Banana-Honey-Dates Muffins

Banana-Honey-Dates Muffins

Here I am,back after a fairly long hiatus, hoping to be more regular! Have a lot of photos and recipes,pending to be posted here.
This time, I am making a comeback with these delicious and moist Banana-honey-dates muffins - a great way to put those overly ripe bananas to good use. This is a very simple and fool proof recipe,and yields 12 jumbo sized muffins. Without further ado, let me go on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Unbleached All-purpose flour
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
3-4 large ripe bananas - the more the bananas,the moister,so I used 4 bananas
1/2 cup Sugar
3 tbsp Honey
1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 cup finely chopped Dates
1/3 cup Melted butter
1 egg - slightly beaten
1/4 tsp - Cinnamon powder (Optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. If using cupcake/muffin liners, line the pan with them.If not, grease the pan with butter or oil.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients - Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon powder (if using) in a bowl and keep this aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, mash the bananas well, and then add sugar, honey, melted butter, slightly beaten egg and mix well. You can use a hand blender or a whisk to do this.I mashed the bananas well with my hand,and then used the hand blender.
4. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the mixing bowl,and mix well,until they are all combined.
5. Fold the chopped dates into the batter.
6. With a spoon or an ice cream scoop, fill the muffin pans with the batter upto 3/4th full.
7. Bake at 350F for approximately 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
8. Remove the muffins from the pan and let cool. These muffins are more flavorful the next day!

Enjoy :)

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

This was my second attempt at muffins, and I sure was happy with the outcome! My muffin pan had been lying around for a very long time, pleading to be used, and Blueberry muffins have been in my wishlist for an equally long time too.
Few days back I had watched Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa - Food Network make Blueberry Streusel Muffins,which looked very appealing, but I had not watched her making it from the start.When I browsed for the recipe, I found that it used sour cream,which I did not prefer, as both S and I have a dislike for it. So my search continued, and the recipe for the muffins was put together, as follows:

Ingredients:

2 cups All purpose flour
1 1/2 tsps Baking powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) Unsalted butter, softened
1 cup Sugar
2 Large eggs
1/2 cup Whole milk
2 cups Blueberries, fresh or frozen

Streusel Topping:

1/2 cup Brown sugar
1/3 cup Flour
1/4 cup Unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp Cinnamon, can use a little more if you like the flavor



Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. If using muffin/cupcake paper liners, line the muffin pan with them. If not, grease the pan with butter/oil.
2. For the streusel topping, mix the brown sugar,flour,butter and cinnamon with a fork. The ingredients have to be mixed well, and would have the texture of wet sand, when done.You could do the mixing with your hand, it is much easier. Keep the prepared streusel topping aside.
3. For the dry ingredients, whisk together the flour,baking powder and salt in a small bowl.Set aside.
4. In a bigger bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Next,add the eggs and whole milk. Add the flour mixture to this and stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
5. Fold in the blueberries into the batter very gently.
6. With a spoon or an ice cream scoop, fill the muffin cups with the batter upto 3/4th full. Crumble the streusel topping on each muffin cup batter.
7. Bake at 350F for 20 to 25 mins until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
8. Makes 12 jumbo muffins. I put little less batter in the muffin pans, for fear of the batter overflowing, as this was only my second attempt at making muffins. So I had a little extra batter and streusel topping, which I put in a loaf pan and baked as a cake :)

Enjoy :)

Appala Kuzhambu

Appala Kuzhambu:

I learnt this recipe from my MIL,and this is a life saver when you need to prepare a kuzhambu in a jiffy and/or you run out of vegetables. This kuzhambu uses Applam as the main ingredient,and is a very easy to prepare dish.Let me go on to the recipe of Appala Kuzhambu.

Ingredients:

Applam - 4-5,broken into quarters/big pieces
Tamarind - Lemon size
Vethakuzhambu podi or Sambar podi - 2 tbsps
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - To taste
Oil - Preferably Gingelly oil - 1 tbsp

To temper:

Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Split Urad Dal - 1 tsp
Channa Dal - 1 tsp
Red chillies - 2-3,broken into pieces
Curry leaves - 1 sprig


Method:

1. Soak the tamarind in warm water,and take the pulp.Do it about 3-4 times so you get about a cup of tamarind water.
2. Heat oil in kadai, and add the items 'To temper' in the same order once the oil is hot.
3. After the dals get slightly browned, add the broken pieces of applam,and saute it for a couple of seconds so the applam does'nt get really fried. Don't let the applam bulge, after a few seconds, immediately add the tamarind water.
4. Add turmeric powder, kuzhambu/sambar podi, salt and mix well.
5. Add a cup of water, and let the kuzhambu boil well till the raw smell of tamarind goes,and the kuzhambu thickens.
6. After the kuzhambu thickens, check and adjust seasonings as per taste.
7. Serve hot with steamed white rice.

Uno!!

Uno!!

Hi guys, here I am, in an attempt to create and maintain a blog, after years of postponing! Hope I really continue and maintain this blog.

In this blog,I plan to pen down my experiments with food, Cakes and bakes, Craft and artwork, as suggested by my family and friends. Hope this blog remains a good repository of these things that I love to do!

Looking forward to blogging and enjoying myself out here!

Cheers,
Shakthi