Amaranth Orange Cardamon Loaf

Cardamon is one of those intensely aromatic and flavorful spices. The moment I saw this recipe on Pinterest, I knew I had to try it soon! Considering it has orange as well meant there was no doubt about it that I would make it. Here is my adapted version.

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup Amaranth flour
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup olive oil
3/4 cup greek yogurt
1 tsp cardamon
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
1-2 tbsp orange zest
1-2 tbsp orange juice

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and cardamon in a bowl.

In a separate bowl mix sugar and orange zest with your hands. Add oil, eggs, yogurt and orange juice and whisk until all the ingredients combine. Add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Grease a baking pan and dust lightly with flour. Pour the batter and smooth out the top.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake loaf for 50-55 minutes until golden brown.

Serve warm with a hot cup of cardamon or orange pekoe tea.

Try this, you will just love the fragrance and aromas floating in your kitchen as you bake this!

Celebrate fall with Amaranth Pumpkin Loaf

If it’s fall, it’s gotta be pumpkin!

I have been itching to make this since I saw it. And as can be expected I made minor changes. Key one being to substitute 25% of white flour with amaranth flour. The final product ended up being moist and tasty. I took it in to work and it was gone in a couple of hours 🙂 Here’s how I made my pumpkin loaf.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup amaranth flour
1.5 cups sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 15-oz can pumpkin puree
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
some pumpkin seeds

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl mix together flour, amaranth flour, salt,baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice, salt and ginger.

In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, oil, sugar and water.

Mix the wet ingredients with the dry. Add chopped walnuts and mix well.

Grease a loaf pan and add the batter. Sprinkle some pumpkin seeds and bake for 60-80 minutes.

Orange Cranberry Scone!

Finally!

I got to make my favorite scone! For a while this used to be my favorite breakfast. Each day as I headed to work I made a stop at the local Starbucks and picked a coffee and scone (typically orange cranberry if they had one). Yummy!

I still had fresh cranberries and oranges left over after the Cranberry Orange Bread I baked last week. The weather was gloomy with overcast skies and periods of rain. After the beautiful, warm fall weather we’ve been having, it was a sharp contrast to have the temperature dip into the 50’s. Time to turn off the air condition and turn on the heater!

It was definitely the perfect day to turn on the oven and do some baking…

As usual I scoured the web for the perfect recipe with the condition that I would try one if I had all the ingredients already in my pantry. So here is my final adapted version:

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup amaranth flour
1 cup fresh cranberries
Orange rind from 1 orange
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Take cold butter and cut into cubes and add to the flour. Put the bowl in the refrigerator. In a separate bowl whisk egg, buttermilk and orange rind. Place the bowl in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile preheat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare parchment paper or baking dish to bake the scones.

Remove the dry ingredients. Either chop the cranberries or use whole (I used them whole) and add to the dry ingredients. Mix well with a spatula or hand. Add the egg buttermilk mix and mix thoroughly. Prepare the counter top table with some flour. Roll out the mixed dough into a 1 in thick circle. Cut the circle into 8 or 10 wedges. Or use a cookie cutter for more fancy shapes.

Bake on a parchment or baking dish for 13 – 15 minutes, until golden. Remove from oven and cool.

Serve warm scones with either orange marmalade or raspberry jam. Or glaze scones with some orange glaze and serve warm with tea or coffee.

Yum!

Orange Blackberry Muffins

So… I still had the oranges I bought last week for the Cranberry Orange Bread  (which by the way was delicious… I took it in for an office party and it was all gone save a slice for me!)  And some fresh blackberries that were on sale. This was a perfect recipe to try.

Although this time rather than use orange rind, I decided to use the real thing.

Turned out pretty good….

Ingredients:
1 cup blackberries
1/4 cup fresh orange pulp
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tbsp  baking powder
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

Blend butter and sugar, add egg and milk blend until smooth.

Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Add the wet ingredients. Mix well. Add orange and black berries and mix.

Grease muffin tin and add batter.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake muffins for 25-30 minutes.

Enjoy with a cuppa of fresh cardamon tea. Yummy!

Makes 6 muffins.

Adapted from ELR.

Note: If you like your muffins sweet, you might want to add more sugar.

Cranberry Orange Bread

I love just about anything that has orange in it: fresh or flavored. Dried cranberries is another of my favorite fruit . Mix the two of them and I just can’t get enough of it. I have a particular weakness for orange cranberry scones. I see one in a coffee shop, I just have to  try it. So when I came across this recipe I just had to make it, right away.

With perfect timing, fresh cranberries are already available in abundance in grocery stories. I have never used fresh cranberries before so this was a fun recipe to bake. This is adapted from the recipe posted on Eat, Live, Run .

The orange flavor in  a lot of baked items is too subdued for me. So I ramped up the orange in this recipe. I added more rind than the original recipe recommended and I also added some orange juice. I quite liked the result.

Other change I made is of course add some super food grains: flax meal and hemp. Next time I think I will try to substitute amaranth flour for some of the white flour.

The final bread turned out more crumbly that I was expecting. It looked like a perfect cranberry crumble coffee cake. And the taste was delicious.

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 stick butter (4 oz)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
zest of 1-2 oranges
1 tbsp flax meal (optional)
1 tbsp hemp (optional)
1-2 tbsp orange juice (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl whisk egg, melted butter and sugar. In a separate bowl mix all dry ingredients. Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Fold in cranberries, orange rind and walnuts. Mix well. Transfer to a greased 9in bread pan. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes until the tooth pick rule passes.

Cool and Enjoy!

Celebrate end of summer with Mango

Anything with mango always attracts me. Coming from a tropical country where mango is a native fruit and vegetable, I crave to eat mango especially raw, green, and sour mango.

Mango season usually starts in early spring or the start of summer in  March in tropical climates. Or maybe even earlier. In tropical climates, mango trees start to flower in January-February and are in full bloom. Baby mangoes can start appearing as early as February and start to mature in early spring. It is a hectic time when people buy or harvest raw green mango and transform it to the different pickles while relishing the raw vegetable in dal, chutney and other forms.

Summer is also the time the fruit is found in abundance: juicy fruit enjoyed after a meal, best eaten by sucking the juice directly from the fruit or sturdier variety sliced into pieces and enjoyed with curd rice.

Mango has many uses:

• baby mangoes are sliced and used in pickles
• in vegetable form, raw green mango is used in pickles, in dal, in rice and other recipies.
• dried mango powder is used as spice in cooking
• dried sliced mango is preserved to be used in dal during off season
• as a fruit it is available as different varieties
  • juicy and soft and enjoyed by sucking the jucies
  • sturdy varieties peeled and sliced and enjoyed usually with curd rice or stand alone

Mango Preserves

Mango is also preserved in different forms for use during the rest of the year. Raw green mango is sliced and dried in the sun so it can be used in dal in the off season or is also dried and powdered  (Amchur) is available for use as a spice in recipes that need a tangy flavor. Dried mango pulp is sweetened and dried to be relished as a snack, or made into jam or used in mango ice cream or simply sliced and preserved in it’s own juices that can be used in smoothies, lassies or fruit salads.

Mango is versatile and delicious in its numerous forms. Enjoy the end of summer with one of these recipes!

Fresh Mango recipes:

Mango Vermicelli
Mango Dal
Mango Pickle
Mango Gazpacho
Mango Salsa
Mango Banana Muffin
Mango Tea Bread
Mango Pie or Mango Ice Cream Pie
Mango Lassi
Mango Salad

Mango Banana Muffins

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana
1 ripe mango
3/4 cup whole wheat or white flour
1/4 cup chopped dry mango
1/4 cup amaranth flour
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup walnuts
1 egg
1/8 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Blend chopped mango and banana in a mixer. Transfer to a bowl. Add egg and canola oil and whisk. Combine with dry ingredients. Add the nuts and dried mango and mix well.

Meanwhile grease a muffin pan. Scoop batter to 3/4 of the way in the greased pan and bake for 25 minutes. Makes 6 muffins. Enjoy with a hot cup of coffee or tea!

This recipe is adapted from Banana Mango Muffin recipe on Eat, Live, Run

See also:
Celebrate end of summer with Mango

Banana Coconut Muffins

It’s been a while since I baked muffins. With a surprise party lined up tomorrow for my co-worker seems it is the perfect time to try these banana coconut muffins from Fresh Tastes Blog!

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 eggs (as always I used the organic egg whites)
1/2 cup coconut (I used unsweetened shredded)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil (I ended up using canola)
1/2 cup walnuts
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp flaxmeal and/or hemp (optional)
3-4 ripe bananas

Mix the flour, coconut, and baking powder. Add oil to brown sugar and mix well. Add the eggs and whip together. Smash the banana and whip. Add the dried ingredients and mix well.

Lightly grease cup cake tray and fill each cup with 3/4 batter. Bake for 25 minutes in a 375 degrees pre-heated oven.

Delicious!

Zucchini Bread

Each time I walk into a Starbucks I eye the bakery section, each time hopeful to catch sight of a slice of Zucchini bread. Each time I am disappointed. To think I had my first introduction to zucchini bread at a Starbucks. I recently came to know that the assortment of baked goodies offered at Starbucks vary by locality. So likely no chance of seeing it here! Lately having resumed my baking adventures, I of course wanted to bake zucchini bread and found the perfect healthy recipe for it at Whole Foods.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup applesauce
2 tbsp yogurt
1 cup grated zucchini
1/3 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 tbsp hemp (optional)
1 tbsp flax meal (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Meanwhile in a separate bowl whisk together egg, oil, apple sauce, yogurt and vanilla extract. Combine all ingredients. Fold in zucchini and walnuts. Being me, I tossed in some flax meal and hemp.

Lightly grease a bread pan. Pour in the dough and bake for 50-60 minutes or until the toothpick test passes.

Cool and enjoy with a fresh cup of coffee!

Mini Cherry Crumbles

Saw this on PBS Fresh Tastes Blog and had to try it out immediately. Cherries are my favorite fruit. When in season I never fail to buy them during each visit to the grocery. I had some fresh organic ones in the refrigerator ready and a sweet tooth to quench.

Ingredients:
2 cups pitted and sliced cherries
3/8 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
3/8 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp butter
pinch of salt

Slice the cherries and set aside. Drizzle some lemon juice and toss lightly. Meanwhile in a bowl mix melted butter, sugar, oats and flour. Add a pinch of salt.

Fill each ramekin with 3 quarters of cherries and add the rolled oats mix on top. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake the cherry crumbles for 25-30 minutes.

I used sliced strawberries with some left over crumbles and it was excellent. Next time I think I will try with raspberries, blueberries and blackberries as well!

Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Easy, quick and delicious! Try it!