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?

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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.

Is it Baklava or Not? It’s your decision!

Madhuram — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:27:24 +0000

Although I have not tasted Baklava, I have always been fascinated by it. I saw an episode of Sandra Lee’s semi home made cooking recently, where she prepared Baklava Roll Ups. I felt that it was easier then the traditional baklava making. I also saw A-kay’s version of baklava. It was the real deal. In general preparing baklava requires some patience. Actually I’m ok with the patience part; I love to do this kind of stuff. Getting some quiet time is difficult for me. With a toddler around, I’m always running behind him or the vice versa. He doesn’t let me do anything. The only time I’m free is when he takes his afternoon nap. So I thought of simplifying even Sandra Lee’s version. Anyhow I bought both the regular phyllo pastry and the phyllo pastry pre baked shells from the grocery store. I thought I will make either her version or mine depending on the time I get.

I placed both the packets in the fridge to thaw overnight. I pre heated the oven at 350F, started preparing the pistachio and almond mixture. When I thought of removing the phyllo pastry sheets from the packet, I heard my son running from his bedroom, he got up very early today. So back it goes into the freezer. I settled him giving some snacks and decided to do my version. I removed the pre baked pastry shells from the carton, lined it on a baking sheet, drizzled some honey, added a teaspoon of the nuts mixture and drizzled some more honey on top and baked it for 8 minutes. It was nice and red on the corners when it came out of the oven. After a couple of minutes, I was able to taste it and it was very good. Since I have not tasted a traditional baklava, I don’t have anything to compare it with. For me it was a “tasty, quick fix, make ahead in case of a party and store it in the fridge” dessert. Everybody in my family liked the taste. That by itself is a big deal for me with picky eaters around.

Stage 1:
Pre heat the oven at 350F. Prepare the nuts mixture. I just took equal amounts of pistachios and slivered almonds, a tablespoon of butter at room temperature, sugar (as per your taste) and pulsed it in a food processor. I did chop the pistachios roughly before adding it to the food processor. Remove the pre baked pastry shells from the packet. I had thawed it overnight, but later only I saw that thawing it for 10 minutes is enough. So do go through the instructions in the package before hand.

Stage 2:
Line the pastry shells in a baking sheet. Don’t throw away the carton the shells come with, you can use it to store them after baking. As always I tried only 5 of them at first. But you can go ahead and do all at once because it came out well. There is nothing to mess up. Drizzle some honey in the shells and then top it with the mixture and again drizzle honey on top of the mixture. Bake it for 8 minutes or as mentioned in the instructions.

Stage 3:
Once baked take it out of the oven, either enjoy immediately or place the baked shells back in the carton and cover it with a saran wrap and store it in the fridge for later.

Variations:
1. Top it with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream for a gourmet kind of dessert.
2. If you let your imagination wild, you can come up with different kinds of stuffing. For an appetizer, just bake the shells for 3-5 minutes and then fill with potato masala. It will be a different kind of potato puffs, easy one too. Fill it with anything from salads to chocolate mousse.

Update:
The baklava tasted really good even out of the refrigerator. But one thing I would do the next time is mixing the honey with the nuts mixture itself, to bind it so that it doesn’t spill while eating. Actually for adults it’s just one mouthful or two bites, it was not a problem, adding some honey on top of the mixture did bind it up, but my son was spilling it while eating.