Eggless Dried Fruits & Nuts Loaf

It's often difficult to make the case that a baked treat is reasonably healthy to consume without guilt. When the treat comes studded with an array of nuts and dried fruits, has no butter/oil (we will ignore the fat from the nuts for now ;)), has a relatively low quantity of refined sugar, and just enough flour to bind the nuts and fruits together, it's slightly easier to convince even the hardened skeptic.

This loaf/bread fits the bill nicely, in my opinion. It has a far greater ratio of nuts and fruits compared to sugar and flour. It is mildly sweet, and is dense with a good dose of fruits and nuts. One slice of it would make a satisfying breakfast, a mid-afternoon snack, and would even come in handy during long hikes.

Banana-Orange Bread with Chocolate Chips

At any given point in time, my freezer would have at least 2 frozen over-ripened bananas that my husband would have tossed in upon spotting any banana with more than 5 brown-black spots. He is finicky about having only pristine looking flawless yellow bananas. I, on the other hand, love ripe bananas. But before I can get to them, they are thrown into the freezer and replaced with a fresh batch. So, I usually thaw the bananas and add them to smoothies along with orange and strawberries. I also frequently bake banana bread with those mushy bananas. Since it had been a really long time since I made a batch of banana bread, I thought (against my better judgment) of just baking.

Coming fresh out of making orange-chocolate chip ice-cream, the smell of oranges was still lingering in the kitchen and in my mind. And since I love oranges and bananas together, in lieu of adding those two fruits together in a smoothie, I decided to mix them together in the bread. And chocolate chips never hurt anyone or anything, right? Flecked with orange zest, moist with juice, and dotted with gooey chocolate chips, this is a flavorful, robust bread.

So, here it is - a small twist to my unfailing trusty recipe.

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups self-rising flour (I had to clear this out from the pantry; self rising flour is mixed with baking powder, so if using all-purpose flour, separately add a leavening agent - such as 2 teaspoons baking soda)
2. 1.25 - 1.5 cups sugar (I added 1.25 cups)
3. 4 over ripe bananas (thaw, if frozen)
4. The juice and zest of two whole oranges (about 3/4 cup of juice)
5. 2 eggs, lightly beaten
6. 1.5 sticks unsalted butter, melted
7. 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F
2. Butter and flour a 9 inches by 5 inches loaf pan and wrap the sides of the pan (not the bottom) with aluminum foil so that the edges don't burn (this bread bakes for a long time, so you don't want the edges to bake faster and burn)
3. Beat or blend the bananas to a fine pulp (don't add any water). Add melted butter and sugar mix well until smooth.
4. Add the lightly beaten eggs and mix well. Add orange juice and zest and mix well.
5. Add the flour and mix gently until well incorporated. Finally sprinkle in the chocolate chips and gently fold into the batter
6. Transfer batter into the loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 15-20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean
7. Cool on a cooling-rack for 15 minutes and then loosen the edges and flip onto a plate. 

Serve with some whipped cream or chocolate drizzle.

Banana Chocolate Bread

Banana Bread. The first thing I ever baked. And it is probably the only baked good that I can blindly rely on when all else fails. I have perfected it enough to even improvize a little! And believe me, that’s a huge start for someone who treats baking as an exact science and meticulously measures everything.

I baked my first banana bread thanks to a colleague and friend of mine who invited me to her place for an evening of baking and heart-to-heart conversations. What a wonderful way to be introduced to baking lessons!

So here is the recipe for one of my most tried and tested (and beaten to death!) dessert!

Ingredients

1. 4 over-ripe bananas - the kind that makes you want to toss them in the trash. Please don’t! Put them in the freezer and they will last for several weeks till you find the time to make some banana bread!
2. 1 stick unsalted, melted butter
3. ¾ - 1 cup of white sugar/brown sugar (brown sugar will taste much better than white sugar)
4. 1 egg (or 1/4 cup yogurt)
5. 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch cocoa/Ghiradelli chocolate powder)
6. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7. 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8. ½ teaspoon all-spice
9. 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
10. 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
11. 1 ¼ cup of all-purpose flour
12. ½ cup of finely chopped almonds or walnuts (optional)

Preparation

1. Mash the bananas into a fine pulp (if your bananas are frozen, thaw them in the microwave for 1-2 minutes or more, till they soften)
2. Mix the bananas with the melted butter.
3. Add the sugar and mix again. I have baked this at a time when I didn’t possess any fancy electric mixers or beaters. So a simple spatula should do as a mixing tool.
4. Beat the egg in a separate bowl (if using an egg). Add the egg/yogurt to the above and mix again.
5. Now, add the vanilla extract, Kosher salt, cocoa powder, nutmeg, all-spice, and cinnamon and incorporate them in the batter.
6. Finally, add the all purpose flour and gently mix till the batter evenly comes together with the flour. As I keep stressing, do not enthusiastically over-mix the batter at this stage. Just stir till the flour is just combined.
7. If you’re adding any nuts, add them at this point and gently give a stir.
8. Grease a 9 inch by 5 inch loaf pan. Spoon out the batter into the loaf pan. Lift the pan about 1 inch from the counter and then drop it down on the counter a couple of times to release air bubbles. Bake at 350 F for 50 minutes (or until a cake tester comes out clean)
9. Allow the bread to cool for 15-20 minutes. When cool to the touch, loosen the sides of the bread with a knife, smack the bottom of the pan on the counter again, and invert the bread onto a plate.

I have reached that phase in my life where I believe chocolate will elevate the taste of any dessert. Hence, the addition of the chocolate/cocoa powder. And true to the hypothesis, it indeed does make the bread taste all the more better! And the spices add a deeper layer of flavors. 

 
And finally, the more mushier the bananas, the moister the bread.

Oatmeal Raisin Bread

One of the rituals that marks weekend-life these days is a Potluck. It has somehow become unacceptable if a Friday evening or Saturday evening is spent at home with a relaxing movie, or book, or just conversations. Weekends simply cannot end without socializing - that’s the unsaid rule :). So, almost every Friday evening, I find myself peering inside the pantry and the fridge, wondering what to make. This time, I leafed through William Sonoma’s Baking Book to find some inspiration, and came across a simple recipe for an Oatmeal Raisin Bread. But I had to tailor the recipe to fit the ingredients sitting in my pantry. So, here is my adapted version of the recipe.

Ingredients

1. 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
2. 1 cup oats
3. ¾ cup raisins (I used golden raisins, for that’s what I had)
4. ¾ cup brown sugar (you can substitute this with regular white sugar as well, but since brown sugar has molasses, it gives a rich jaggery-like flavor)
5. 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
6. 1 teaspoon baking soda
7. ½ teaspoon salt
8. 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
9. 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
10. ½ teaspoon of ground clove
11. 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom
12. ½ teaspoon ground allspice
13. 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
14. 2 Tablespoons of flax seed
15. ⅓ cup vegetable oil
16. ¾ cup unsweetened applesauce (if you don’t have applesauce, it’s easy enough to make it with apples)
17. ¾ cup buttermilk (or ½ cup of yogurt)

Preparation

Making applesauce:

1 medium sized apple yields about ½ cup of sauce. So for ¾ cup of applesauce, you’d need 2 apples. It’s not necessary to be overly precise about this. The more applesauce, the more moist the cake would be. Since I had no eggs, I had to add yogurt, applesauce, and flax seeds to make the bread relatively light and moist.

Peel, core, and dice the apples. Transfer them to a saucepan with ½ cup of water, and cook well on medium-high heat till the apples can be mashed. It takes about 40 minutes for the apples to cook well. I’m not a big fan of using the microwave to cook for prolonged periods of time, so I avoid it.  A pressure-cooker will be ideal for this. The mashed apples = applesauce. 

 
Preparing the bread:

1. In a deep bowl, mix together the flour, oats, raisins, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, and cardamom. If you’re not a fan of these spices, you can skip them. But I love these spices. They infuse so much flavor to the oats and the bread. Besides, I find every chance to finish these spices that seem to be residing in the pantry forever.
2. In a separate bowl, mix two tablespoons of ground flax seed with 6 tablespoons of warm water, and whisk well. Microwave this for 30 seconds and whisk it vigorously till it becomes sticky and frothy. Let it cool.
3. Make a “well” in the centre of the dry ingredients. Into this centre, pour the oil, yogurt, applesauce, vanilla essence, and the whisked flax seed concoction.
4. Slowly combine the wet and dry ingredients, and mix just until evenly combined. Do not over-mix, or vigorously stir. Doing so will make your bread dense.
5. Grease a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan, and spoon out the batter into it. The batter will be thick, so not to worry.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes (or till a cake-tester comes clean) at 350 F.
7. Wait for the bread to cool, run a knife around the edges of the pan and gently tilt out the bread.

Since this bread has oatmeal, raisin, and flax seed, it is an ideal breakfast item. I would even call this reasonably “healthy” since it uses very little oil. Two slices of this bread fill you up well. As a dessert, it goes well with ice-cream. What doesn’t go well with ice-cream? ;)