Wholegrain Buckwheat Orange Chocolate Chippers … the cookies get better and better with each experiment, and these were really really good {if I may say so myself}. I know because they were over before I knew it, and I could see ‘those eyes’ searching for more. And yes of course, I got photobombed yet again.
Impossible to keep this little pup away. Impossible to keep her away. She wants to be part of just about everything, no matter how mundane it might be. Bambi is the cutest little one at 5 months, just slightly less cute than our Coco. Coco is our first love of course.Anyway, back to the food talk. Most of my baking finds roots in the ingredients I have on hand, much like this bread I made not so long ago. It’s a ‘Swirled Everything But the Kitchen Sink Bread’, an interesting concept that encourages you to use anything and everything left over in the fridge. I have yet to share this recipe, but it’s an easy swirled bread, the making of which I shared on Instastories on the PAB Insta handle a short while ago. Most of my recipes are really simple and on the go. Leaves me time to play around with the camera! I took a few different shots of the cookies on different backgrounds, different settings, angles, light etc.
I went on too do a dark moody shot series too. Call me addicted to the camera!!
These cookies also used anything I had on hand. Jaggery, oats, buckwheat flour etc. I shared these Wholegrain Buckwheat Orange Chocolate Chippers there too. Do follow Passionate About Baking on Instagram as I share quick and easy recipes there on and off. Instagram’s a great place to be, so much inspiration and so much creativity.The cookies of course are the simplest two bowl cookies. Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl. The wet go into the bowl of the stand mixer. Whisk both, mix both, and we’re good to go. Actually that’s just the good thing about comfort food like this. Minimum fuss, minimum clean up, maximum satisfaction.Do bake a batch when you have a little time to unwind. These Wholegrain Buckwheat Orange Chocolate Chippers will be baking before you know it. It probably takes more time just to line out the ingredients. That is one thing I always always do. Makes life simple, and you don’t miss an ingredient. I’ve learnt the hard way of course so I might as well share that tip!
Wholegrain Buckwheat Orange Chocolate Chippers come together in a matter of minutes, fuss free and absolutely delicious. That they are 100% wholegrain makes them a winner. Swap the chocolate chips for raisins, maybe add some walnuts, or make them coffee chocolate chip cookies. Either way, these will disappear before you know it! This is pure comfort food.
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time 20 minutesminutes
Total Time 25 minutesminutes
Servings 24cookies
Ingredients
Dry Mix
75gwholewheat flour {aata}
75gquick cooking oats
50gbuckwheat flour {kuttu ka aata}
3/4tspbaking soda
1/4tspsalt
75gdark chocolate chips
50gwalnutschopped
Wet Mix
100gunsalted butterroom temperature
115gjaggery granules
1egg
1tbspyogurt
1/2tspvanilla extract
Zest of 1 orange
Instructions
Place all the dry mix ingredients in a large bowl and stir to mix.
Place all the wet mix ingredients in bowl of stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, and process for 2 minutes on speed 3.
Add the dry mix and stir with paddle attachment on slowest speed for 30 seconds.
Let the mixture stand/rest while you preheat the oven to 180C {15-20 minutes}
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
Place scoops of cookie dough on the parchment, 2 inches apart, 12 on each sheet. Flatten gently with the tines of a fork. {Sprinkle over a few more chocolate chips if you are feeling particularly indulgent}
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are done, light golden brown, and the centre is still a little soft. {Bake further 5 minutes if you like crisp cookies}.
Remove tray from oven, allow to stand for 5 minutes, then cool the cookies completely on the rack.
“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.
Comfort food … food that reassures is different things to different people.” David Tanis
Crudites with Creamy Garlic Dip and Seedy Buckwheat Crackers might well be one of my favourite ways to rustle up something simple and quite addictive for an everyday healthy nibble, a small get together, or even a lunch box snack. The dip is as simple as it is finger licking good, and is a great way to get your protein fix for the day. Crudites on the side, in every colour, make this complete!
Comfort food for the soul! The recipe is a no brainer, a simple very simple whisking together of staple cooking ingredients that will possibly already be in your kitchen. These are ingredients that were meant to be together. The recipe is adapted from a very old one that I got while in college in Delhi University. A friends grandmother made a basic version often, and I gleefully went back home to recreate the recipe then much to the amazement of the family. This was in the late 1980’s!!
Much changed since then, the recipe evolved gradually. This is its current form. When Mother Dairy asked if I’d like to take do a few recipes for #CreamOfAllFood and taking over their instagram handle for a week, I knew this had to be shared too. This is our favourite dip, and is worth every share! Mother Dairy products have been a part of my growing up years, bringing up the kids, my kitchen, my culinary life. I am quite sure they are in your life too!
While I absolutely love doing sweet desserts and dishes, my heart belongs to savoury. Add garlic, fresh herbs, a dash of lime juice to any savoury dish and I’m a happy camper. Add cream to it, and now we’re talking. This Creamy Garlic Dip is possibly the simplest example of taking something delicious to finger licking good addictive! The cream made that happen!!Use this as a basic recipe. I added garlic and garlic greens to it. Sriracha might be really nice in here too. Maybe tahini, maybe grated red radish, or even finely chopped walnuts, fresh coriander and chilies. Who knows what might hit the chord with you. I urge you to try.
Begin basic. Hung yogurt, cream, grated garlic and salt is a good beginning. Then build as you go. And so many more reasons to enjoy this. Dahi/yogurt, garlic, fresh herbs, lime juice … think good gut bacteria and protein, think minerals, think garlic and its health promoting phytonutrients, think Vitamin C. As always, above all, think S I M P L E!! As simple as the Fruits with Cream & Granola Parfaits which I did in the #InstaCookingClass #1.
So wait no further. I whisked together the recipe on Instastories the Mother Dairy Instagram handle that I’ve taking over this week. This was #InstaCookingClass #2. 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!And oh, did I tell you that I love pairing dips with wholegrain crackers? So I turned the oven on, and began throwing in stuff of all sorts into the Thermomix. One seed followed another, one flour followed another, and luckily enough the ending was good. The experiment worked!
The crackers were a ‘cracker of an idea’! The dough was so good and loaded with SEEDS! It behaved beautifully so I made some savoury shells in the my favourite mini pie pan from Kitchen Aid too. Seedy wholewheat & buckwheat canapes filled with a creamy garlic dip, and pickled radishes are as delicious as they sound! Do make these as well if you are a passionate baker like me. Else crudites in seasonal colours like bell peppers, cucumbers, radishes are great too!
Crudites with Creamy Garlic Dip and Seedy Buckwheat Crackers might well be one of my favourite ways to rustle up something simple and quite addictive for an everyday healthy nibble, a small get together, or even a lunch box snack. The dip is as simple as it is finger licking good, and is a great way to get your protein fix for the day. Crudites on the side, in every colour, make the platter balanced!
Prep Time 5 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours5 minutesminutes
Servings 6people
Ingredients
Creamy Garlic Dip
200mlMother Dairy Cream
400gMother Dairy Ultimate Dahi
2tbspextra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
1tspHimalayan rock salt {to taste}
1small bunch fresh coriander leaves
1-2green/red chili
2-3garlic cloves
3-4garlic greens
Seedy wholegrain buckwheat crackers
100gsunflower seeds/kernels {Divided 65+35}
35galmond meal
20gflax seeds
15gwhite sesame
15gblack sesame
1tspsmoked sea salt
40gbuckwheat flour
200gwholewheat flour {aata}
40gclarified butter/ghee
10mlhoney
125Water
Instructions
Creamy Garlic Dip
Whisk the cream + yogurt + olive oil + salt + lime juice until smooth.
Finely chop remaining ingredients including the stalks of the coriander and greens of the green garlic.
Stir in.
Taste & adjust seasoning.
Tip: Use as a dip, on crackers, on canapes, in a roll, as a marinadeSeedy wholegrain buckwheat crackers
Seedy wholegrain buckwheat crackers
In the bowl of a food processor, grind together 65g sunflower seeds, almond meal, flax seeds, white & black sesame seeds.
Add the smoked sea salt, buckwheat flour and wholewheat flour. Stir to mix, followed by the clarified butter. Mix again on high speed to distribute the fat evenly.
Add the additional 35g sunflower seeds and stir to mix {low speed}.
Stir the honey into the water, and slowly drizzle in enough to make a stiff yet pliable dough. Add more if required. {All flours have a different absorption capacity.If the dough is soft, add a tbsp or two of buckwheat flour}.
Allow the dough to rest covered for a bit while you preheat the oven.
Divide the dough into 4. Roll out one portion as thin as possible between 2 sheets of parchment paper.
You can either cut into shapes using a pastry wheel/pizza cutter/knife, or leave it as one whole and roughly break it up. Alternatively, you could stamp out into fluted round shapes with a cookie cutter, and bake into tiny bite sized canape shells. I used the KitchenAid mini pie tray for some.
Bake until they feel firm and begin to colour. Keep an eye on them after 20 minutes as they can colour and burn petty quick.
Cool completely on cookie racks, and store in an airtight container
“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.
“If chocolate is the answer, the question is irrelevant.”
Unknown
Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sablés … dark chocolate, a mix of wholegrain flours, a little all purpose too, brown sugar, sea salt, of course butter. All these come together to make an eggless cookie, the indulgent sablé, a quintessential round French shortbread cookie. Crisp, deeply chocolate, buttery, wholegrain, eggless, Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sablés are the yummiest cookies ever! Even better since the recipe is eggless. The only sablés I’ve tried before were Dorie Greenspans famous World Peace Cookies, ones that I loved. She’s since reinvented them into an even more delicious version that I just discovered.
With wholewheat and buckwheat in this buttery chocolaty shortbread, I didn’t expect things to go so well. Can safely say these are my best chocolate shortbread cookies to date, best eggless cookies too! They’re inspired and adapted from Chocolate Sables @ The Boy Who Bakes, and HE is so good in everything he bakes! These are great for the festive cookie platter, fab for hanging off the tree and make a great gift too.I did a batch for Diwali earlier, and now a cookie cutout one for Christmas. With hand made wreaths using the perennial local ‘Mor Pankhi’, a genus of coniferoustrees, it was a lot of fun. Made the wreaths for the Teabox Christmas shoot earlier in November, which was a fun & creative shoot. Here’s a peak of a couple I shot on the side, and you can see more on their website.You could always add some tea leaves into the cookies to make this a chocolate tea shortbread. Now that’s an idea I might work on. Until then, here are Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sablés, eggless cookies loaded with chocolate, and almost wholegrain, with the goodness of buckwheat {kuttu ka aata}. Great comfort food, great for the holidays.
Crisp, deeply chocolate, buttery, wholegrain, eggless, Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sablés are the yummiest cookies ever! Adapted from The Boy Who Bakes.
Course Snack
Cuisine French
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 25 minutesminutes
Servings 2dozen
Ingredients
Dry mix
50gwholewheat flour {aata}
50gbuckwheat flour
50gplain flour
1/2tspbaking soda
1/4black truffle sea salt {or sea salt}
Wet mix
115gunsalted butter, room temp
1tspvanilla extract
100gbrown sugar
125g52% dark chocolateground {or finely chopped}
Instructions
Dry Mix
Stir dry ingredients in a bowl to mix. Reserve.
Wet Mix
Place butter, brown sugar and vanilla in bowl of stand mixer with paddle attachment. Whisk on medium speed for 3-4 minutes until smooth.
Add the dry mix and ground chocolate, and mix on the lowest speed just enough for the dough to come together.{You can do this by hand to play safe}. Don’t over-mix else the cookies will become hard.
Bring the dough together, either make a cylinder like roll, cling-wrap and chill for a couple of hours.
Alternatively, you could always use the dough for cut out cookies.
“Food is something that manages to find a way in to approximately 12 out of every 10 conversations we have at Chumbak.”
Chumbak
Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sables – dark chocolate, a mix of wholegrain flours, a little all purpose too, brown sugar, sea salt, of course butter. All these come together to make an eggless cookie, the indulgent sable, a shortbread cookie is a French round shortbread cookie. Another eggless cookie, this time loaded with chocolate, and almost wholegrain, with the goodness of buckwheat {kuttu ka aata} makes for a great gift!
It’s a good time too, at Diwali, when it’s fun to bake and gift good things. With mithai or sweetmeats dwindling in popularity, chocolate always ensures happy gifting. I like to either gift handmade truffles, nut clusters, or then cookies paired with either a lamp, a birdcage, platters, jars etc. The new Gold Collection from Chumbak, with the already beautiful existing range, makes for beautiful gifts with my cookies. Gifts I would love to receive too. Take a look!
With wholewheat and buckwheat in this buttery chocolaty shortbread, I didn’t expect things to go so well. That they did, was amazing. I can safely say these are my best chocolate shortbread cookies to date, best eggless cookies too! They’re inspired and adapted from Chocolate Sables @ The Boy Who Bakes, and HE is so good in everything he bakes! I found them on Instagram and decided to bake a wholegrain version. I figured the food loving folk at Chumbak would love them too!
The dazzling beautiful range of lifestyle products from Chumbak, the quintessential owl included, has me smitten as you can probably see. Hoot Hoot!! I’ve been in love with their quirky designing, innovative products, Indian humour and what not! From a souvenier store for India and Indians in 2010, they’ve grown phenomenally over the past few years. Today, Chumbak is a design led lifestyle brand for products across apparel, home and accessories driven by the best philosophy ever – Make Happy!
This Diwali sees Chumbak creating absolute magic. Take a look at some of their range. I love the fact that I can mix and match infinitely, that I can do daytime setups with flowers, do a drop-dead gorgeous one for the night, build a terrarium within like Madhuli just suggested. There is so much goodness for gifting. Wrap some baked goodies or chocolate truffles {recipe coming soon}, with them to make that perfect gift.
Chumbak retails over 75 categories across 30 plus stores pan India across formats. To buy any of these looks, a a whole lot more, do stop by here.
“This is what we live for, this is our philosophy and those big words that are synonymous with it. This is #makehappy!”
These few products are just the tip of the iceberg. They have something for every budget, something for everyone. I picked a gold and teal line, a touch of yellow, owls galore. Oh and this wooden cake platter above. Precious like the rest of the wood accents line. Now for the recipe of these cookies!
Crisp, deeply chocolate, buttery, wholegrain, eggless, Wholegrain Chocolate Buckwheat Sablés are the yummiest cookies ever! Adapted from The Boy Who Bakes.
Course Snack
Cuisine French
Prep Time 10 minutesminutes
Cook Time 15 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours25 minutesminutes
Servings 2dozen
Ingredients
Dry mix
50gwholewheat {aata}
50gbuckwheat
50gplain flour
1/2tspbaking soda
1/4black truffle sea salt {or sea salt}
Wet mix
115gunsalted butterroom temp
1tspvanilla extract
100gbrown sugar
125g52% dark chocolate, ground {or finely chopped}
Instructions
Dry Mix
Stir dry ingredients in a bowl to mix. Reserve.
Wet Mix
Place butter, brown sugar and vanilla in bowl of stand mixer with paddle attachment. Whisk on medium speed for 3-4 minutes until smooth.
Add the dry mix and ground chocolate, and mix on the lowest speed just enough for the dough to come together.{You can do this by hand to play safe}. Don't over-mix else the cookies will become hard.
Bring the dough together, either make a cylinder like roll, cling-wrap and chill for a couple of hours.
Alternatively, you could always use the dough for cut out cookies.
