Banana Walnut-Chocolate Loaf Cake

Bananas are usually which I prefer to eat raw or slightly caramelised one. Usually I make cakes with only few selective fruits, and honestly I don't have that great liking for banana bread. Well, but when I  came across to a sure shot and very promising recipe thought why not give a chance, and yet I haven't tried making banana bread at home, so had to. And this super soft and moist flavours with chocolates chips and toasted nuts in the bread, was totally justifying for making it by myself. Now I know what I have to do with almost lifeless bananas...:D 

The recipe which I came across was without butter, honestly I cannot imagine my cake or bread without butter, though I personally have tried two three recipes earlier with olive oil, but the taste texture  and everything that butter does to the cake is fabulous. Mostly now I have stopped using oils in cakes and will stick to butter.

 

Ingredients:-

2 1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 medium over riped bananas mashed 

1 tbsp vanilla essence 

100 gms melted butter 

3 small beaten eggs

1/4 cup room temperature milk

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup toasted walnuts or pecans

Method:

Preheat oven at180 degree Celsius.

In a small bowl, combine all purpose flour with baking soda and salt. Mix well.

In a another large bowl, mash bananas properly, add in melted butter, milk, granulated sugar, beaten eggs and vanilla essence. Mix all well. 

Now slowly add flour mixture little at time. At this point you can use hand mixture for equal mixing to avoid any lumps.

Once the mixing is done, the batter will be smooth and lump free. 

Scrape the sides of the bowl with spatula. Add in chocolate chips and toasted slightly chopped walnuts or pecans and fold it in to the batter well. Pour the batter mix in to a loaf tin lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 55-60 minutes at 180 degree Celsius. 

Once done, bring it outside and check by inserting toothpick if it comes clean. If not than bake further  more for 5 minutes by keeping constant check until toothpick inserting comes clean.

Allow it to cool completely and store in an air tight container. 

A thick slice of this bread with a glass of milk is sorting wholesome breakfast which I throughly enjoyed till 2 days. ❤️

 

Baked And Matar (Pea) stuffed baatis

This is not my first time in baking baatis, I did baked before, In fact I mostly bake them as i don't have the proper and traditional  baati cooker, my mom and my didi always have made baatis in baati cooker and I love that soooo much, the taste the texture and the crumb of it, simply too good it tastes...when I asked my mom about baking baatis, she was not having much idea about it, it's when I posted plain baatis. So I quickly searched on google at what temperature it gives perfect texture, mostly I read baatis are baked at high temperature in proper oven. But when I made first time, don't know where I read and baked at 180 celsius (slow baking for baatis are not recommended I think) and they turned out to be little hard. So this time while baking I made sure to keep a check on time, as well as to be sure first with timings and temperature, don't wanted to end up with some hard texture.. So after lots of reads I finally nailed to the correct baking time and temperature, and it was yippee yeeyyyy moment,  it came out so perfect, not harrddddd at allllll.. The texture and crumb was really perfect and reminded me of my mumma's baatis.. 

So this time I have stuffed the baatis with pea and potatoes(matar and aloo) mixture. And this is speciality  of M.P (Madhya Pradesh,India) where it is known as masala baatis. You can stuff with any stuffing of your choice, for example you can use dals too for stuffing. My mother in law makes kachori stuffed with moong dal, me and my husband go crazy over it, may be next time I'll be baking baatis stuffed with moong dal...😍😍 

Ingredients: 

For Baati dough:

3 cups of whole wheat flour

1 cup semolina (sooji/rawa)

1/3 cup chickpea flour (besan)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup and lil more ghee (clarified butter) or you can also use any vegetable oil

1 1/2 tsp of carom seeds (ajwain)

2 tsp of grounded fennel powder (saunf powder)

Salt to taste

And water to knead in to dough

For stuffing or filling:

2 cups of fresh or frozen peas semi grinded (matar)

1 large boiled peeled and mashed potato

2 tbsp chick pea flour (besan)

3-4 green chillies's paste ( adjust the spice level suitable to your taste)

3 tsp grated ginger or fine paste

3 tbsp oil (any vegetable or light olive oil)

1/2 tsp black mustard (rai)

1/2 tsp whole cumin (Jeera)

1 tsp asafoetida powder (hing)

2 tsp roasted cumin powder (jeera powder)

1 tsp turmeric powder (haldi powder)

1 1/2 tsp chaat masala powder (optional)

1 tsp dry mango powder (aamchur)

2 tsp fennel powder (saunf powder)

1 1/2 tsp garam masala powder

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Salt to taste

2-3 tbsp of fresh chopped green coriander

Method: 

For baati dough:

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients well, add water and knead in to semi firm dough, should not be sticky at all and it should be able to handle without dusting any flour.

Once kneaded cover and allow it to rest for 10-15 minutes. Till time make baati stuffing.

For stuffing or filling:

In deep vessel pan or kadhai, heat oil, add mustard seeds. Once it starts crackling, add whole cumin and asafoetida powder with green chilly and ginger paste. Stir and turn flame to low, now add semi grind fresh or frozen peas. 

Allow it to cook and keep sauteing for 7-10 minutes on medium flame or until it changes its colour to dark green slightly. 

Now add mashed boiled large potato and chick pea flour. Mix well.

Add all the spices mentioned above and salt to taste. (Except chaat masala)

Mix all well and sautée for 2-3 minutes on medium flame.

Turn the flame off, now sprinkle chaat masala powder and add lemon juice. Mix the pea mixture well and keep it aside to cool for 5-10 minutes. 

 

For making stuffed baatis balls:

Uncover the baati dough and knead it for few seconds. Pull out the lemon size dough ball, spread the dough ball by keeping on your palm, spoon a large tsp of the pea and potato mixture. Lift the sides and seal the dough ball with mixture inside well. Roll between your palms and press slightly from middle with your fingers. Place the stuffed baati in greased baking tray lined with parchment paper. Stuff all the baatis the same way.

Meanwhile, Preheat oven at 220 degree Celsius.

Brush nicely all the baatis with ghee or oil before it goes inside oven.

Bake for 10-12 minutes in preheated oven at 220 degree Celsius. ( mine was nice light golden brown from outside after 12 minutes of baking, with perfect crumb)

Bring it out, let it cool for 5-10 minutes and dip all of the baatis in ghee or clarified butter. 

Serve it with Rajasthani panchkuti mix dal. My mom in law, makes baingan bharta with it, and so I did the same. And it tastes so yum..loll this is making me hungry :D