Apple Banana Cake

What do you do when you have over ripe bananas, not fit to eat?  - You bake a Banana Bread. And in Fall here in Canada, apples are galore everywhere, so I decided to bake an Apple- Banana cake. I combined couple of recipes i found online to make it real simple. 

Ingredients

• Grated Apples - 4 cups of peeled n cored
• Bananas - 2 mashed
• Vanilla extract- 1 teaspoon
• Oil - 1/2 cup 
• Eggs - 2
• All purpose flour - 1 cup
• Whole wheat flour - 1Cup
• Brown sugar - 1.5 cups
• Baking Soda - 1 1/2 teaspoons
• Salt -1/2 teaspoon 
• Cinnamon powder - 1  teaspoon
• Powdered sugar - For dusting on top (Optional)

Steps

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

• Beat the oil, egg, vanilla and sugar together in a bowl. Mix in the grated apples and mashed banana. 
• Sift the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and mix well.

• Add the dry mixture to wet ingredients and mix thoroughly.

• Pour into a pan and bake for 50 min or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Cranberry Banana Oat Muffin

Last year during Christmas a baking ingredients company sent a free copy of a little recipe book using their products and coupons for the same to everyone in our city . It had some really nice and simple recipes, so I saved it and after 8 months tried one today. Its called a breakfast muffin, Its health and literally has everything you eat for a breakfast in it.  I made some changes to the ingredients, like swapping white sugar for brown sugar, oil for butter, added vanilla extract and adjusted the amount of Banana added. Don't worry if you can't find cranberries, you can substitute cranberries with raisins, it will be just as yummy.

Ingredients:

• Whole wheat flour - 1 1/4 cups
• Oats -1 1/4 cups (300 mL)
• Brown sugar - 2/3 cup (Taste batter in the end and add more if you like it sweeter)
• Baking Powder -1 1/2 tsp 
• Baking Soda- 1 tsp 
• Salt - 1/2 tsp
• Egg - 1 
• Vanilla extract -1 tsp
• Banana - 2 mashed ( Original recipe calls for 2 cups of mashed banana, I'm sure it will be more than 2 bananas, I had only 2 at home, so added 1/4 cup of milk to add more moisture)
• Oil - 1/3 cup 
• Milk -1/4 Cup (You can avoid this and add more mashed banana)
• Dry cranberries or raisins -3/4 cup 

Steps:

• Sift the flour and combine first six dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Mix well.
• Beat egg, mashed banana, oil and vanilla extract together until smooth.
• Add banana mixture to dry ingredients. Stir, add the milk. Stir gently until well combined and moistened. 
• Stir in the cranberries or raisins.
• The batter will be thick.
• Line a muffin pan and fill it 3/4.
• Bake at 375ºF for 15-20 minutes based on your oven. You know your done when you insert a knife and it comes out clean

Chewy Brownies

This is one of the best and simple recipes I found after a long time for a brownie. I decided to bake some brownies as I had some left over cocoa powder. I then realized that I had lost all my recipes while moving,  not that I missed my brownie recipe, my brownies were more like brownie-cakes,  they were soft, not dense. Nor were they chewy, but it did taste good. So I started searching the internet for an easy brownie recipe within minimum ingredients and steps and luckily my search was just 2 clicks away and I found the recipe for the Chewiest Brownies from allrecipes.com. The secret to Chewy brownies - no baking powder or soda, now why didn't I think of that! They only ingredient I added were some chopped walnuts.

Ingredients:

• Unsweetened cocoa powder - 1 cup
• Melted butter - 1/2 cup
• White sugar - 2 cups
• Eggs -2
• Salt - 1/2 Tsp
• All-purpose flour - 1 cup
• Vanilla extract - 2Tsp
• Walnuts : 1/4 cup (Optional)
• Icing sugar for decoration - 1/3 cup (Optional)

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line pan with greased parchment paper.
• Combine the cocoa, melted butter, sugar, eggs, salt , flour and vanilla. Mix until well combined. It should be very thick and sticky.
• Spread mixture into the prepared pan. Bake at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Cool. 
• Dust the icing sugar over the brownie using a metal strainer.

Mango Lassi (Mango shake)

You will be surprised to hear that I first had mango lassi in Canada and not in India :) I love yogurt (curd) but never liked the traditional plain lassi. The  thought of sugar and salt in yogurt, nahh, not for me. So I never tried anything termed "Lassi". So when I came to Canada 5 years ago, my husband took me to an Indian restaurant and told me that the place was famous for 'Mango Lassi'. So I reluctantly tried it and fell in love with it. I hope one day I can make my yogurt-hating brother taste my mango lassi :)

There are 2 ways to do it, the traditional way with plain yogurt or my  fool-proof way with Vanilla flavored yogurt. I came up with my way of doing it when my son refused to eat the vanilla yogurt I had bought for him. I had it sitting around for a week when the idea hit me to make mango lassi with the vanilla yogurt. I served it for dinner on my son's birthday and it was a hit :) Don't worry if you don't get vanilla flavored yogurt or mango puree, you can follow the traditional way.

My way:

In my way it is much easier as you don't have to worry about adding sugar or the yogurt being sour.

Ingredients:

• Vanilla yogurt - 1 tub
• Mango puree - 1 Can
• Water or milk - as needed, for dilution

Steps:

• Blend the mango puree and vanilla yogurt together. You may have to do it in 2 batches if your blender is small. Its 1:1 ratio (1 cup mango-1cup yogurt)
• Add a little water and blend to dilute the lassi to you liking.
• Your done. Enjoy :)

Note: Mango puree already has sugar in it and so does vanilla yogurt, so don't add any sugar. Unless you think you need more after tasting it.

Traditional way:

 Ingredients:

• Fresh Yogurt (curd)
• Sweet mango slices or mango puree
• Milk - if yogurt is sour
• Sugar, as needed

Steps:

•  If using mango slices, blend it till it has become a puree.
• Add yogurt and sugar to it and blend again.
• Add milk if its sour. and blend again.
• Again it will be 1:1 ratio.

Coconut Macaroons

I suddenly remembered that I had saved a recipe for Coconut Macaroons (biscuits) somewhere last year. I had found it after I baked a fruit cake for Christmas and had some dry shredded coconut left. So I decided to find the recipe and bake it. It turned out really well, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside :) 

Its a very easy and simple recipe. If you've read my previous blogs you'll realise I bake or cook that which requires minimum ingredients and steps. Not becos I am lazy, its becos I have a little son running around. He can do some serious damage if left unattended for a long time. So I tend to simplify recipes to suit my time constraint.

Ingredients:

• Shredded sweetened coconut (dry)- 1 1/3 cups
• Granulated sugar - 1/3 cup 
• All-purpose flour - 2 tablespoons 
• Egg whites – 2
• Vanilla extract – 1/2 teaspoon

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
• In a bowl, combine coconut and flour.
• In another bowl, whisk together the egg whites, sugar and vanilla.
• With a spoon or spatula, mix in the coconut-flour mixture to the egg mixture. It will be dense mixture. Now your ready to bake.
• On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, scoop the mixture with a spoon and place it 1 inch apart. I used a 1 tablespoon rounded measuring spoon. 
• Bake until golden brown, must be for 15-18 minutes, based on the oven. Let macaroons cool. When hot it will not be crispy on the outside.

Tip: Once cooled, transfer to an air-tight container. Or it will loose its crispiness.

Banana Bread

This is an easy and low fat banana bread. I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com some time back. I make this every time I have some bananas that don't look pretty enough to eat :) Those dark brown ones are apt for this recipe. Next time you have some uneatable bananas lying around, don't waste them, make yourself a banana bread and enjoy :)


Ingredients:

• Ripe bananas -  2 or 3 large ones mashed
• Baking soda - 1Tsp
• Plain yogurt - 1/2 cup 
• Oil - 1/4 cup
• Light brown sugar - 3/4cup
• Sugar - 1 Tblsp (if u like it sweeter, I don't use it)
• Egg  - 1
• Vanilla extract - 1tsp
• All-purpose flour - 1 cup
• Whole wheat flour - 1/2 cup
• Ground cinnamon - 1/2 tsp
• Baking powder - 1 tsp
• Salt - 1/4 tsp
• Coco powder - 1Tblsp (Optional, for rich color)
• Walnuts - Chopped 1 handful (optional)

*Tip - you can replace 1 whole egg with 2 egg whites and use low fat yogurt for even less fat. I haven't used it like this, so I'm not sure of the taste.

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, mix the mashed bananas with the baking soda and yogurt. Allow to sit while you prepare the rest of the batter.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, egg or egg whites, and vanilla.
4. In another large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, ground cinnamon, coco powder and salt.
5. Then combine the banana mixture with the oil mixture and then add to the flour mixture. Stir just until all the ingredients are moistened. Stir in half the walnuts. 
6. Pour into an oiled  loaf pan or a cake pan of your choice. Add remaining walnuts on top.
7. Bake for about 35- 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.