-purpose flour due to my motto of healthy baking . Also, I was not ready to use an egg with jack.

Now, the biggest challenge was how to make it? That is when I thought of incorporating our traditional ingredients, which pairs very well with Jackfruit.

So, I took Rice flour , instead of fresh coconut opted for a homemade coconut flour. It would have helped to give an airy texture to cake. Now comes the egg replacer, without any doubt went with flax gel. Worked out really well.

Now comes the tasting session, whoever loves the Jackfruit and its preparation? They all loved it. Whoever does not love jack fruit or its flavour, they said…No 😉

My verdict: Cake was soft, airy ,not at all dense. Tasted more of Jackfruit. After all it is Jackfruit cake 😀

Now, we would move towards the procedure 😀

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 1 cup

Coconut flour – 1 cup

Baking powder – ¾ tsp

Baking soda – ¾ tsp

Salt – ¼ tsp

Flax gel – Replacement for 1 egg

Buttermilk – ¾ cup

Jaggery powder – 2/3 cup ( you can add brown sugar or normal sugar as well)

Ghee / clarified butter – 1/3 cup

Jack fruit chunks – ½ cup (heaped)

Method:

-Pre heat oven at 180 °C , grease the muffin pan. If you want to keep jack fruit piece at the bottom, you can keep one piece on each mould and keep it ready.

-Make flax gel: The basic ratio is 2 ½ tsp of flax seed powder and three tablespoons of hot water and then you simply whisk in the mixture until it becomes gelatinous to replace one egg.

-Make Jack fruit pieces by using chopper or mixer jar (by opting Pulse option)

-Take one bowl, add both the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and mix nicely or sieve couple of times. It is our dry mixture.

-Take one more bowl, make a wet mix. Take flax gel, ghee, buttermilk, and beat nicely.

-Now add jaggery or sugar and beat until frothy. Now add Jack fruit and mix.

-Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and fold in and make a uniform mixture. Do not over mix.

-Pour the ready batter to muffin mould and bake in a Pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. Check the doneness and take out.

-Cool and enjoy gluten free Jack fruit cupcake.

NOTE: – if you want to use all-purpose flour, please go ahead, and use 1 ½ cup and follow the same recipe.

Coconut Flour and Buck wheat Chocolate chip cookies:

May 17, 2020

In my earlier posts I have discussed regarding homemade coconut flour as well as eggless coconut flour cookie with chocolate chip.

One thing we must keep in our minds while using coconut flour is, do not underestimate its absorption power by seeing its light and airy texture. It absorbs moisture like a sponge. What I learnt from my previous experience is, it needs almost equal amount of moisture content as flour volume.

Here I have tried with egg as well as without egg by adding flax gel as an egg replacer, mainly because of its gel like texture. Coconut flour does not have any holding capacity, so thought of using flax gel.

In this experiment I have taken equal amount of coconut flour and buck wheat flour ( I did try with millet flour as well) it did absorb the liquid, swell and gave me Eleven cookies 😊 More than everything, this was interesting!! Baking Coconut Flour by adding millet/ buck wheat flour . This was a little experiment, and the results were not bad at all! I got the big thumbs up from my twins.

Let us see the procedure for With Egg Version –

Ingredients:

Coconut flour – ½ cup

Millet/ Buck wheat flour – ½ cup

Choco chip – ¼ to ½ cup

Pink salt – ¼ teaspoon ( you can use normal salt as well)

Cinnamon powder – ½ tsp

Cooking soda + baking powder – ¼ tsp ( 1/8^th tsp each)

Eggs – 2

Ghee – 2 tablespoons

Vanilla – ½ teaspoon

Organic Natural brown sugar – ½ cup (you can use normal sugar or jaggery as well)

Method:

-take one bowl, add all the dry ingredients: Both the flours, salt, cinnamon powder, cooking soda, baking powder and Choco chip. Mix everything and keep it aside.

-Beat the egg , add vanilla, sugar, and ghee. Beat everything until you see a bubbly texture.

– Pour wet mix into dry ingredient and fold everything and prepare a dough. It would be sticky and wet.

-Keep this in a refrigerator at least for a half an hour. By this time, coconut flour would absorb the moisture and batter would be perfect to scoop out.

-Pre heat oven at 170 °C. Line the baking tray with the butter paper.

-Scoop out the mix by using ice cream scooper and arrange in a lined baking tray.

-Bake this in a pre-heated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

-Do not touch while removing, it will be incredibly soft. Remove the tray and cool as it is.

-After cooling, it will harden a bit. After it cools down completely, store it in an airtight container.

– These cookies are slightly crunchier at outer circle, soft and chewy at the centre.

– It becomes a little harder and firmer the next day .

For Without Egg Version:

For Egg less version, please use any egg replacer or

Flax gel: The basic ratio is 2 ½ tsp of flax seed powder and three tablespoons of hot water and then you simply whisk in the mixture until it becomes gelatinous to replace one egg.

-Here, after mixing the wet and dry mixture, you can directly proceed to baking. No need to keep it in the fridge. Dough is less liquid, compared to the with egg version.

-Cookies turn out much more heavy and crunchier than the with egg version. Does not spread while baking. It holds the shape very nicely.

Lemon Tart with Healthy Flour:

April 19, 2020

Lemon tarts are a real pleasure to have. When I have homemade lemon curd, usually I make it a point to use it in my baking and enjoy the tangy taste. Usually first preference would be Lemon thumb print cookies by using healthy flours. Then comes the Braided bread and lastly, lemon tart, which my daughters just love to have and this time, one of my daughters tried to bake it and she enjoyed the healthy baking process. At first, we did try by using Oats and whole wheat together and second batch with only whole wheat flour. Both the trials worked out just fine. Oats and whole wheat tart shell was more like a cookie with added flaky texture and whole wheat shell was like any normal tart shell.

We normally like mini cup cake size of lemon tart, due to its tangy and sweet taste. So, giving the measurements for 12 – 14 mini tarts.

This is an Egg-less version and I will update both the versions.

How we did:

Ingredients:

Flour – ¾ cup

Salt – ¼ tsp

Cold butter – 50 grams

Brown sugar – ¼ cup

Cold water – as needed.

Lemon curd – As needed

Method:

-If you are taking whole wheat flour, take ¾ cup. If you want to mix oats or any other flours of your choice, go ahead and use half the quantity of oats flour (by grinding ) or any other flour and half whole wheat flour.

-Now, take flour of your choice, salt and dry mix nicely. Add sugar powder and mix thoroughly.

-Add cold butter by cutting into chunks. Mix everything by using hand or processor. Until mixture looks crumbly.

-Now add couple of tablespoons of chilled water and make a dough. Keep it in an airtight box and allow to rest under refrigeration for 45 minutes.

-Pre heat oven at 170°C . Remove dough and roll the dough by using flour dusted platform.

-Take a cookie cutter, lay those circles in greased mini muffin pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

-Remove, fill with lemon curd, once again keep it in the oven and continue baking for 5 more minutes.

-Remove, cool and enjoy sweet and tangy/ lemony treat.