Mangoes Figs n' Walnut Muffins

I have been missing from here since a while now. Just having been having some issues with time management. Have been having people over at home n that has kept me off the Internet n' in the kitchen or out shopping with them. :)....I wonder how many awesome recipe updates I must have missed out on of my blogger friends out here. Well, I hope to catch up on that in couple of days...:) After my big proclamation about learning to bake in my kitchen itself. I have been kinda doing well in the baking department. I'm guessing it has something to do with the great recipes I have found. I'm gonna do 2 small posts today.









I'm baking something again today n' I'm looking forward to it already. The first post are these muffins. The Blueberry Banana Muffins I had done had come out so well I wanted to try some more. Just to make sure it wasn't fluke n' that I did have a great recipe n' some amount of skill to get it right. Why this combinations? I'm not too sure, I just went with things I like n' I had with me in the kitchen. With this second batch also coming out really well, I'm comfortable with my muffin recipe n' would substitute the fruits with anything in season n' know that they will turn out well. I have used the exact recipe from the Blueberry Muffins recipe here. The only change is I have used fresh ripe mangoes, along with some chopped figs n' crushed walnuts for sprinkling on top instead of Blueberry n' Banana. With this I salute my Muffin Recipe. I made 15 muffins using this recipe.

Ingredients:

1. All Purpose Flour (Maida): 3 cups minus 2tbsp
2. Baking soda: 1tsp
3. Baking powder:2 tsps
4. Heavy pinch of salt
5. Caster sugar: 1 cup
6. Vegetable oil: 1/2 cup (or half a cup of melted butter) *
7. Egg: 1no
8. Yogurt (plain n unflavored) : 1 generous cup (throw in extra if you want)
9. Mangoes(ripe n fresh):1 and a half cup
10. Figs (chopped): 1/2 cup
10. Vanilla Extract/Essence : 1tbsp
11. Softened Butter, for muffin tins (I used the cupcake liners so didn't need this)
12. Caster sugar (optional): for sprinkling on top.
13. Walnuts (crushed): to sprinkle on top

(* to my horror I saw that I didn't have enough Vegetable Oil with me. So I used melted butter instead. They say that while mixing the wet ingredients as mentioned in Step 3 below, one should take care while adding the hot butter to eggs. What I did was I added butter n' then added yogurt before adding the eggs n' I was safe.) This is what I had done for the blueberry recipe n' I did the same this time around too.

Method:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180° C.

Step 2: In a large bowl sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Step 3: In another large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla essence, egg, and yogurt.

Step 4: Add the dry ingredients (I sifted it in little by little) and stirring to a count of 10.

Step 5:Add the mangoes and the chopped figs, to mixture and stir 3 times. (At this point I got a little worried, coz the batter looked really different from anything I have ever baked. But I decided to proceed as instructed.)

Step 6: Add mixture to well-buttered muffin pans or like I mentioned the Cupcake liners. Sprinkle some walnuts on top and press down lightly. Sprinkle a little sugar over top. (Brown sugar can be used instead.)

Step 7: Bake 20 to 25 minutes and allow to cool completely.

Chicken Aioli Salad

I'm in love with Jamie Oliver, I have been since a while now. To me no one is as rustic as he is in the kitchen. I haven't tried very many of his recipes, but he has this knack to make you love simple food. His TV shows, with him, in his kitchen garden nipping n' cutting, fills me with a need to have a kitchen garden of my own. :)

Anyways, let me just stop gushing about him (for the time being) by saying that I have used his Aioli Recipe for this simple chicken summer salad. Aïoli is a lovely fragrant and pungent type of mayonnaise.



The ONLY (n' I mean "only") non veg junk food I love is this Chicken Pop corns on the KFC menu. I don't eat chicken burgers, i don't eat chicken wraps n' I don't eat their speciality Kentucky Fried Chicken. But these pop corns.....I find myself craving for them. Today having spend the whole morning out in the sun, I decided to get one portion of these Chicken Popcorn for myself to snack on while walking to the bus stop. But as I was stepping out of KFC, I saw my bus standing at the traffic signal n' rushed to get on it. I thought I'll eat them once I reach home savouring each piece one at a time. (lol...now do you know how much I love them??) While on the bus I started imagining this Chicken Salad with some crunchy greens and a rich creamy sauce using these chicken popcorn. This salad captures the essence of summer for me. Light, Crunchy n' Creamy. So here you go...




Ingredients:

For Aioli
1. Garlic: ½ a small clove of garlic (peeled)
2. Salt: as per taste*
3. Egg yolk: 1 (large)
4. Dijon mustard: 1 tsp
5. Extra virgin olive oil: 2 tbsp
6. Olive oil: 2tbsp
7. Lemon juice: to taste
8. Black pepper : as per taste (freshly ground)

*The Dijon mustard I bgt was already salty, so I have had to use very little extra salt.

For the Chicken
You can either grill some boneless chicken pieces or use a little spicy batter to deep fry small boneless chicken pieces (either way its gonna taste good)

Other Ingredients
Walnuts: 6-7 nos (chopped)
Strawberry: 2-3 (really ripe ones)
Lettuce Leaves: as required (I used Iceberg Lettuce coz they are so crunchy)
Alfalfa Sprouts: as required

Method:

Step 1: Crush the garlic and some salt in a pestle and mortar.

Step 2: Whisk together the egg yolk and mustard in a bowl

Step 3: Start to add your olive oils bit by bit. Once you’ve blended in a quarter of the oil you can start to add the rest in larger amounts.

Step 4: When it’s all added in and blended well, add the garlic and lemon juice.

To finish it off the sauce, season to taste with salt, pepper and a bit more lemon juice if needed.

Step 5: Add the chopped walnuts to the Aioli. Add the shredded/torn lettuce leaves (tear the leaves with your hands, its better) to this and toss the leaves well with your hands. Into a plate, serve some of the coated leaves, sprinkle some alfalfa sprouts, the chicken pieces and chopped strawberry and its ready.

Chocolate Carrot & Walnut Cake

The first time I had freshly baked carrot cake with some freshly brewed black coffee....I really experienced heaven! My ex-colleague in Bahrain, Ruby Monkhouse, bakes the best carrot cake I have tasted. Jeff, Marise n' me, we would just wait for Rubz to bring some carrot cake treat for us. Rj on the other hand, who has never had them already declares he wouldn't like them. Rj is a foodie, but a real fussy one. Drive me up the wall most of the time.




I have been craving for some carrot cake since a while, but have been putting it off thinking, I will eat one piece, max to max 2 pieces..then who would eat the rest? That's when I came across the idea of Chocolate Carrot Cakes n' I thought to myself...wow....this exactly what I need. I mean they don't look like carrot cakes at all...:) So I just went ahead n' baked them, we have finished almost half the cake n' Rj is none the wiser as to what the main ingredient is...the only comment he made was..."this chocolate cake is slightly different" n' I said, "yeah, it must be the walnuts!"....lol...(lucky for me he doesn't read my blog....lol) So here you go..




Ingredients:

1. All Purpose Flour: 1 cup
2. Baking Powder: 1 and 1/4tsp
3. Baking Soda: 1/4tsp
4. Salt- 1/4tsp
5. Eggs- 2nos
6. Carrots: 1 and 1/4th cup (grated)
7. Caster Sugar: 1cup (adjust this a little if you don't want it too sweet)
8. Butter: 1/2 a cup* (room temperature)
9. Vanilla Extract: 1 1/2tsp
10. Cocoa Powder: 1/2 a cup
11. Walnuts: (crushed) a handful (add more if you like it)

Method:

Step 1: Heat oven to 180°C or 350°F. Grease a cake tin and line the bottom with a greaseproof paper. ( my Oven becomes hot fast, so as part of saving power, i always do this step just before I mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients.)

Step 2: Sift together all the dry ingredients like flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, caster sugar and cocoa powder.

Step 3: I would grate the carrots only at this stage. (as they will be fresher this way)

Step 4: Whisk the butter until really smooth n' creamy, add the vanilla essence and mix well.

Step 5: Add eggs one at a time and whisk well.

Step 6: Add the sifted dry ingredients in portions and whisk well,fold in the chopped walnuts.

Step 7: Pour out the same into the greased cake tin. Tap the bottom on to your work surface to ensure that there aren't any air bubbles.

Step 8: Bake it in the oven for about 30mins. Check the cake after 30mins, the centre of the cake should feel light n' springy, if you dip a toothpick in the centre it should come out clean. If you feel it is still sticky, bake it for another 5-10mins.




Cool it for 15mins or so and then cool it completely on a wire rack. I really liked it, but I thought it needs an icing, Ruby uses a Cream Cheese frosting with her carrot cake n' its just lovely, I haven't found cream cheese here in Bangalore yet, so couldn't do it. But a light icing would do wonders to this already great cake. Happy Baking!!