Gluten free Christmas Fruit Cake

My last cake was Mawa (Koya) Cheese Cake for Diwali, after one and half month Fruit cake for Christmas. I couldn’t believe myself for such a change in my life style but, Christmas can’t be celebrated without a Cake! Hence, mentally prepared myself to cheat from HFLC !! Even during a cheat day I make sure that, I won’t cross 100 grams of carb’s per day and no more gluten :-)

This is my first gluten free cake. Yes, very little flour (no more wheat based) used just to bind the dry fruits. The cake tasted pretty similar to traditional (rum soaked) plum cake with loads of dry fruits in it. Though the ingredient’s list looks longer, the baking procedure is pretty easy and I’m sure you will love the taste and I bet, you can’t stop yourself with a single bite. 

 

 

Ingredients :  ¼ cup chopped  apricot     ;      ¼ cup chopped raisins   ;   ¼ cup chopped   dates ; ¼ cup chopped almonds     ;    ¼ cup chopped prunes   ;     ¼ cup chopped  walnut  ;    ¼ cup of fresh orange juice    ;    ¼ cup of light brown sugar     ;   ½ tsp vanilla essence    ;     ½ tsp of ginger powder    ;    ½ tsp of cinnamon powder     ;    1 ½ tbsp. of coco powder    ;    ½ cup of chocolate chip    ;    a pinch of cardamom powder    ;    1 egg   ;     60 gms of butter    ;   ½ cup of sorghums flour (remove 2 tbsp of flour and add 2 tbsp. tapioca flour or corn flour )    ;   1/4  tsp of baking powder    ;     ¼ tsp of baking soda      ;   ¼ cup of sugar    ;    1 tbsp. of orange zest    ;     melted chocolate for Christmas tree decoration  ;    1 tbsp. of icing sugar for snow effect 

In a bowl add the melted butter and all the dry fruits, orange juice, orange zest, sugar and allow it to boil and remove from the heat (stove) and mix well and allow to cool at room temperature.

In a separate bowl add all dry ingredients like, flour, coco powder, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom powder, cinnamon powder, ginger powder and mix thoroughly and keep aside.

In mixing bowl beat egg with brown sugar and vanilla essence until sugar dissolved. Add the dry fruit mixture, Nuts (almond & walnut) and the flour mixture and blend till all fully combined and cake batter consistency.

Pour the batter in the greased 5½’’ cake pan and bake it in the 180◦c pre heated oven for about 30 minutes. And allow to cool to room temperature.

For Christmas tree, chocolate decoration :  using melted chocolate draw the Christmas tree and transfer to the fridge to set and place them on the cake and sprinkle the icing sugar for snow effect. 

Wishing you all Merry Christmas and wishing you a very happy & prosperous New year. 

Amaranth Flour Bread

After switching the HFLC life style (diet) I pretty much restrict the wheat but, without wheat baking is almost impossible. The only option to continue the passion without compromising this life style is finding substitute to wheat so that I can mix with the wheat based flour in order to avoid the net gluten and calorie value. 

Also, In HFLC magnesium is (a very important mineral) recommended to take as supplement, as it’s not available in the regular food. But, amaranth is the only grain, rich in magnesium.  Without any trial and error, 53 % of all-purpose flour and 46% of amaranth flour, combination worked very well to produce perfect bread by all means.

Ingredient  :   2 cups of all-purpose flour     ;      1 ¾ cup of amaranth flour (rajgira)    ;      1 ¼ cup of warm milk       ;       2 tsp of instant yeast         ;      3 tbsp of sugar   ;     1 tsp of salt      ;   3 tbsp of soft butter     ;      amaranth grain popped for topping ( optional)

In a mixing bowl add warm milk, sugar, yeast mix well and keep aside. Mix well the salt, all-purpose flour and amaranth flour. Pour the yeast mixture into flour mix and knead until you have smooth and elastic dough. Add the soft butter and knead the dough further.

If required, add a little flour depends on the consistency of dough. Shape it into a ball and place it in a well-oiled bowl, turning it around to coat it well. Cover the bowl with damp cloth and allow the dough to rise until double in volume.

Gently deflate the dough and shape the dough into a greased loaf tin and cover the loaf tin with damp cloth for an second rise, allow to raise almost at the edges of your loaf tin. Sprinkle the popped amaranth grain on the top.

Transfer the loaf tine into 180°C pre-heated oven and bake about  40 to 50 minutes or till the bread is nice brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped. Spread the melted butter on the top and let it cool.

Enjoy the freshly baked bread with bone broth in the cold morning is a Divine.

Smiley Cookies

These limited numbers of smiley cookies were baked just to satisfy my (also my son) sweet tooth. But to my surprise, we both weren’t tempted to eat more than one per day! You’re probably wondering if the taste was awry. I assure you it wasn’t. It shows that we were completely out of a syndrome called “sugar craving” or no more addicted to sugar (devil)!  Thanks to HFLC. 

Ingredient’s :    2 cup of all purpose flour         ;      125 gms of butter       ;       1/2cup + 2 tbsp of sugar    ;      1 egg    ;       1 tsp of vanilla essence       ;      melted dark chocolate for dipping.

Add sugar and butter in a bowl and mix well. Add flour and egg mix well with the sugar mixer to form cookie dough. Cover the dough with cling wrap and keep it in fridge for 25-30 min. 

Roll the dough on the floured surface for about 1 cm thickness and cut the dough using the big 2’’ circle cookie cutter. 

In center of cookies with icing nozzle make two holes (dip the nozzle in the flour, will make life easy) for eyes and make a slit for mouth by using sharp knife.

Arrange the cookies in baking tray and keep it in fridge for 20 min and bake it in a 180°c pre-heated oven until the cookies are done. 

Allow them to cool completely and dip the cookies on the melted dark chocolate for hair and arrange it on baking paper to set.

Mawa (Koya) Cheese Cake

I’m posting after two months! Yes, it had been quite long and many thanks for those who sent mail, asking about my wellbeing.  The reason being not posting is a change in life style (diet). After switching into HFLC diet, I restrict myself to bake breads, cookies and cakes. 

Now days, I bake rarely with very little quantity. In order cut carbohydrates, which is the root cause for all the modern day diseases.

When my husband began to practice HFLC a year ago, I was bit scared and worried. But, to my surprise he lost about 20kg and manages to shrink his waist size from 38 inches to 31 inches! Unbelievable right !!.  HFLC is just not only for weight loss, also other numerous health benefit associated with it. He just started the blog to share his findings.

After seeing the incredible results, I also switched into HFLC diet and lost about 10 Kg weight and decided to continue for the rest of the life. I restrict my carbohydrate intake less then or around 50g per day. Before it was about 250-300 grams per day! Most important part is, I started to enjoy the meat, butter, cheese, ghee and eggs without any guilty. What a turn around!

 

On the account of Diwali, wanted to relax a bit on the diet (after all diwali is all about lights & sweets) so decided to make mawa cheese cake, it’s a no bake version made with high fat with reasonable sugar content. 

Ingredient(s)  :   1 ½ cup of full fat cream cheese   ;   1 cup of mawa or koya (homemade ) ;      1/2 cup of whipped cream   ;   1/4 tsp of cardamom powder   ;   10 no’s of  almond chopped    ;  10 no’s of pistachio soaked, skin removed and chopped   ;    ½ cup of sugar

For cake base :  8 cookies      ;     1 tbsp of melted butter  (either you buy cookie from shop or choose any one from here)

Cake base preparation procedure :  In a food processor crush the cookies  until it resembles like breadcrumbs. Add melted butter and process until it combined. 

Spread the mixture evenly into the 15cm cheese cake pan by pressing firmly. Refrigerate for 30 – 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, let’s do the Mawa or koya, Boil the whole milk (750 ml) and heavy or whipped cream (250 ml) cream in a wide, thick bottom pan. Reduce flame to medium to low and allow the mixture to reduce, 1/3 of its original quantity.  {Thick milk layer (Milk skin or lactoderm) forms over the top, using the spatula give a gentle whisk and continue to simmer}. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Cheese cake preparation : Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until it becomes smooth mixture. Run the mixer at med-speed, add cardamom powder. Gradually add mawa or koya and continue to beat until combined. Finally add whipped cream, chopped almonds and half portion of pistachio, combine well.

Pour the prepared Chease-mawa-cream  mixture on the cookies base, prepared earlier. Smooth the top and sides with a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining pistachios on top and refrigerate for about 4 hours. 

Sever chill and celebrate the diwali with Mawa (Koya) Cheese Cake.

Red velvet cupcake / Clock cup cake

I have been thinking for quite long to make a pull apart version of cake, apart from the fact that my son has been asking me a red velvet cake for a long so, I decided to give it a shot. Finally here it is, with a red velvet cake in pull apart style. I used cheese frosting to form the clock face and the dial was with chocolate glazing.  The original recipe source is from here. 

Red velvet cup cake ingredients:  6 tbsp of butter (soft)   ;    2/3  cup of sugar     ;    1 egg    ;     1 ¼ tbsp. of coco powder      ;      1 ½  tbsp of red liquid food color      ;      ½ tsp of vanilla essence      ;       ½ tsp of salt      ;       ¾ cup of milk       ;         1  5/8 cup of all-purpose flour     ;     ¾ tsp of baking soda     ;    ¾ tsp of apple cider vinegar

Ingredients for  Cheese frosting :     85 gms of cream cheese     ;      2 tbsp of butter ;     1/2 tsp of vanilla essence     ;      2 cup confectioner sugar 

 For Dial (chocolate glazing)  :   150 gms of melted dark chocolate 

Procedure :  In bowl add coco powder and all purpose flour, mix well  and keep aside.

In mixing bowl beat butter with sugar till it becomes smooth and creamy. Add egg and beat further. Add the food colour and continue to beat until the colour evenly mixed.

Continue to run the blender at med-speed and slowly add the flour mix and milk little by little, until all the ingredients are combined well and you got right cake batter consistency. 

Finally add baking soda into apple cider vinegar, quickly mix and add into flour mix.

Divide the batter evenly among the 19 mini cupcake tins about 2/3 filled and transfer to the 180°C pre heated oven and bake for about 20 min or until its done. (Toothpick technique will help) Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting. 

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:  In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until it become smooth. Add the sugar and continue to beat on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and blend until it become very light and fluffy.