“The oat is the Horatio Alger of cereals, which progressed, if not from rags to riches, at least from weed to health food.”
Waverley Root
Date Walnut Orange Flapjacks … squares of goodness that come together in minutes. Not sure why, but ever since I began making granola again {read every Sunday}, I’ve had flapjacks on my mind. It’s a very strange thought as it crept in without prior notice, and yesterday for some reason that’s all I wanted to bake. Every time I got up to bake cookies, I pulled out the bag of oats. Guess these were meant to be. And so was this naughtiness that crept into my frames…Little Bambi, our newest little family member who we adopted recently, had an absolute field day. She loves photobombing whenever I try and shoot. You might see here here on PAB now and then!What are flapjacks you might ask.Well ‘a flapjack, muesli bar, cereal bar, or granola bar is a sweet tray-baked oat bar made from rolled oats, butter, brown sugar and golden syrup‘ and looks like this fits in quite well with my whole grain breakfast granola sort of a theme. I guess I could have just added some granola I made this morning into a bowl, tossed it in with some other stuff, pushed it together, let it set and made granola bars.But my granola is very precious these days. It’s much in demand in parfaits so I figured it would be a shame to use it so easily cheaply. Then again the net is overflowing with recipes of flapjack and this recipe fromFood52 won me over. The ease of the recipe, the beauty of ingredients, the pantry staples all made it seem so simple.Too simple I might add. You might have caught how easy these were to make on my instastories on my Instagram handle. In any case, this is the easiest ‘stir the wet mix into dry’ procedure. And it tasted drop dead delicious with ‘toffee’ good flavours, a sweetness which soothes the soul, and a load of oats, walnuts, sunflower seeds! Oh and a burst of orange flavour!Too much of a good thing and a new way to use quick cooking oats.Ever since I began using jumbo oats in my granola, the regular bag of quick cooking oats just sits and stares at me. No longer I guess. This is another fantastic way to use quick cooking oats . I adapted the recipe to use things that I had on hand so my flapjacks had walnuts and dates. Also the zest of an orange as it was just sitting on the counter and added freshness to the otherwise monochrome palette.
Buttery & nutty with a burst of orange, sweetly comforting and quite indulgent, these Date Walnut Orange Flapjacks are going to be showing up quite often. A recipe minimally adapted from one @food52 , it comes together in a matter of minutes.
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 25 minutesminutes
Total Time 30 minutesminutes
Servings 16squares
Ingredients
Wet mix
125gunsalted butter
100gbrown sugar
90ghoney
Dry Mix
200gquick cooking oats
50gdateschopped
50gwalnutschopped
35gsunflower seeds
Zest of 1 orange
Instructions
Line a 8 X 8" square tin with parchment. Preheat the oven to 180C.
Place the butter, brown sugar and honey in a heatproof bowl and microwave for a minute until the butter has melted. Whisk well until you get a toffee like mixture.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, add all the remaining ingredients and stir to mix.
Pour over the toffee mixture and stir well to mix.Transfer to prepared tin, pat down into place with an offset spatula or butter knife.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes until light golden brown on the edges but still soft in the centre.
“Fussing over food was important. It gave a shape to the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner; beginning, middle, end.” Robert Hellenga
Fruits with Cream & Granola Parfaits … couldn’t be a better way to begin the morning. All this while I thought granola was just one of the best ways to start the day, so I made that a lot. It was simple. Granola + Milk + fruit = done! Then along came cream, an idea crossed my mind and breakfast got a makeover, a fun and colourful one at that. The parfait is showing up as dessert at home too now, made with just cream, no dahi! Folk who know me, know of my love for dairy. Everything and anything dairy hits a home run for me, and that speaks pretty much for everyone at home.The neat little tetrapacks of Mother Dairy cream have changed the way I work in the kitchen, cooked and baked. The ease, the taste, the quality stepped up what I do in the kitchen in exciting ways. I am sure if you are like me, and love to cook and bake, your pantry’ll never be without this handy staple. It literally finds its way into everything I make, especially sweet!So when Mother Dairy Creams asked if I’d like to take do a few recipes for #CreamOfAllFood and taking over their Instagram handle for a week, I could hardly say no. There was nothing I’d have liked to do better! Mother Dairy products have been a part of my growing up years, bringing up the kids, my kitchen, my culinary life. This was just going to be an extension of what I enjoy doing most – experimenting in the kitchen.A ton of ideas tumbled out of my head. I settled for this one first – Fruits with Cream & Granola Parfaits because I love the idea of layered desserts, cakes etc. Because the family had just returned from NYC and one of them described a delicious parfait they had for breakfast there. Because I had a sackful of granola at home that someone had sent as a gift. Because I love fruit in food, and lastly, I love playing with my food recipes…
One thing led to another. Some twitter conversations later, before I knew it, I was baking granola for the parfaits. I have always been charmed by doing things from scratch, granola being one of them. I find it difficult to understand why you wouldn’t bake something so simple at home? Please try baking some once, and you’ll do it over and over again. It makes life simple, you feel great, the kids get addicted to it, you can use it for energy bars, for breakfast…and for dessert too. Throw some into smoothies, scatter it over fruit salad or ice cream, or just munch on some as a snack. It is so customisable too. That done, a nice big batch smiled at me as I thought of putting the parfait together. It’s the simplest thing to do. As things go, I love the edge of subtle indulgence these Fruits with Cream & Granola Parfaits offer. There is little guilt for two reasons. No, make that three! Maybe more!!Cream is good fat. The granola is 100% wholegrain, glutenfree and home made. Last but not the least,the parfait has a generous portion of seasonal fresh fruit in there. And so many more reasons to enjoy this. Dahi/yogurt, honey, chia seeds … thing good gut bacteria and protein, think natural sweetener, think superfoods that are also called seeds of life. Above all, think S I M P L E !!So wait no further. I played out the recipe on Instastories the Mother Dairy Instagram handle that I’m taking over this week. This was #InstaCookingClass #1. Catch me there, or on the Mother Dairy FaceBook page later this week . Love to hear if you liked it {or not}, what recipes you might like to see in future, and what you’d like to make with the #CreamOfAllFood!
Tip: Use a piping bag or ziploc to pipe in the cream mix to make it neat.
Tip: Use any seasonal fruit you enjoy eg Banana Strawberry Parfait, Black Forest Parfait, Banoffee Parfait.
Tip: Great idea to make a parfait bar and get kids to 'build their own' colourful parfaits
Tip: Use more cream, less yogurt and turn this into a dessert with the cream.mix, fruit & nuts!!
Easiest Homemade Granola
Preheat the oven to 160C. Line a large baking dish with parchment.
Stir together all the dry ingredients EXCEPT the dried cranberries and chocolate chips in a large bowl. {Tip: Use the mixer bowl from The Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer as it is convenient to use and very big}.
Whisk the honey into the olive oil.
Pour the wet mix over the dry mix, and give it all a good stir.
Turn it into the prepared pan, press down lightly, and bake for approximately 45 minutes until light golden brown. Stir 2-3 times while baking.
Once baked, stir in the dried cranberries while still hot, and chocolate chips once cool.
“Don’t sit at home and wait for mango tree to bring mangoes to you wherever you are. It won’t happen. If you are truly hungry for change, go out of your comfort zone and change the world.” Israelmore Ayivor
Mango Almond Roulade with almond whipped cream. Light. Fresh. Delicious. Part wholegrain. To make it even better, filled with fresh mangoes swathed in beautifully whipped almond cream. Some things are just better with mango!
So here’s another last minute mango based dessert to add to the last few mango desserts I shared, while we hang on to the end of the mango season. Just another clutch of days, maybe a week or so, and they’ll be gone.
However don’t panic if you can’t find some juicy mangoes. I’ve made this to great deliciousness with tinned peaches, fresh strawberries, a coffee whipped cream too {skip the almond maybe go with chopped walnuts}.
Mango Almond Roulade with almond whipped cream. Light. Fresh. Delicious. Part wholegrain. To make it even better, filled with fresh mangoes swathed in beautifully whipped almond cream. Some things are just better with mango!
Course Dessert
Cuisine French
Prep Time 15 minutesminutes
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
Total Time 55 minutesminutes
Servings 6people
Ingredients
Almond Sponge
3eggs
1/2cup+ 1 tbsp almond meal
1/2cup+ 1 tbsp plain flour
1tspbaking powder
pinchsalt
1/2cupCastor sugar
2-3drops almond extract
1/2tsppure vanilla extract
Whipped Almond Cream
300mllow fat creamchilled
25mlclarified butter/ghee
4-5drops almond extract
50gicing sugar {adjust as per taste}
1large mangopeeled , diced
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a Swiss roll tin with baking parchment.
Sift together the almond meal, plain flour, baking powder and salt 2-3 times. Reserve.
In a bowl of the stand mixer, whip the egg with sugar on high speed to stiff peaks.
Add the vanilla extract and almond extract and beat again.
Sift the flour over the beaten mixture and gently fold in.
Pour batter into prepared pan, level out.
Bake for about 20-25 minutes until light golden brown and firm to touch. {tent the top with aluminum foil if you think it’s getting too brown}
While this is baking, lay out a clean kitchen towel, bigger than the size of the tray, and sift sugar evenly over it.
Once the roll is baked, overturn immediately {very carefully} onto the sugar sifted towel, and gently peel parchment off. Trim the edges if required.
Place a parchment sheet on top, and roll with the towel lengthwise, and leave to cool completely. {The longer side will be the length of the roll}
Whipped Almond Cream
Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Whip with an electric hand blender on the highest speed until thick.
Assembling
Unroll the cooled cake, place on a sheet of parchment. Spread the almond cream filling over it with an offset spatula, leaving a little border right around to avoid the filling oozing out.
Sprinkle over with chopped mangoes.
Now with the help of the parchment paper, roll it right back into a roll, pulling the paper slightly to make a tight roll. Place seam down on cling wrap and chill for a couple of hours. Unwrap gently and lay seam side down on your serving platter.
Sift over with powdered sugar, scatter almond slivers over it.
“Fussing over food was important. It gave a shape to the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner; beginning, middle, end.”
Robert Hellenga
Summer Mango Smoothie Bowl, another thing off my bucket list, the most beautiful way to begin the morning. Colourful beginnings!! They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I say bring it on! This one was fun to make, thinking ingredients, plating {or rather bowling} it, adding bits and bobs to the top. So much went into it, near raw other than the yogurt, very in season, a mélange of flavours and textures.For me, an edible pot potpourri, inspired and exciting. With the first one down, my call was, “This was fun, now can someone set me a bowl everyone morning please!!“The inspiration came from Ruchiras smoothie bowls each more delightful and colourful that the other. Inspiration really gets me going, food shared the best thing ever. Talk about breakfast and it’s amazing to see how different cultures wake up to the most important meal of the day. Granola, crepes, vadas, puris, kachoris, omelette, fruit bowls, smoothies, waffles, pancakes, overnight oats, avocado and egg on toast are some of the simpler everyday options.My recent overnight oats were a great experiment and now find a spot in the fridge every night. It’s a really convenient way to wake up to healthy ready made breakfast. Grab a spoon, dig in. I change the flavours with fruit in season and experiment as I go on. The main characters in the story remain the same – oats, milk/yogurt/coconut milk, honey, basil seeds, watermelon seeds. Fruit in season breaks the monotony. Mango, peaches, apple, banana, strawberries rotate. Pie spice, cinnamon, thandai mix, pepper, nutmeg, saffron. You get the drift! It’s always fun to explore something new and different apart from the regular old breakfast choices we usually have.Step out of home, travel a bit, within the city, country or overseas and new frontiers open up. Food and flavours begin to get magical, new and interesting. For someone who constantly cooks at home, hands that cook in other kitchens are fascinating. They offer exciting experiences, food adventures! Here are some breakfast stories, delicious bites mainly in pictures and in no particular order. Actually just as they tumbled out of my head when I read about #Foodventures by Axis Bank Dining Delights!
We sleepily got off the train in Benaras early one winter morning, a hungry foursome, and hit breakfast street quite soon. The city has a reputation and we knew where to head. Can there be anything better than fresh garam kachoris, sabzi and jalebis straight out of the pan? Perhaps not.
Perhaps yes if you add some famous Pehelwaan ki lassi to wash down breakfast. Nirvana. Life accomplished.
Ticked off list, but ‘will be back soon‘ recorded.
Fly across the globe. Switzerland, where I was last year at this time, a European breakfast will spoil you for choice. Every city we traveled to had a different layout, a regional offering, local produce shining through, breakfast an elaborate ceremony, fit for a king, something to sit and enjoy.Tuck in. Cheese, yogurt, fresh baked breads, fruit, coffee, tea, eggs galore, cold cuts, fresh milk, best way to breakfast. Did you hear me say “Serve me breakfast and I shall be happy!” ? Swing back to India, a trip into the heart of the South, Karakudi held us mesmerised earlier this year. It was a trip of a lifetime. Same feeling – breakfast is a celebration. Simple, flavourful, delicious and so much variety. Almost always ‘from the frying pan onto the plate‘, whether it was the elaborate ‘eat till you drop luxury at Chidambaram Vilas‘ or the street food at the temple at Pillaiyarpatti with the most refreshing filter coffee and finger licking good vadas. Memorable, satisfying and an absolute joy.
And then there was the absolutely amazing breakfast with peacocks and neelgai as company at Lakshman Sagar in Rajasthan? Breakfast was an eye opener there. Elaborate, each morsel served with love, truely regional and so much variety. Breakfast day 1 was something like this – fresh orange juice, maize dalia, googri {overnight soaked and cooked wheat kernels and horsegram}, sapota/cheeku jam, gum berry jam, fresh fruit, gur/jaggery, boora, honey, achaar, masala omelet, fire roasted tomato. Nothing refined or processed. Experiencing it was pure joy.If that wasn’t enough, one morning we trudged across the countryside for a breakfast in the fields! Get closer home, one trip into Old Delhi and you’ll be cured of any breakfast woes. Nagori halwa puri, nimbu ka paraatha, sweet lassi, hot jalebis, garam chai, then begin again! If you are stuck with the same old routine of toast and cheese, wake up and smell the coffee! Rustle up something fun and interesting {or bribe some willing soul to do it}. Better still, get out and explore. Make the mornings matter!
Colourful beginnings!! They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I say bring it on! This Mango Smoothie Bowl was fun to make, very in season, a mélange of flavours and textures. For me, an edible pot potpourri, inspired and exciting.
Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Total Time 10 minutesminutes
Servings 2people
Ingredients
1mangopureed
200gGreek Yogurt {or regular full fat yogurthung for 30 minutes}
Honey if required
2tspsabja seedssoaked in water for 10 minutes
1/2cuppomegranate pearls
1kiwichopped
1peach chopped
2tbspmelon seeds
2tbspchopped walnuts
Fresh mint for garnish
Instructions
Stir the mango puree through the yogurt until uniformly mixed. Adjust sweetness if required.
Ladle the mango yogurt into 2 breakfast bowls.
Top with the remaining ingredients.
You could always just mix everything through too, yet it makes the first meal of the day attractive this way, garnished with love!
“I am starting to think that maybe memories are like this dessert. I eat it, and it becomes a part of me, whether I remember it later or not.”
Erica Bauermeister
Oat Walnut Trifles with Roasted Stone Fruit … one of those really interesting recipes that came together like it was just meant to be. Each element paired beautifully with the other. The oat walnut sponge offered great texture to ‘drink up‘ the juices of the vanilla roasted fruit, healthy as it was! The low fat cream whipped up beautifully with almond undertones, luxuriously settling down atop the soaked fruity sponge in pretty silky swirls. It was a dessert like poetry!
So much yumminess you might ask, such a divine dessert, yet why am I sharing it so late. Well this time the culprit was this huge scatter brain that jotted the Oat Walnut Genoise Sponge recipe down on that most ‘important scrap of paper, then promptly misplaced the darned thing. It took me several days to try and locate it, then I just gave up. Bits of the recipe for the sponge stayed in my head. It was quite a delicious nibble on it’s own, and many ‘cubes’ fell to nimble fingers!Then one day this dessert popped up on my insta feed with someone asking for the recipe. Spurred into action by the guilt of a failed promise, I set off once again to make the Oat Walnut Genoise Sponge. Of course I am a sucker for punishment yet I enjoy baking so much, so I recreated the base recipe from what I remembered, and happily it worked out just fine. This time I baked the dough/batter/dough differently, and for longer, in the form of tiny cookie pies with pretty dark chocolate ganached piped on top. They seemed an obvious choice as I was at the receiving end of some excellent KitchenAid bakeware.
Being part of the Kitchen Aid Culinary Council, these are things I really enjoy and am eternally grateful for! The mini pie pan is the sweetest ever, great great quality, and so are the measuring spoons. Fortunately enough, the doughy batter was a great choice for these cookies too!
So here we go, better late than never,Oat Walnut Trifle Bowls with Roasted Stone Fruit that were good to the last crumb! Feel free to use berries, fruit in season like mangoes etc. If you don’t have time for roasted fruit, make a simple sugar syrup to moisten the oat walnut sponge, and trifle on! Triflesare desserts with immense possibilities, great for failed bakes too as in these ‘Upcycled’ Butterscotch Blondie Puddings.
I am beginning to enjoy the challenge of creating with oats more and more. There is so much and more you can do. If you are like me, a dessert needs to be celebrated. Find a nice bunch of stemmed glasses, or beautiful glassware like this, and assemble your trifle. For a lighter version top with vanilla Greek yogurt, maybe piped almond quark! Will make a fit bressert {dessert for breakfast=bressert}!
Oat Walnut Trifles with Roasted Stone Fruit came together like they were just meant to be. Every element paired beautifully with the other. The oat walnut sponge offered great texture to 'drink up' the juices of the vanilla roasted fruit. The low fat cream whipped up beautifully with almond undertones luxuriously settling down atop the soaked fruity sponge in silky swirls.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Prep Time 15 minutesminutes
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Total Time 45 minutesminutes
Servings 6people
Ingredients
Oat Walnut Sponge
40goats
55gwalnut halves
20gbrown sugar
pinchsalt
2eggs
100gbrown sugar
1tsppure vanilla extract
20mlclarified butter/ghee
1tspbrown sugar
Vanilla Roasted Peaches & Plums
4peaches
5plums
75-100gbrown sugar
Juice of 1 lime
1/2vanilla bean
Whipped Almond Cream
300mllow fat cream, chilled
25mlclarified butter/ghee
4-5dropsalmond extract
50gicing sugar {adjust as per taste}
Instructions
Oat Walnut Sponge
Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 8" X 8" square baking tin with parchment.
Place oats, walnut halves, pinch of salt and 20g brown sugar in bowl of blender. Process briefly in short spurts until you get a fine grind. Don't over process else the nuts will leave oil.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, place the eggs, 100g brown sugar and vanilla extract. Beat on high speed until mousse like and doubled in volume, 5-7 minutes.
Gently fold in half the oat nut mix, then the other half.
Drizzle half the clarified butter over and fold in, then pour over the remaining.
Turn into prepared tin, sprinkle over 1 tsp brown sugar. Bake for 30 minutes.
Cool in tin completely. Then cut into cubes for the trifle.
Vanilla Roasted Peaches & Plums
Place all ingredients in oven proof dish, stir well to mix and roast for 30 minutes. Discard vanilla bean. Reserve.
Note: You can bake this alongside the sponge, or a day or two in advance.
Whipped Almond Cream
Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Whip with an electric hand blender on the highest speed until thick enough to pipe. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle.
Assemble
Take 6 dessert bowls. Layer the bottom with cubes of oat walnut sponge, top with roasted fruit and juices. Repeat once again. Pipe whipped almond cream swirls on top.
Keep chilled for a couple of hours, if not overnight, top with fresh cut fruit, walnut halves, some fresh herbs and serve.
“I’ll be back before you can say Blueberry pie.”
Bruce Willis {Pulp Fiction}
Blueberry Frangipane Wholegrain Tray Bake, a tray that happened just because the galette failed. A friend recently got me some blueberries and they were a source of constant inspiration. The pretty little deep blue berries had me fascinated. All day long I thought of how best to use them. Muffins, galettes, cheesecake, trifle, ice cream and so much more. Finally settled for a wholewheat galette!
What I ended up with was obviously far from it. While I was really pleased with the galette when it went into the oven, ten minutes later, I stared at a virtual meltdown. Disaster had struck. Like the rivers of Babylon, how the dough spread. The pastry spread to make a base, while everything else merrily leveled above it. Heartbroken, I left the disaster to bake, slamming the oven door shut in horror.I let it be for quite a bit, sitting to cool in the oven because I was heartbroken. Nothing much I could do I figured, and set out to make a trifle. Upcycle as Ruchira had cleverly suggested at my overbaked batch of Wholegrain Butterscotch Blondies. It made the most fab ‘Upcycled‘ Butterscotch Blondie Pudding not so long ago. Clearly the more often I bake, the higher the chances of upcycling!Yet one look at the now settled tray seemed to suggest that all wasn’t lost. I stamped out shapes to salvage a few decent round cut outs while happy hungry mouths nibbled the left over edges away. No chance for trifles!! Turned out pretty delicious, and hence the Blueberry Frangipane Wholegrain Tray Bake was born. I’ve scaled the ingredients to match the tray bake, just the base has been reduced, while the rest remains pretty much the same. I did a test run with strawberries yesterday and that came out just as good too!
Recipe: Blueberry Frangipane Wholegrain Tray Bake
Summary: Moist, full of wholesome almond and fruit flavour, here’s a tray bake that you might enjoy. The Blueberry Frangipane Wholegrain Tray Bake is a quick and fuss free bake for times when berries are in plenty. Makes one 8″ X 8″ tray.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 45 minutes Ingredients:
Place wholewheat flour, butter, brown sugar and salt in bowl of food processor and process briefly until you have a coarse mix. The butter should be pea sized.
Add the vinegar and process briefly, then gently pour in enough water until it just about begins to come together when you pinch it between your fingertips. Don’t over work, else the pastry will become tough.
Line the base of an 8″ X 8″ baking tin {or 7″ X 11″} with parchment paper. Lightly grease sides.
Press the biscuit it evenly to line the bottom.
Chill for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven, and make the frangipane.
Frangipane
Place butter, almond meal and brown sugar in same bowl of food processor and blend to mix.
Add remaining ingredients and briefly process to mix. { Can be stirred together in a big bowl too.}
Assemble
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Spread the frangipane over the chilled biscuit base, and scatter the blueberries over.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the frangipane feels set.
Allow to cool for 30 minutes, then cut into squares or bars.
Serve with unsweetened cream and extra berries if desired.
