Jaggery Banana Loaf

A vegan lunch date was planned and how could I not bring dessert. Knowing that it is hard to get vegan desserts in restaurants, unless you request the chef to put in some extra effort, I was pretty sure I wanted to bring something along for the meet.

It had to be something "healthy" since we were meeting at Yoga House, a macrobiotic restaurant for lunch. That took care of the sugar and thank dog for that. With all the cavities I am accumulating, my on-again off-again relationship with sugar needs to be permanently off. And so this spiced jaggery loaf was rehashed and brought back to life. I bake a whole bunch of sugar free stuff for The Green Stove for other people, but I thought I should extend it to my vegan peeps also.

Also in other news, Vegan MoFo is happening in October again. 500 plus vegan bloggers from all over the world are going to be spamming each other with vegan food porn and recipes. I have a theme this year and hopefully I will be able to stick to the theme. It is going to be an EPIC month of vegan food. Can't wait!

This is a simple, dense and flavourful loaf. The nuts and berries add a nice crunch. It's very quick to mix up and if you have organic ingredients on hand it's even better.

Here is the recipe

Makes two 6 inch loaves

Dry Ingredients

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp all spice powder (optional)

2 tbsp cranberries chopped

2 tbsp raisins chopped

a handful of walnuts chopped

a pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients

1 1/2 cups jaggery powder

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup oil

3 medium bananas chopped

1 tsp vinegar

Dark Chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 175°C

Mix all the dry ingredients including the berries and nuts. Melt the jaggery with a little water and add the rest of the wet ingredients to it. Fold it in well and add more water if required. Taste the batter and if you like it to be sweeter, then add more jaggery. It should be a thick cake batter. Put it into two lined / oiled 6 inch loaf tins.

You could put the dark chocolate chips on top after putting the batter into the loaf tins, but that could constitute as cheating. I put it for added visual effect, nothing else. This loaf will be absolutely perfect without it too.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. The toothpick test works to see if it is done. Remove it from the loaf tin and let it cool a bit before cutting.

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Peanut Butter Pillows or Heaven in a bite

Sometimes I indulge and most times it's by coming up with recipes I think up before I go to bed. Then I will dream that I'm in Charlie's (Vegan) Chocolate Factory and Johnny Depp is baking the most delicious looking things for me. Sigh. This recipe I did not dream up, but dreamed of a lot. It's a recipe I had bookmarked a long time ago because it involves mixing my two favourite things, chocolate and peanut butter.

Every time I stole this cookie from my fridge I wanted to pinch myself for giving in again. I am trying to reverse my cavities and the progress so far has been pretty good. I don't feel immense pain when I eat something sweet and that's only because I have stayed away from the good stuff (refined, sugary and fried food).  It's hard to stop eating sweet specially because I bake mostly sweet stuff and I have to keep tasting batters and frosting which then starts the whole craving sugar cycle. But this cookie will destroy all resolutions. It can be made healthier and may be one day I will dare to try it again. Whoever got a few of these cookies finished it all within the hour. 

This recipe is an adaption of Terry Hope Romero's recipe for Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows which I found on the Post Punk Kitchen's website. The instructions are the same with a few changes I made, like making the peanut butter from scratch and using whole wheat instead of maida.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup any neutral oil

1 1/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons non-dairy milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tablespoons black cocoa or more cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling:
1 cup roasted peanuts

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons non-dairy milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large mixing bowl combine oil, sugar, non-dairy milk and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Sift in flour, cocoa powder, black cocoa if using, baking soda and salt. Mix to form a moist dough.

To make the peanut butter, put the roasted peanuts in a grinder jar and grind it. Stop after the sound changes to scrape the sides off. Continue the grinding process and stop at intervals  of about 20 seconds to scrape the sides. Do it till you get a creamy peanut butter (takes less than 5 minutes). Add salt and proceed to make the filling.

In another mixing bowl beat together peanut butter, confectioner’s sugar, 2 tablespoons non-dairy milk and vanilla extract to form a moist but firm dough. If peanut butter dough is too dry, stir in remaining tablespoon of non-dairy milk. If dough is too wet knead in a little extra powdered sugar.

Preheat oven to 350°F and grease your baking tray.

Shape the cookies. Create the centers of the cookies by rolling the peanut butter dough into 24 balls. Scoop a generous tablespoon of chocolate dough, flatten into a disc and place a peanut butter ball in the center. Fold the sides of the chocolate dough up and around the peanut butter center and roll the chocolate ball into an smooth ball between your palms. Place on a sheet of waxed paper and repeat with remaining doughs. If desired gently flatten cookies a little, but this is not necessary (I did flatten them).

Place dough balls on lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart and bake for 10 minutes. Remove sheet from oven and let cookies for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to complete cooling. 

Store it in the fridge. They are nicer when they are warm and they tend to become softer cookies as days go by. So you can heat up the oven and warm them for about 5 or 7 minutes before you eat them again.

This is going over to the #chocolatelove bloghop, being co-hosted by Richa @ HobbyandMore and so many other wonderful bloggers. 

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