Whole Wheat Nutty Date Loaf

Baking bread is sheer joy! 

The smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the house feels heavenly.

I tried different variations of this bread and each tasted good. Polished off to the last crumby bit with my morning tea before rushing into the dreaded weekday morning commute. The original recipe came from Nidhi Uppangala Hegde on Facebook Foodie group few years ago and I have tried incorporating it to my taste while preserving the essence of the recipe.

Recipe:

• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup date puree
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• some extra whole wheat flour to dust or knead.

Heat 1 cup water and 1 tbsp sugar till it’s slightly warm. Please note that the water should be just WARM and not HOT. Wait for it to cool down a little and add the active dry yeast to it. Just let it sit until frothy and bubbly. Leave it alone and do not touch or mix it, it should take 5 to 10 minutes for the yeast to get frothy.

In a big bowl combine all the dry ingredients of set 2 and stir to combine. For this step you can just use a wooden spoon instead of your hands. Now add the liquids one by one. Pour the yeasty water and mix for everything to incorporate well. Dough will be sticky but that’s ok. Cover with a wet towel and let it double in a warm place. It can take anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours depending how warm the surrounding is.

When the dough has doubled up, remove the wet towel and put the remaining 1 cup of whole wheat flour on to it covering the entire sticky surface of the dough. Use your hand the deflate the dough and then knead it gently till it’s not too sticky anymore. Feel free to add a couple of tbsp of flour extra if you find the dough too sticky to handle. When it’s all mixed well, pour the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil over it and knead once again.

Dust your baking tray generously with flour. Transfer the dough on to it. You can shape it the way you like or simply leave it the way it is. Bread looks pretty no matter what the shape is. Cover it with a wet cloth and keep it aside for 30-40 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven at 350F.
Remove the wet cloth and slash the loaf diagonally a few times.

Place the loaf in the preheated oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. When the bread it ready, it’ll be golden on top and will sound hollow when tapped.

Take out the hot bread out of the oven, Remove from the baking tray and let it cool completely before you cut it.

Asparagus Pasta with stir-fried Kale

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The service is available in & around San Francisco bay area. If any bay area residents are interested in signing-up, use the code SUPR5488 to get $15 OFF your first box.

Apple Pancake - Comfort food the healthy way..

Rain is pounding down on the bay area the last few days. The windstorm is so strong it feels like a constant companion. After catching a wonderful movie late last night, waking up to the wonderful rain makes me want a comforting warm filling breakfast, even though it is 2PM now. Hey, don't judge me. It's a perfect day to feel super lazy!

Watching the stars walk down on the red carpet of Golden Globes Awards, I start whipping up a quick batch of pancake, albeit cautiously since my last trial was a minor disaster. It shows how a good recipe is crucial for a wonderful end result. I used Vitamix recipe the first time and then referred to the following recipe today.

Without further ado, let's get right down to it. The pancakes turned out perfect and having enjoyed my very late brunch I am ready to pen down the recipe for y'all.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour - 1 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Yogurt (curd) - 1 cup
Egg - 1
Vanilla extract - 1tsp
Olive Oil (or vegetable oil) - 1tbsp
Apple (peeled, cored and grated) - 1

Method:
Mix whole wheat flour, salt, baking powder together in a bowl. Add yogurt, egg, vanilla extract and oil and whisk well. Add grated apple and mix until combined.

The batter needs to be thick but should spread on its own when poured onto the pan. Hence, I added 4-5 tsp of liquid that separates from the yogurt tub and mixed it to make a spreadable batter.

Heat a skillet or a non stick pan on medium heat. Once the pan is hot, spread some butter on the pan and ladle a spoonful of batter and cover the pan for a minute until bubbles form at the top and one side is cooked. Flip it over so the other side cooks well, for about a minute.

Serve the pancakes while hot. Pour maple syrup, a small blob of butter and fresh fruits and enjoy the fluffy pancakes.


The above batter batch yields about 6-7 medium sized pancakes.

Crunchy Salad - Tickle your tastebuds

This recipe has been tried and tested and is a phenomenal success with family and friends. My husband came up with this truly delicious recipe and we have been enjoying this crunchy goodness with almost every meal..

The secret of this recipe is that it consists of simple ingredients that come together beautifully and makes you feel you are part of something special. Truly! Every time I make this salad I feel like a gourmet chef! No kidding!

Recipe:
1 medium onion
2-3 cucumbers, peeled
1 Bartlett pear, cored
1 apple, cored

Vinaigrette:
5 pitted dates
1 Serrano pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Lime Juice
Himalayan Salt (or normal salt)
Oregano (optional)
cilantro, finely chopped (optional)

Chop all vegetables and fruits and toss them together.
Be sure to add only crunchy vegetables and fruits to this salad. You may add raw mango, raw papaya, green/yellow/red pepper. You can roughly chop all the veggies/fruits, or slice them, or cube them.

Thinly slice the dates and serrano pepper and add to the mix. You can leave the jalapeno pepper out, but it provides the aroma and balances the acidity from lime juice and sweetness from the dates.
Drizzle generous amount of olive oil and squeeze a lime into the mix and sprinkle salt to taste.
Sprinkle some dry oregano and cilantro for flavor.
Toss everything together and the lovely crunchy salad is ready.

The vinaigrette gives a beautiful depth of flavors to the salad. And the healthy content leaves you feeling full. Hope this recipe becomes your go-to and has a place in your table like it is in mine.

Chocolate Fantasy | Chocolate Sponge Cake

One more long weekend thanks to festival and I got started with baking. Guests visiting was an added bonus. That meant I needed to beautify the cake so that the kids would want to eat it...

Anyway, the end product looked decent. At least to me. What do you think?

Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Not bad, eh? I thought so too.. Le Cordon Bleau, I am coming soon! :-)

Chocolate Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup Flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup powdered sugar

3/4 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder together twice.

Beat eggs till light and frothy to about 3 times the original volume.

Add the vanilla, sugar and beat again for about 2 minutes.

Pour in the oil continuously in a stream while continuing the beating.

Fold the flour mixture gently into the wet ingredients.

Pour into the greased tin, dusted with flour.

Tap the tin couple of times so that the bubbles settle down.

Bake at 180C for about 25-30 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the ganache:
225gm dark chocolate
140ml heavy cream
Chocolate sprinkles

Method:
Chop the chocolate into small pieces
pour cream into it and melt it either on a double boiler or in the microwave
Whisk it well until it blends well.
Cool it a little. Apply it on the cake and smooth it. The ganache will thicken as it cools down completely.
Decorate the cake with sprinkles.

Notes:

1. Pour the sugar and oil into the mixture slowly and continuously.

2. Move the mixer in one direction only lest you let the air out from the batter.

3. Don't mix the flour in frantically. Gently cut and fold in circular motion.

4. Gluten will start forming if you over mix.

Happy Baking!

Daring Baker Challenge | Challah Y'all!

In a "celebration" of past Daring Baker and Daring Cook challenges, Lisa challenged all of us to search through the Daring Kitchen archives and pick any one we'd like! The REAL challenge was picking which delicious recipe(s) to try!

And guess what  I tried making...

This beauty called Challah!

Challah is a bread of celebration in Jewish tradition. At a time when white flour was considered a luxury, its use was reserved for either the wealthy or for festive events. In Judaism, the Sabbath is a weekly holiday and therefore is a festive occasion. It was around the 15th century when Jews in parts of Austria and Germany adopted an oval braided loaf from their neighbors to make the Sabbath special. These fancy shaped loaves made with white flour were seen as a fitting way to honor the Shabbat (Sabbath), symbolized in Jewish culture as a queen, therefore deserving of the finest one can achieve. In honoring the Sabbath as a day of rest, two loaves are traditionally put on the table. This is generally seen as a representation of the double portion of manna provided to the Children of Israel on Fridays during their wandering in the desert after fleeing from Egypt. This double portion allowed them to maintain the commandment to not do “work” on the Sabbath.

Ok, enough history and general knowledge. When the daring baker challenge was revealed I was so excited with the choice available for this month. I then quickly picked this bread challenge because I was planning to bake bread for a long time and somehow wasn't finding time to do that. I decided to take half the measurements in the recipe given. Didn't want to churn out huge loaves of Challah that no one wanted to eat you know! So decided to play safe and started the process just to find out that the yeast had expired. After 3 iterations, I just chucked it (almost half kg :-( ) and bought new yeast from the nearest supermarket and got cracking.

Before Proofing

After Proofing

Yummy crusty Challah

Easy Challah Recipe

(from templedavid.org)

Ingredients

4 cups (360 gm) all-purpose (plain) flour

1 cup (240 ml) warm water

1 package (2¼ teaspoons) package rapid rise yeast

½ (115 gm) cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp. (6 gm) salt

1 egg beaten with 1 tsp. water

Directions:

1. Measure flour, sugar, and salt into a large mixing bowl.

2. In a separate bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer) combine water and yeast, allow to sit 5 minutes until foamy.

3. Add 1 ½ cups of the flour mixture to the water and yeast mixture, beat until well combined. Cover with a dishtowel, let stand 30 min.

4. Add two eggs to the dough, beat again.

5. By hand or with your dough hook knead in the remaining flour mixture. Knead approximately 10 minutes.

6. Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover, let rise one hour.

7. Punch down dough, knead approximately 3 minutes.

8. Divide dough in two. Shape each half as desired (3, 4, or 6 strand braid).

9. Place loaves on parchment covered or greased cookie sheets, cover with a towel, allow to rise one hour.

10. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

11. Brush loaves with egg wash.

12. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees, bake until golden crust forms (about 25-30 minutes).

13. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.