Another change I made was using a 13X9 inch baking pan instead of a loaf pan and also increased the oven temperature. The time mentioned to bake the bread was 60-75 minutes. Yesterday I found time to bake only at 10pm and I didn’t want to spend 1 hour for a single fruitcake, when I had plans to bake cranberry shortbread bars also, both to be gifted to the firefighters and others before christmas. So I decided to use a 13X9 inch pan, which definitely was wise because the fruitcake was done around 35 minutes itself. This was also very convenient to cut them into small pieces.

I also flavored the fruitcake with Supreme Spice’s Tea Masala Extract. For long time now I have wanted to try spice extracts, finally ordered it last week and got my shipment of Tea Masala Extract, Kesar Milk Extract and Tulsi Extract. The tea masala extract is my absolute favorite now. You have to try it to believe it. It transforms your ordinary tea into something exotic and it’s especially refreshing in this gloomy weather these days.

Tea masala extract is a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, clove and pepper, which I thought would be perfect to pair with this fruitcake. At first I added 5 drops of the extract to the dough, but felt that it was not enough and so added another 5 drops and mixed the dough well. While the cake was baking the kitchen was filled with so much aroma of the spices, which made me think If I had gone overboard my adding 10 drops. I couldn’t wait until it was cool enough to cut it and have a bite. Anyway I let it cool on a wire rack overnight and cut them today. But by then the pungency of the spices had reduced and the cake tasted very good with the flavor of the spice extract in the background.

My Notes 1 Any combination of nuts and dried fruits can be used in this fruitcake. The only thing to be followed is that it should be 3 cups of nuts and 3 cups of dried fruits. I used 1 cup each of walnuts, pecans and sliced almonds. For dried fruits, I used 1/2 cup each of raisins, dried cranberries, dates, apricots and 1 cup of dried and sliced figs.

2 Let the fruitcake cool completely in the pan before inverting it. I was not patient enough and turned it over and the cake broke into 2 pieces. Fortunately I was able to patch it up. So I would suggest cooling it overnight.

This christmas fruitcake goes to
1. Egg Replacement Event – Pureed Fruit hosted by me.
2. Baking for Beginners hosted by Vandana.
3. Homemade Christmas Gift hosted by Happy Cook &
4. Santa’s Holiday Challenge hosted by JZ.

It’s long time since I have baked a quick bread. The last time I baked this for my friends and it was a hit. I had used bananas instead of eggs, so the bread tasted more like bananas. That’s the only reason I don’t like using bananas as an egg substitute because it’s flavor/smell will dominate the baked dish. Whether it’s a carrot cake or chocolate cake, it’s going to taste like a banana only. So this time I decided to use flax seed meal as the egg substitute.

What is a Quick Bread? As the name suggests, “Quick Breads” can be baked quickly, when compared to the traditional yeast breads. Quick breads are leavened with baking powder and/or baking soda, not yeast. So you can mix, bake and enjoy these baked goods in less time. Quick breads can be sweet or savory. One important thing to be noted while baking quick breads is, mixing the wet and dry ingredients only until moistened. Few lumps in the batter is fine, because over-mixing causes the gluten in the flour to develop and the result would be a coarse and tough bread.

Quick breads such as banana, zucchini and cranberry slice and taste best when served a day after baking. Wrap the cooled bread in foil or plastic wrap; leave at room temperature overnight. Use a serrated knife for breads that have fruits and/or nuts. Corn bread and coffee cakes are best served warm. (Source: The Taste of Home Baking Book)

I had some dried cranberries left after preparing these “no-bake” bars, so I wanted to use it before I could forget all about it and find it out after 3 months while cleaning the pantry. I also had 2 cranberry bread recipes in hand. One was the traditional yeast bread and another one a cranberry orange quick bread (from the book Baking for Dummies). Hands down my choice is the latter, because I’m not yet ready to bake with yeast. I have this preconceived notion that I cannot handle yeast, it’s difficult. But the quick bread required fresh cranberries which I didn’t have. So I came up with a recipe combining those 2 recipes, making few changes here and there. The bread came out quite decently.

This is my entry to the following events:
1. Suganya’s Vegan Ventures.
2. Mansi’s Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipe Carnival. What is Thanksgiving without cranberries!
3. Egg Replacement Event – Flax Seed Meal hosted by me.

I found this recipe in Taste of Home magazine. This recipe was submitted by one of its readers. I’m so glad that I found this recipe because these cookies are absolutely delicious. It had the “melt in your mouth” texture, which reminded me of the butter biscuits we get in bakery shops in India. I would say that these are the best cookies I have baked so far. It’s not too sweet and it also has a hint of saltiness, which is the perfect combination. Also it’s so easy to put together.

Ingredients

Butter, softened – 3/4 cup (I used 1.5 stick Smart Balance 50/50 Unsalted Butter Blend)

Instant Butterscotch Pudding Mix – 1 package, 3.4oz (I used Jello Brand Instant Pudding and Pie Mix)

All purpose flour – 1.25 cups

Pecans, chopped – 1/2 cup

Yield: 24 cookies

Step-By-Step Procedure(Click on the thumbnails for a bigger view)
1. Preheat oven at 375F for 15 minutes.
2. In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and pudding mix until smooth. I used a hand held electric mixer.
3. Gradually beat in flour.

4. Fold in pecans.
5. Grease a tablespoon with non stick cooking spray.
6. Take a tablespoonful of dough and drop it on the baking sheet 2 inch apart.
7. Flatten the dough using your fingers.

8. Bake it for 10-13 minutes or until light golden brown. Mine were perfectly done at 11 minutes.
9. Remove it from the oven and let it cool on the baking sheet itself for 5 minutes.
10. Then transfer it to a wire cooling rack and let it cool completely before storing it in an airtight container.

My Notes

1. Grease 2 baking/cookie sheets using the butter wrapper itself. This way the leftover butter on the wrapper is not wasted.

2. The recipe does not need sugar. The cookies gets its sweetness from the sugar in the pudding mix. Once I prepared the dough, I tasted it and felt that it was not sweet enough. I was so tempted to add some sugar. But I’m really happy that I did not do it, because the cookies tasted perfect.

3. The above measurement yields exactly 2 dozen cookies. I used 2 large baking sheets for each dozen and baked it one batch at a time. You can also bake both at the same time with one sheet on the middle rack and the other one on the bottom rack. If you decide to bake both batches at the same time, be sure to switch the baking sheets half way through. That is, once it’s baked for 5 minutes, move the top rack sheet to the bottom and the bottom rack sheet to the top to ensure even baking.

4. Using the same method, I’m also thinking of making Pistachio cookies using instant pistachio pudding mix and chopped pistachios instead of pecans.

I was searching for zucchini recipes and found this one in Food Network’s site.  It’s by Paula Deen.  The original recipe yields 2 loaves, so I scaled down the ingredients to 50% to bake 1 loaf and used bananas to make it eggless. 

Ingredients:

(PART 1)
All Purpose Flour 1.5 cups
Baking Powder 1/4 tspn
Baking Soda 1/2 tspn
Cinnamon 1/4 tspn ( I used even little because I’m not a big fan of cinnamon)
Salt 1/2 tspn

(PART 2)
Zucchini peeled and grated, 1 cup (I used 1 medium zucchini, the gratings measured nearly 1.5 cups)
Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips 1/2 cup (I used mini chocolate chips)
Pecans 1/2 cup, chopped

(PART 3)
Vegetable Oil 1/2 cup
Granulated Sugar 3/4 cup
Bananas 2 medium size, mashed
Vanilla essence 1 tspn

Procedure:
1. Pre-heat the oven at 350 F.
2. Combine ingredients in Part 1 and sieve them.
3. To this add the ingredients in Part 2.
4. Combine ingredients in Part 3 in a blender/or cream it using an electric hand mixer.  I used my magic bullet blender to blend it.  Add this mixture to the above dry ingredients and mix it well.  You may add a little milk, if you feel that the mixture requires some more liquid.  I had to add a couple of tablespoons of milk because I increased the quantity of zucchini.
5. Pour it in a greased bread loaf pan.

6. Bake it at 350F for 50 min or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
7. Cool the bread in the pan for 30 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack.  Wait for another 30-45 minutes before slicing the bread.

The bread is very moist and tasty.  Click the images for a bigger view.

My Notes:
1. This is similar to the carrot cake recipe, but uses zucchini and chocolate chips instead.  Next time I will add both carrots and zucchinis.

2. I feel that the Magic Bullet Blender is very versatile.  I bought it 2 years back to puree steamed vegetables and fruits in small quantities for my infant son.  But it does a lot more.  The recipe booklet which comes along with the blender is also very useful.  I have made muffins and soups as mentioned in the recipe book and it has come out very well also.  Even in the above recipe I add all the ingredients in Part 3 in the blender’s big jar and gave it a few pulses and it’s ready within few minutes.  I find it more easy than using an electric hand mixer.

3. Use Vegan chocolate chips/carob chips to make this bread100% vegan.