LOW FAT BANANA CAKE (EGGLESS)

Banana cake is so popular and needs no introduction. Each of you have a favorite recipe of this cake. I too had tried various recipe of this treat with added chocolate, oat or chopped nuts.

The recipe below is a low fat and very light. It uses only 2 tablespoons of oil and water to moisten the batter. The best part is you don't  even  need to take out your mixer or food processor to bake one. It is so easy for anyone  to make.  If your banana is already sweet, do adjust the sugar to your preference. For natural sweetness and strong banana flavor, use ripen banana. This recipe can easily be doubled.

This fantastic cake is sheer indulgent with very little saturated fat, you can enjoy without guilt. Most importantly so fluffy and delicious!

LOW FAT BANANA CAKE (EGGLESS)
Yield    :   One 7 in loaf

1  cup  self raising flour
1/4-1/2 cup  brown sugar
3 medium  banana mashed
2  tablespoon  canola oil
1/4  cup  water/ non fat milk

DIRECTION

Preheat oven @ 180 C. Grease your 7 in cake pan.

Place flour and sugar in a mixing bowl.

Combine banana, oil  and water in a bowl.

Stir in banana mixture onto the flour,  combine well.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool in pan 10 minutes, transfer onto rack to cool.

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SOUR CREAM PIZZA

One of my family favorite food is pizza. With endless topping to choose from, you never feel bored to have pizza even on daily basis.

Today I'm sharing with you an easy and fantastic pizza using sour cream, topped with onion and tomato. Though this is made without cheese, tomato sauce or meat, it turned out to be our top choice and regular on our dinner table.

The crust is a straight forward recipe and easy to make. It is so much easier if you use  your bread maker. Make your own healthy pizza using fresh produce from your garden or market minimizing the oil and cheese used. Go ahead and create your own healthy pizza customized to your taste.

SOUR CREAM PIZZA
Yield   :    1 large or 2 small pizza
Serves :    6

PIZZA DOUGH
2 C  all purpose flour
7g instant yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
3/4 C  warm water
1/2 tsp salt
2 TB olive oil

TOPPING

1/2 C  sour cream
2 medium onion thinly sliced
2 medium tomato cubed
salt to taste
black pepper freshly ground
basil leaves

DIRECTION

Place flour, sugar, yeast, oil and salt in a mixing bowl.

Pour in warm water, combine to form a soft dough.

Knead by hand 5 minutes, transfer into oiled and covered bowl. Let rise until doubled for an hour.

Punch the dough down, shape into 30 cm round and place into prepared pan.

Spread with sour cream, sprinkle salt and pepper generously. Top with tomato, basil  and onion. Preheat oven @ 190C.

Bake pizza for 20-25 minutes until edges are golden brown.

Remove from heat, slice up and serve.

Linking to  Yeastspotting 12-30-11  

BANANA BUTTER COOKIES (EGGLESS)

If you have some over ripened bananas and you are going to throw them out, you don't need to do it. Why not turn those banana into yummy cookies.

The recipe below is so easy to prepare within a short span of time. It uses mashed banana, butter, flour and toasted sesame seeds for added crunch to the cookies. You can also add chopped walnut, almond or peanut if you want. The sugar is much reduced since the natural sugar in the banana makes it sweet enough.

These cookies turned out so moist and tender on the inside but slightly crisp on the outside. They are palatable to everyone with real taste of banana.

BANANA BUTTER COOKIES (EGGLESS)
Yield      :    30 cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 1+ 1/2 self rising  flour
• 1/4 C  melted butter
• 1/4 C  mashed banana
• 1/2 C  brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 C  toasted sesame seeds/chopped nuts

DIRECTION

1. Place melted butter in a bowl, stir in sugar, vanilla extract  and banana.
2. Add in flour and sesame seeds, combine and forms into soft dough.
3. Roll into small balls and flatten slightly with a fork and place onto baking sheet. Preheat oven @ 160 C.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, allow cookies to cool on the tray for 5 minutes.
5. Transfer to wire rack to cool.
6. Store in an airtight container.

SAVORY BREAD PUDDING

Savory bread pudding is a perfect comfort food. Not only it is versatile but it happens to be quite filling too.

Made with cubed sandwich bread or other type of crusty bread, soaked in milk to soften and adding fresh or cooked vegetables of your choice to the batter. Addition of green chili or black pepper gives this a distinctive taste to rather bland pudding.

This is a wonderful meal to share with your family and friend.

SAVORY BREAD PUDDING
Servings     :    6

250g bread 1-in cubed with crust
2 C  milk
2 TB  cornflour
2 TB  oil
2 medium onion thinly sliced
1 tomato chopped
1/2 C  carrot grated
2 green chili chopped
2 TB chopped cilantro
salt and black pepper to taste

DIRECTION

Combine 2 tablespoons of milk with cornflour, keep aside.

Heat the oil, add the onion, fry until soft but not brown,  remove from heat.

Place cubed bread into mixing bowl, pour in the remaining milk and let soak for  5 minutes.

Preheat oven @ 180C and grease  a shallow  6 x 10 in baking dish.

Add in salt and cornflour to the bread, stir well.

Reserve some of the onion, tomato and cilantro for topping, add the rest together with carrot, black pepper and  green chili. to the bread mixture. Combine well.

Pour the batter into prepared pan, bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Linking to  Yeastspotting 12-23-11

5 CUP FRUIT CAKE (EGGLESS)

There are substantial collection of  recipes out there for  fruit cake. Some are heavily loaded with dried fruit,
butter and eggs.  Even  alcohol is being used for soaking the fruit overnight. If it is done in a traditional way, it takes time to bake this perennial favorite.

This is an express version without spending a long hours to bake one.  Though the  ingredients used are mixed dried fruit, self rising flour, milk, brown sugar and desiccated coconut, it turned out as good as the richer  fruit cake.

If time is  your constraint, consider baking this easy cake with great result.

5 CUPS FRUIT CAKE (EGGLESS)
Yield     : One 8 in loaf
Adapted from GregsKitchen

1   C   self rising flour
1   C    milk
1   C     dried fruit
1   C     desiccated coconut
1/2  C   brown sugar

DIRECTION
Preheat oven @ 175C and grease 8 in cake pan.

Place flour, sugar, coconut and dried fruit in a mixing bowl.

Pour in milk and stir to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pan, bake for 35-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool in the pan 10 minutes, transfer onto rack to cool.

CHOCOLATE LOAF

If you're a fan of homemade  chocolate bread, this recipe is for you to try. This is a delicious yeasted chocolate loaf, that is not too sweet and has a deep chocolate flavor.

A generous amount of good quality unsweetened cocoa powder and chocolate chips makes this loaf beautifully rich. The fantastic loaf does not need anything to taste delicious, just eat on its own. Not only that, this is a great recipe for beginner bread bakers, no complicated step to follow.

I had used chocolate rice (sprinkles) instead of chocolate chip and it turned out just beautiful. This recipe below makes a small loaf but it can easily doubled if needed. Also garnished it with silvered almonds for a nice touch.
.
CHOCOLATE  LOAF
Yield     :   One loaf

2  1/4 C  all purpose flour
4 TB melted vegan margarine
2 tsp instant yeast
1 C  non diary warm milk
1/4 C  brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 C  chocolate chips, vegan
1 TB  unsweetened cocoa
silvered almond for topping

DIRECTION

Place flour, cocoa, sugar and instant yeast in a mixing bowl. Stir to combine.

Pour in warm milk, salt and butter to the dry ingredients. Combine to form into soft dough. If too sticky add a tablespoon of flour to the dough.

Knead by hand for 10 minutes on floured board. Add in the chocolate chips, mix well.

Transfer into greased and covered bowl, let rise until doubled for 1 1/2-2 hours.

Lightly degas the dough, shape into ball or loaf and transfer into baking pan. Let sit for 45 minutes. Towards the end of rising time, preheat oven @ 180C. Apply top with milk, sprinkle with silvered almond.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the silvered almond turns golden.

Let sit in the pan for 5 minutes before removing  to wire rack.  When completely cool. slice to serve..

Linking to  Yeastspotting 12-16-11 

PECAN BALLS

These buttery  melt in the the mouth cookies are so scrumptious and not too sweet. At times other nuts such as almond, walnut and the like are added to the dough.

It takes a bit of your time for rolling this treat. I had rolled them into tiny balls. They are often served during Christmas, wedding or festive celebrations.

If you have a time,  dry roast or bake the pecan before grinding. This step is not neccesary but that really enhance the flavor of these balls.

PECAN BALLS
Yield    :    30-40 balls

2 C  all purpose flour
1 C  softened butter
1/2 C  fine sugar
1/2 C  toasted pecan, ground
1/2 tsp  vanilla extract
powdered  sugar for coating

METHOD

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla.

Stir in flour and  ground pecan, mix well to form into soft dough. Preheat oven @ 160 C.

Roll dough into 1 inch ball and place into ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes until set but not brown.  Remove and cool on wire rack.

While still warm, roll the balls with powdered  sugar until well coated.

When completely cool, store in an airtight container. 

FRIED VEGETARIAN RICE

Fried rice is an easy one pot meal by stir frying the main ingredient,  cooked rice.  It is so versatile that you can add almost any vegetables and meat or seafood to it, either vegetarian or non vegetarian style. It tastes great as a meal on its own. .

For best result, make sure the rice is cooked and cooled beforehand so the grain will separate when frying. This instantly create a delicious and satisfying  meal with amazing flavor and texture.

FRIED VEGETARIAN RICE
Servings    :     3-4

300g  cooked rice
2 TB  sesame oil
1 TB  cooking oil
1 tsp chili powder (optional)
2 green chili sliced
1 medium onion sliced
2 cloves garlic minced
1/4 C  water
1  TB  light soy sauce
100g carrot cubed
100g french bean/capsicum
1/2 C  frozen corn
black pepper to taste
salt to taste
2 stalks spring onion
2 stalks coriander leaves

METHOD

Heat the sesame and cooking oil, fry onion and garlic until fragrant.

Add in red and green chili, salt, pepper, soy sauce, water and salt, stir for a minute.

Now add the carrot and bean, cook until carrot turns soft but still crunchy.

Pour in the rice, stir until it heated through and add more salt if required.

Garnish with spring onion and coriander leaves. Serve hot.

STUFFED BUNS

This is my son's favorite bread. He used to buy them from nearby bakery  during his school days. They are so fluffy with spicy filling, the way he likes it.

As his request, I had baked his favorite buns using the recipe below. They're exceptionally fluffy and so tasty even after the next day. The secret is addition of butter and dry milk to the dough.

This recipe is a keeper, you can vary the filling according to your choice either sweet or savory and make these amazing rolls for your family.

For perfect buns, make sure the stuffing is almost dry and be careful to seal the dough properly so as to avoid leakage during baking.

STUFFED BUNS
Yield   :    12 buns

2 1/2 C  all purpose flour
1 TB sugar
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
3 TB melted butter/oil
3/4 tsp salt
2 TB dry milk
1 C minus 2 TB warm water
melted butter for brushing

FILLING

3 medium potato cubed
1 carrot grated
2 TB chicken masala powder
1 tsp chili powder (optional)
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 medium onion chopped
1/2 tsp grated ginger
3 TB chopped coriander leaves
water
salt to taste

METHOD FOR FILLING

Heat the oil, fry onion, ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add in curry powder, chili powder and 2 tablespoons of water. Cook until the raw smell disappears.

Now add the potato, carrot, salt and water ( water level should be above the potato), bring to boil and simmer until potato turns soft, stirring occasionally to avoid sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Remove from heat, sprinkle with coriander leaves and leave to cool.

DIRECTION

Combine flour, sugar, instant yeast and dry milk in a mixing bowl.

Make a well in the center, pour in water and melted butter, stir to combine.

Add in salt, forms into soft dough.

On floured board, knead by hand 5 minutes and transfer onto greased and covered bowl.

Let rise until doubled for an hour.

Flatten the dough, divide into 12 balls. Roll out each ball into round, place a tablespoon of filling, seal the edges and shape into a smooth ball.

Place balls onto baking sheet and let sit for 30 minutes. Towards the end of rising time, preheat oven @ 190C.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden grown. After removing from the oven, brush with melted butter.

Linking to  Yeastspotting 12-09-11 

SESAME & NUT TRUFFLES

These truffles with chopped nuts and sesame seeds are amazingly simple to make involving very few ingredients from your pantry.  This is perfect to satisfy your sweet craving almost instantly.

It is so delightful  to bite into these truffles.  You can vary what is going into making this quick dessert such as adding coconut, white chocolate, dark chocolate, coffee, raisin  or candy bars. The variation are endless.

Here, my combination are toasted nuts and toasted sesame seeds,  they are definitely a favorite for you and your family, so addicting and melt in your mouth. Serve these during the holidays or New Years for a special treat.

SESAME & NUT  TRUFFLES

2 C   crushed semi sweet biscuits
1 C   condensed milk
1/2 C  toasted chopped almond/peanut/walnut
1/2 C  toasted black sesame seed
1 TB  unsweetened cocoa
extra white sesame seed for rolling

DIRECTION

Place crushed biscuits, chopped nuts, sesame seed and cocoa in a mixing bowl. Combine well.

Now add the condensed milk, mix well to form into soft dough..

Roll into 1 in ball and coat with or without white sesame seeds.

Place in a refrigerator until ready to serve.