Showing posts with label Eggless Bakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eggless Bakes. Show all posts

WOYP Day #66 Vanilla Custard Cookies


Custard is one of my favorite cold desserts, as a kid mom made it with fruit salad or with just bananas and I would go through a big bowl of it in no time! I always have a big can of the custard powder in my pantry for anytime the custard craving hits. A great use for this custard powder apart from making lip smacking Custard is in Cookies. Custard powder is basically flavored Corn starch. 


 Vanilla Custard Cookies

You will need:
Makes 16-18 cookies

3/4 cup All purpose flour
1 stick (113 gms) Unsalted butter, softened
3 tbsp Vanilla Custard powder (I used Brown&Polson)
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1/3 cup powdered sugar 

*Substitute for Custard powder: 3 tbsp Cornstarch plus increase Vanilla extract to 1 tsp

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350F.

Cream the butter using an electric mixer or a whisk until smooth and lightened, about 2 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla extract, beat/whisk to combine. Add the flour and custard powder and beat on low to combine. Use a spatula to bring the dough together. It will be a soft dough. 


Pinch off a tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball. Place on the parchment paper. Using a fork, gently flatten the ball to make a criss-cross pattern. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are a light brown. Baking times vary from oven to oven so after the 11 minute mark, keep an eye on these cookies!

Baking these for the right amount of time is important to get a flaky, crispy yet melt-in-the mouth kind of cookie. If you under bake them, they will be soft and if you over bake them they will be hard with a rough bite to it. 


Remove from oven and cool on pan for 2 minutes. Gently remove to a cooling rack and cool completely. Store in an air-tight container for up to a week. 

The custard powder adds a rich vanilla flavor and a pleasant yellow hue to the cookies.

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What's on Your Plate? Day #15 - Eggless Chocolate Banana Peanut butter Bars


Ever since the #stayinplace orders have been enforced I haven’t had a chance to bake at all since the focus has been on cooking :) My boys were probably missing all the baked treats they were regularly getting so my younger one insisted I bake something today and he also wanted to learn to bake. So I figured I’d make something simple for him to follow and help with. He did help measure and mix and he very very eagerly waited for it to be baked and cooled so he could eat..or devour in this case! :D 




These eggless Chocolate Banana Peanut butter bars are easy to put together and Peanut butter is a tasty crunchy addition. I had bananas that were way past their prime and crunchy peanut butter on hand, so that they went together. I thoroughly enjoy peanuts on a chocolate sundae so figured they would taste good together. Tasty amalgamation indeed!

You will need:

3/4 cup All-purpose flour
1/4 cup Cocoa powder + 1 tbsp
1/4 tsp Salt
2 large ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
 1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/4 cup Chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter an 8”x8” square baking pan. Dust with a tablespoon of cocoa powder. You can use plain flour too.

In a bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Add the sugar, melted butter and vanilla. Whisk well until combined. Sift flour, salt and cocoa powder over this banana mixture and combine well. Warm the peanut butter in the microwave for a few seconds until easy to mix. Add to the prepared batter and combine well.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Top with chocolate chips.



Bake for 30- 35 minutes. Cool completely before slicing. You can also chill the whole pan before cutting into bars.We of course couldn’t wait until  they were chilled and went for these bars right away. These were incredibly delicious and had to stop everyone from eating all of it! 



These bars would taste great with some vanilla ice cream too….yum!!


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Y for YANGPABBANG - Onion Bread - Day 25


I've had so much to do this past week that I couldn't get this bake done on time. The first time I've been late in this challenge!! I was hoping not to be late anytime during the marathon but well, life happens. 

Y for YANGPABBANG - KOREA



YangpaBbang is a savory Onion Bread native to Korea. While researching for recipes with the letter Y I came across this post for Onion Bread on Aeri's Kitchen. It looked simple and anything with onions definitely has my attention. I adapted the filling part to suit our tastes and we had an awesome, incredibly soft and smooth savory bread to relish. 

Aeri mentions that all-purpose flour, bread flour or cake flour can be used. I have never ever baked bread using cake flour so this was quite interesting. Cake flour yields beautiful tight crumbed cakes,I figured it would be great to get the same texture in bread. So I used Cake flour in this recipe. Cake flour is available easily here in the US but if you can't find it where you live, all you need is 2 ingredients to make it - all purpose flour and corn starch.

Cake flour: 

Measure out 1 level cup of All-purpose flour. Remove 2 level tablespoons from the measured flour. Add in 2 level tablespoons of corn starch/flour. Sift once and you have Cake flour. Measure and use as needed. 




I made these Pesto Parmesan Scones using cake flour and the results were fantastic. Now onto YangPabBang

You will need: 
Makes: 1 large loaf
Recipe adapted from here

For the Dough:

2 1/4 cups Cake flour (if using All-purpose/Bread flour use only 2 cups)
3/4 cup Whole milk, warm
2 tsp Active dry yeast
3 tbsp Unsalted butter, softened 
2 tbsp Granulated sugar 
3/4 tsp Salt 

For the Filling:

Onions are the star of this bread. All other filling ingredients are entirely up to you and can be adjusted to suit personal tastes. 

1 cup red onion, thinly sliced 
1/2 cup red bell pepper, thinly sliced
3/4 cup Grated Mozzarella cheese
1/2 tsp Dried oregano 
1/2 tsp Red chili flakes
1/2 - 3/4 tsp Salt 
1/2 tsp Black pepper powder 

1 tbsp Heavy cream 

Combine the filling ingredients except the heavy cream, in a small bowl and set aside.


To make the dough:

Combine all dough ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on low and slowly add the warm milk until it forms a wet dough. Switch to the dough hook and knead on medium-high for about 8 minutes until dough is silky smooth, elastic and breaks away from the sides of the bowl. 

If you don't have a mixer, combine ingredients in a large bowl and then knead by hand. 

Shape the dough into a bowl ad place in an oiled bowl. Cover and let rise for 1-1.5 hours or until double in size. I proved my dough in an oven with just the light on and it doubled in size in 1 hour. 

Pinch down the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface (I used all-purpose flour here). Using a sturdy rolling pan, roll out the dough into a rectangle, about 8x9.5" - the size of a standard loaf pan. Place 2/3rd of the prepared filling in the Centre on the rectangle. Fold the dough over the filling and pinch the seams. Place seam side down in a lightly oiled loaf pan. Cover and let it rise for another 20 mins.

Preheat oven to 375F. 


Brush the top of the loaf with the heavy cream. Top with the remaining onion-cheese mixture. 

Bake for 35-40 minutes. If the top is browning too quickly, the cheese in particular, cover the loaf loosely with a piece of foil or parchment paper and continue to bake. 

After 40 minutes, turn off the oven and let the bread sit for 15 minutes before removing from the oven. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a cooling rack. Slice with a sharp serrated knife. 

Carmelized onions and cheese on top with a super soft scrumptious center, this was a winner! 


Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 75

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X for XIAODIANXIN – Chinese Almond Cookies – Day 24


This was one tough letter. There are only a few dishes that begin with the letter X and even fewer that are baked and native to a particular country. I had only two choices - Xiaodianxin which means Cookie in Chinese or any X-mas Cake. I chose to do the cookie and made Chinese Almond Cookies.

X for XIAODIANXIN – CHINA


Chinese Almond cookies are eaten during the Lunar New Year. They are shaped liked coins and symbolize good luck, hence people make or buy these coin-shaped cookies. Made with almond meal/flour these are crumbly rich cookies.

I made my own Almond flour with blanched almonds. I weighed the quantity of blanched almonds needed and then pulsed it with the quantity of sugar in the recipe. If you pulse almonds without the sugar it will turn to butter! So always pulse it with sugar/powdered sugar. You can use Almond meal too which is made with raw almonds and the meal is coarse with specks of brown in it.

The original recipe has egg yolk in it, I decided to leave it out and make these eggless instead. I stuck to the recipe with no other changes and these turned out absolutely melt-in-the-mouth.




You will need:
Makes: 24-26 cookies (half recipe as stated below)
Recipe adapted from here

60 gms blanched almonds (to make the almond flour)
90 gms All-purpose flour
60 gms Granulated sugar
1/8 tsp salt
½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Baking soda
75 ml Vegetable oil
Unsalted almonds (to top the cookies)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine all the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low. Add the vegetable oil and continue to beat on low until the mixture forms a dough. If the mixture looks crumbly, add a teaspoon of oil at a time until it comes together.




Pinch small pieces of dough and roll into a bowl. Press an almond in the center of the ball, place this on the lined baking sheet. Continue with remaining dough. Bake cookies for 15-18 minutes. 


Cool for 10 minutes on baking sheet and then transfer to a rack carefully and cool completely. Store in air-tight container for up to a week.

BAKES FROM AROUND THE WORLD: 

A for ANZAC BISCUITS - AUSTRALIA
W for WHOLE WHEAT HERB BREAD - ITALY



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W for Whole-Wheat Herb Bread – Day 23


For the Letter W, I picked a herby whole-wheat bread from Tuscany, Italy. It has a crisp hard exterior with soft scrumptious bread on the inside. Perfect for dipping in olive oil. We have enjoyed this bread many a time at Italian restaurants. Its hard to resist and we often fill up on this even before we order the main course! :D

W for WHOLE-WHEAT HERB BREAD – ITALY





Italian Bakers call this bread “Pane Integrale”. The name refers to the unadulterated nature of whole-wheat flour. Traditionally Sage is the herb of choice for this bread but since I didn’t have that on hand I used Oregano. The tantalizing aroma of bread baking in the awesome is just something one has to experience. I baked this last night,it was quite therapeutic before going to bed.

You will need:
Makes: 1 medium sized loaf
Recipe adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Baking book

1 1/3 cups warm water
1 package active dry yeast (7g/2 ¼ tsp)
1 tbsp Olive oil
½ tsp Dried Oregano
1 ½ tsp Salt
1 tsp Sugar
1 ½ cups Whole-Wheat flour
2 to 2 ½ cups Bread flour or All-purpose flour

In a large mixing bowl stir together the warm water, yeast, olive oil, salt, oregano and sugar. Set aside for 5 minutes until foamy.




Using a wooden spoon, stir in the whole wheat flour, about ½ cup at a time. Stir in the 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour a little at a time, stir until most of the flour has been absorbed and the dough begins to form a ball. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes) Shape the dough into a ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl turning once to grease the surface. Cover let rise in a warm place until double (45-60 minutes)

Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover, let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease a baking sheet. Shape dough into an 8”x4” inch loaf pan. Place on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with additional flour. Cover and let rise for 30-45 minutes.




Preheat oven to 425F. Using a sharp knife, slash top several times making each cut about ½ inch deep.  Place in pre heated oven. For a crisp crust spray or brush the loaf with cold water every 3 minutes for the first 9 minutes. After 9 minutes turn down the temperature to 375F. Lightly sprinkle the loaf with additional flour. Bake about 20 minutes more or until bread sounds hollow when tapped. Transfer to cooling rack and cool completely.


Serve with olive oil topped with cracked pepper.





BAKES FROM AROUND THE WORLD: 

A for ANZAC BISCUITS - AUSTRALIA


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