Healthy Sconies..

This post is going to be a quickie.. No tales whatsover... Just pics and recipe of another tryst with the oven ... 


I made these sconies to accompany our breakfast menu, when I had a ltr of curdled milk the day after I returned from Pondicherry!! Having seen many recipes on the internet which used buttermilk to make soda bread / scones, I knew I didn't want to waste the whey (of course, the curd was used to make paneer).  In fact, I wanted to try making this, Irish Soda bread scones, but then settled for something more cookie like, which I found on Deeba's blog. Seriously, her blog has become a one stop reference point for me! She rocks!!


I agree with her when she says "What I like about them is the ease with which the recipe embraces different ingredients." Though I made it first time with ingredients I had on hand, I think these would come out great with variations too.. Walnuts, Choco chips, coffee, crushed wheat /corn flakes, dried apricots/cherries ... Am sure I will try these out soon!

Raisin and Pistachio Sconies (Scones+Cookies=Sconies)
Adapted from PAB, adaption of 101 Cookbooks adaptation from My Nepenthe by Romney Steele

Ingredients:

1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/6 cup caster sugar
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cups quick oats
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup pistachios
a pinch of salt

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C degrees. Grease a baking sheet/mould.
Sieve the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda into a bowl.

Add the butter and rub in the mixture till it looks like sandy pearls. Alternatively, you may pulse the ingredients in a food processor. I don't own a food processor and so I just used my multi purpose hands to do the job for me :)

Add the oats, raisins and chopped pistachio and mix gently.
Add the buttermilk until just moistened. Bring the dough together with your hands. If the dough is still too crumbly or dry, add more buttermilk a tiny splash at a time, but try to avoid over mixing.
After bringing the dough together, roll out about 1/2 inch thick and cut out shapes as you would for cookies. I found the dough to be a little sticky and just patted it down directly into a round baking tray. Cut into triangle shapes if you are patting the dough into a circle. Bake until the bottoms are deeply golden. (The original recipe said "bake for 15 mins" but these took around 20 mins at 180 degrees. After that time, as it was still too soft for my comfort, I reduced the temperature of the oven to 150 and allowed the sconies to stay in for another 5 mins.)

Cool completely on racks.

Serve warm topped with maple syrup / honey / butter / chocolate sauce / be as creative as you want to be!!

Coffee-Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes when you are feeling low, its amazing how a single passing thought or statement of something you like can cheer you up. A song, a place, a memory, a friend, a book, a conversation, a shopping spree, anything really!! It was one of those days on Tuesday when nothing was right, right from the time I woke up. All morning was spent in mundane chores and just after noon, with dark clouds hovering above in the sky and a gloomy weather to add to my crappy mood, I was about to resign to a dull boring day ahead when a phone call changed all that!! As my friend and I chatted over nothing and everything, the conversation drifted to the latest Archer book in stores and what we thought of the stories in the book!

And then outta the blue, she asked me, "So what will you bake today?" The very thought of the book in hand with warm cookies and coffee completely changed my mood and the next minute my mind was thinking what to bake. And voila, just as if the heavens above knew my changed mood, it started pouring!!

I made these quick cookies that I had bookmarked a few weeks back from Deeba's blog. The cookies didn't look as perfect as the ones she had posted, nevertheless, the taste was a big hit with all at home (I think the coffee worked its magic!), so much so that I am planning to bake a second round this weekend when my relatives are around.

COFFEE CHOCOLATE-CHIP COOKIES (As taken from PAB)
Makes about 2 dozen cookies.
 

Ingredients:
100gms unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup vanilla sugar (or granulated)
1 egg
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Method:

Sift the flours, baking soda and salt. Keep aside in a bowl.

Place butter, sugar, egg, coffee powder and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl, and whisk with a hand blender until well mixed. {You can even do this by hand if you don't have a blender. In this cake, just beat the egg lightly with a fork first.}

Add the sifted flour mix and chocolate chips to the bowl, and mix well.

Drop tablespoons on an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving about an inch between each to allow for spreading.

Bake at 180C for 12-15 minutes till golden brown.

Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a minute, and then transfer to rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight box in a cool place for 4-5 days.

Try it...I bet these warm soft and chewy cookies will cheer you up too !!

Apple Pancakes

Was back late last week from a week long holiday to attend a big fat Indian wedding of two buddies and since then I've hardly spent any time in the kitchen (read that as experimenting), barring the necessity cooking. Thanks to a bad stomach, I did enough and more justice to plain khichdi, south indian rasam and curd rice for four days!! When I awoke on Tue morning, it was with a sense of loss and deprivation. Four days of my life had passed by with bland food! Even before I was out of my bed, my mind had conjured up images of exotic food that I wanted for breakfast.

As I rummaged through the contents of the kitchen cabinet, I winced. Everything in there seemed to cry out "Take me and make a South indian breakfast." I shut the door without wanting to hear another voice and went to the refrigerator. I found fruits (plenty of it too) and 2 eggs. Omlettes.. Egg muffins.. Scrambled eggs.. Smoothie.. As I was thinking this, my eyes fell on the maple syrup lying unused and its when I decided breakfast would be hot fruity pancakes with maple syrup!!! Hmm .. Hot apply pancakes actually..

I love pancakes and yes, in all its variations! American, Banana (my favorite), Lemon, Apple, Orange, the list could go on. The first time I tasted the Westerner's version of  pancakes was when Mug and I were in Andaman. The breakfast menu at the resort had banana pancakes and I clearly remember, there was not a day in the entire week that we stayed there, that we didn't have these goodies for breakfast. To date, its been the best we've had!! Since we can't go to the Andaman every time he/I want to eat a good pancake, I decided to learn to make these goodies and have experimented different varieties pancakes at home (once with oats too which I shall not talk about in public :D)

So without further blah blah's, here are the details of another experiment. The recipe wasn't taken off any published source. Based on how I had made pancakes a few months ago, I just eyeballed measurements to get the batter ready. 

Ingredients

1 apple peeled, cored and sliced into small 1/2 inch pieces

1 tbsp sugar (check the sweetness of the apple before you add )

1 tbsp water

1/2 tsp all spice powder

3/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

2 pinches baking powder

1 pinch salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs

Method
In a heavy saucepan, cook the apple, sugar and water till the apple pieces are translucent. This should take about 4-5 minutes. Keep stirring to ensure you don't land up with burnt apples! Add the all spice powder just before removing from fire. Let it cool for a few minutes.
At this juncture, you may choose to puree the apples for the pancake batter which will give it a more uniform taste OR just mash the apples slightly so you can get crunchy bits as you eat. 
In a bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Add milk and whisk. Keep aside.
In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Make a well in the center and pour in the milk & egg mixture. 
Add the apple puree / pieces.  Mix it all together.
Heat a lightly buttered griddle/ pan. Pour the batter onto the griddle in the center, using approximately 1 ladle for each pancake. Spread around. Cook on both sides. 
Serve hot topped with pancake / maple syrup.