Sticky Cinnamon Rolls with Jaggery

Let Cinnamon fill the air!

There's a new Cinnabon in town and of course I can't eat there, but nothing stops me from making my own cinnamon rolls! I tried this one with jaggery instead of sugar and it was awesome!

Here's how I did it:

200gms Whole Wheat Flour

10gms Fresh Yeast

5gms Salt

1/2 cup Jaggery Syrup plus little extra to brush

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

150 ml Hot water

20 ml Oil (Rice Bran, Sunflower, Safflower)

1/4 cup or more slivers of roasted almonds

1/2 cup raisins

Mix the fresh yeast with one teaspoon jaggery syrup in a tall glass and add some warm water to it. Cover it and let it sit for 10 minutes. After ten minutes, it should have risen and should look like a frothy mess of yeast.

Mix the flour, the rest of the jaggery, vanilla essence and add the yeast mixture to it. Mix it around and keep adding water little bit at a time till the entire mixture binds well. Add in the salt and oil.

Kneading the dough is always easier on a flat surface. Sprinkle some flour and put this dough on a flat surface. With one hand push the dough out, away from your body and with the other hand fold it back in. Keep rotating the dough and continue this pushing and compressing till the dough is smooth and not too sticky. After about 5 minutes or so put the dough back in to the bowl and cover it with either a wet cloth or cling wrap. Let it sit for about one hour at least. Sometimes more depending on the weather, but till you fell it has doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C about forty minutes after keeping the dough to rise. After an hour or more, remove the dough out and put it back on a flat surface with some flour on it. Punch the dough out and remove the air. Repeat the same push- compress method for about three minutes. Roll out the dough brush it with some jaggery syrup and sprinkle some raisins, roasted almonds and cinnamon. Roll it as tightly as possible. Cut it into smaller pieces and put them on an oiled baking tray. Let them rise for about 15 minutes and put them in to bake.

Bake till they darken in colour. It takes about 25 to 30 minutes. I couldn't wait for them to cool down! They were absolutely awesome!

This recipe makes about 15 pieces.

Tweet

Pin It

Chocolate Upside Down Pudding

Here's an experiment that went wrong somewhere mid-way but turned out fine in the end after all.

This recipe has been adapted and modified from the book 'How It All Vegan' and The 'Compassionate Cook Cookbook'. The cake is a bit on the sweeter side but it's nice once in a while.

You need:

For the Cake

1 cup flour (Use whole wheat flour)

1/2 cup Sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup oil

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

1/2 cup soy milk or water

some walnuts or almonds if you like

For the fudge

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1 and 1/4 cups boiling water

Preheat the oven to 270 degrees C. Oil a big baking pan say about 9 inches, bigger than what you would normally use for a cake. I will elaborate why.

Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, soda and salt. Make a well in the center of this mix and add the soy milk, sugar and oil. Mix everything well. The batter will be thicker than a cake batter (almost like what a brownie batter texture) like on the right.

Spread this in a big baking dish. Mix the remaining cocoa powder and sugar and sprinkle it on top of this batter. Pour hot water over it and bake it.

I goofed on the size of the baking tin. I used a small baking tin. When I poured the water on the batter, the water level was just under the edge. I didn't realise that the batter will rise pushing the water out of the tin and into my oven! (Ya I know it's a dumb mistake).

So when I started out,everything was in a 9 inch round tin, mid-

way I heard steam and opened the oven to find a mess. Then moved the half-risen batter to a bigger rectangular tin and poured the same water on top. In the end, it was all good! The cake was moist and there was a layer of fudge at the bottom. To serve I cut out portions and turned them over so the fudge layer was on the top.

Tweet

Pin It

Desserts: Roasted Bananas With Peanut Butter

This one's inspired from what Dr Nandita Shah serves at her workshops. It's really easy and it's addictive.

You need:

Bananas, cut in half and then split lengthwise

Roasted Peanuts, unsalted ones

Jaggery Syrup/ Dates Syrup or Maple Syrup

I'll start backwards. If you don't have maple syrup, make some jaggery syrup with jaggery and a teaspoon of water on a low flame. The jaggery will melt in to a lovely dark brown syrup. If you're too lazy for that, just buy some Lion Dates Syrup.

To make the Peanut butter

Put the roasted peanuts in a blender and let it go on for a while till you hear the sound changing. Stop to scrape the sides occasionally. The peanuts will go from powder to butter consistency in about a minute or two. Thats it!

Heat a flat pan / tawa and put the cut bananas on top. They will start to sizzle and turn brown and soft. Turn it over till both sides are nice and brown.

Put the bananas on a plate, top it with the peanut butter and drizzle some syrup on top!

You can even use Tahini instead of peanut butter. Tahini is a paste made with sesame seeds. It's available in bottles or you can make it by toasting the sesame seeds and putting it in a blender. The natural oils from the sesame will be enough to make the consistency just right.

Tweet

Pin It

Gajar Ka Halwa (Carrot Halwa)

I love carrot halwa and I've never been able to eat it outside since I changed my diet. So I came across this recipe in Dr Vijaya Venkat's recipe book (try getting your hands on it somehow!) and I modified it my way.

For the Halwa you need:

4 Long carrots (Usually availabe in winter. I'd suggest you use it only when it is available seasonally)

1/4 cup melted jaggery syrup (more or less depending on your sweet tooth)

A handful of cashews powdered in a grinder

2 cloves of Cardamom

4-5 Almonds roasted

Steam the carrots as they are. Don't peel them, you could cut them in half if they don't fit in your steaming apparatus. Let them steam for 20 minutes. Don't let it become too soft.

Once they are done steaming let it cool for another 15 minutes or so and then using a grater, grate the carrots. Mix in the jaggery, cashew powder and cardomom. Top with some slivers of roasted Almonds.

It's so much more easier than cooking the carrots in cow's milk for hours and adding bottles of ghee to it.

Tweet

Pin It

Chocolate 'Cheesecake'

Here's the recipe for the pictures I put up on the 30th. It might look complicated but it's not and totally worth the effort!

1 cup ground almonds
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup margarine

1 package of tofu (200 gms)
1 cup any kind of sugar
5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (the darker the better, I use Hershey's Cocoa Powder)
1/3 cup rice bran oil (or any non smelly oil)
1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 165 degrees C. In a bowl mix the ground almonds, whole wheat and margarine with your hands till it resembles tiny bread crumbs. Put it in a springform pie dish which looks like the picture below. If you don't have this you could try putting it in any round baking tin. The only problem will be removing the cake after it's done.

Put this pie crust in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Crumble the tofu into a blender and add in the sugar, cocoa, soy milk, oil and vanilla. Blend it into a smooth creamy paste. Pour this on to the pie crust and bake for about 50 mins or until the filling seems set.

Allow it to cool before you try doing anything to it. Remove it from the pan (I would only try this if I was using the springform) and add whatever nuts you like on top and eat !

Don't worry if you have an excess of the filling. I had too much of it left because my recipe had much more tofu so I've tweaked it here. I took a about 5 one inch pieces of agar agar (china grass),chopped them fine, boiled it in 3 tablespoons of water and added it to the excess filling. I let it set in the fridge till the cheesecake was baked and it was done.

Here's what it looked like (in case you haven't seen it in the older post)

Tweet

Pin It

Coconut Milk Payasam or Kheer

An amazing milk-free dessert that is oil free, cruelty free and so easy to make !

Payasam / Kheer is a milky-special occasion dessert that generally puts you to sleep after an Indian meal! Try it with plant based milks (after a vegetarian/vegan meal of course) and compare !

You need:

1 coconut - milk removed

1/2 cup jaggery or less depending on your sweet threshold

1 cup cooked rice or semiya(vermicelli) or raagi noodles

Dry Roasted Cashew/ Almonds

Raisins

Cardamom Powder

Boil the coconut milk and jaggery together. Add it to the cooked rice or noodles and add in the nuts and cardamom.

Tweet

Pin It