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Oats & Brown Rice Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

Madhuram — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:52:03 +0000

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.

Baking with Brown Rice – Round Up

Madhuram — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:39:14 +0000

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!

Announcing Whole Grain (Egg Free) Baking Event – Rice

Madhuram — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:20:21 +0000

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.

Whole Cornmeal Recipes Round Up

Madhuram — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:03:29 +0000

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.

Vegan Chocolate Banana Cake

Madhuram — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:51:32 +0000

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

Almost Vegan Cornmeal Snack Cake

Madhuram — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 13:22:50 +0000

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.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Madhuram — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:58:43 +0000

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.

Gluten Free, Egg Free and Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies

Madhuram — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:12:18 +0000

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.

Vegan Blueberry Cornmeal Coffee Cake

Madhuram — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:30:38 +0000

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.

Announcing Whole Grain (Egg Free) Baking Event – Corn

Madhuram — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:47:17 +0000

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.

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.