recipe of date and nut bars with kunafe crust | no added sugar for a scrumptious dessert

Dates are delicious little desserts manufactured and packaged very effectively by mother Nature. That dates are packed with nutrition is no new knowledge. Packed with micro nutrients and minerals, the sweetness of dates is so complex that eating just a couple of dates relishing them slowly gives you much more satisfaction than eating a whole wedge of cake.

Dates are the best example of efficient calories as I say, each calorie carries essential Vitamins and minerals to nourish the body. Read about health benefits of dates here.

I often use dates to sweeten desserts and make a laddu with dates and seeds or nuts, this time I wanted a fancier shape and decided to bake square bars of dates and nuts with a kunafe crust. I used thin vermicelli called sevaiyan instead of kunafe but it works really well as both are the same technically and using local products makes better sense.

I bake another dessert with sevaiyan which is closer to savaiyon ka muzaffar and we love that recipe too. This time we had a family get together for Raksha Bandhan and since my dad is a diabetic I wanted to make something suitable for him. He does eat small servings of such desserts as the glycemic index is lower when table sugar is not used and there are enough nuts in the recipe.

Moreover, serving such desserts to a get together is a great way to know whether everyone likes them or not. I had made 2 more desserts, one was the black sticky rice and mango pudding and the other was a traditional white rice kheer with loads of raisins and shredded coconut. So there was enough variety for everyone.

I am glad everyone just loved these date and nut bars, of course we loved them too and I feel these are tasting better after 3-4 days (stored at room temperature).

The recipe is easy but it takes a bit of time chopping the nuts and dates first (use a cleaver or a food processor) and then the other steps. But the time taken is well worth. You would need about an hour of dedicated time to bake these date and nut bars.

ingredients 
(makes 25 squares)

soft dates seeds removed and chopped 250 gm
mixed nuts (I used almonds, walnuts and cashews) chopped 250 gm
thin vermicelli (sevaiyan) 150 gm
milk powder 80 gm
ghee 15 gm+15 gm
water 60 gm (writing by weight as I weighed everything on the kitchen scale as I kept adding ingredients)
saffron a few strands
8x8 inch baking pan (non stick or lined with silpat, loose bottom works better)

procedure 

I have used raw nuts and I recommend strongly about using raw nuts for this recipe. The taste is just perfect for this kind of recipe which will be baked briefly to get the crust browned a bit.

The nuts must be chopped and 'not powdered coarsely'. Chopping lends a bite to these bars, you can use a food processor with a chopping blade attachment.

Add the 15 gm ghee and saffron to the dates, dump the chopped nuts too in the sticky mass and knead using your hands. The dates are soft enough to make a dough.

Now gather this date and nut dough and roll into a flat square the size of your baking pan. You would need a silpat sheet to roll out this date dough or use a parchment paper as you have to transfer this sheet on the baking tray later.

Now crush the vermicelli. Add the milk powder, 15 gm ghee and water (60 gm or just enough to make the vermicelli moist) and mix with your fingers well.

Spread half of this vermicelli mix on the base of the baking pan, now transfer the rolled out date and nut dough over the base and then cover it with the other half of the vermicelli mix.

Roll out the surface once again to press down the layers using a greased rolling pin.

Now bake at 170C for 20-25 minutes or till the vermicelli layer starts looking golden.

Take it out of the oven and remove the rim of the tray if it is a loose bottom tray or invert the tray over a wooden board quickly. Cut into squares and let the bars cool down.

Store in an airtight container. It stays well for 3-4 weeks at room temperature.

The taste of dates and nuts and the crunchy crust works really well for this dessert that is actually a finger snack too. Most Indian mithais are served like finger snacks and most of them are loaded with sugar. These dates and nuts bars can become one of those Indian yet healthy treats for family and friends, all the better because these can be stored just like our laddus and barfis.

Trust me these bars are filling too, just have one with a glass of full fat milk in the morning and see how full you feel. Overall quite calorie efficient for a dessert.

No I wont do the calorie count for them, but having a rough idea of the calories helps. If the calories consumed pack some nutrition it helps better.

Try these dates and nuts bars with kunafe crust, trust me you will be baking them frequently.

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palm fruit or Ice apple, one of the most exotic fruit | recipe of ice apple and mango creamy dessert fit for breakfast

Yes this would be the yummiest gluten free breakfast even if I don't tag it as the 101 gluten free breakfasts. After all it is made of fruits, milk and nuts. No added sugar for me please. Ice apples, ripe mangoes, cashew nuts and milk, these four ingredients can cast a spell in a bowl.

Ice apple or Palm fruits are in season right now and this peak of summer is the short span of time when they appear in markets of some Indian towns. Yes, these are seen only in some Indian towns although the Palm tree (Borassus flballifer) grows almost all over the country. Such a pity. But one of the reasons why it is not avaialble throughout the country could be the absence of the trained people who climb the Palm trees to pluck these and sell them after chopping off the hard shell these Ice apples are enclosed into.

Ice apples are the delicate jelly like endosperm of the Palm fruit (Borassus flabellifer) that is so flavourful one has to eat it to know what I mean. Not sweet like other fruits but mild cooling sweetness that quenches thirst like nothing else. The texture of this jelly like fruit feels almost watery when tender, and starts getting a bit chewy as it matures.

Ice apples are called Taal shash in Bengali, Nungu in Tamil, Thaati munjalu in Kannada Tad gola in Marathi and Tad phal in Hindi. I asked my father and he told that these fruits were once common in the north too but later these were considered fruits for the poor. What a pity. 

I spotted these Palm fruit sellers in Hyderabad 2 weeks ago and could not refrain myself from buying some every time I passed through this road. One has to choose the tender ones because the mature Ice apples are a bit chewy and less sweet. The tender Ice apples have a sweet watery fluid inside it's cavity and the flesh is jelly like.

One Palm fruit encloses three Ice apples (endosperm part of the fruit) inside and each one is enclosed in a thin soft peel. Nature's wonders.

These Palm fruit sellers are quite deft at chopping off the hard shell of the fruit and delicately sliding off the fruit (edible endosperm) into a poly bag. I wish they had leaf bowls to sell these.

But it is a delight to see these Palm fruit sellers do their job. I was wondering if they accidentally cut their own palm while handling such sharp knives on such hard fruits.

And to my shock I spotted this scar later when I was seeing the cell phone pictures I had clicked. This man had actually got a deep cut sometime in his early life may be.

This is how the husk looks like. This would make good manure after it decomposes.

I clicked these pictures while Nirupama, my friend in Hyderabad collected the Palm fruits in a poly bag. She was the one who asked the seller to give us the tender fruits.

We enjoyed the fruits once we reached Bhavana's place. Nirupama told that the creamy white and thin peel of the Ice apples is used to rub on skin to cure summer rashes, the prickly heat.

I asked a few more people if they cooked these Ice apples too or made salads or desserts with these but everyone said they eat them as is. In fact it is very difficult to save these fruits to cook something as everyone just loves eating them as soon as it arrives.

Later, on my way back to airport I asked the cab driver to stop for the 'Thaati munjalu' (telugu name for these) and he kept looking for them. Such a sweet fellow he stopped where a Palm fruit seller was sitting with a huge heap of these. He even asked him to cut only the tender fruits for me. And I got two dozen of these Ice apples packed into my handbag, though I feared these might be seized at the airport.
But thankfully, these are no arms :-)

Back home, both of us enjoyed the chilled Ice apples of Thaati munjalu to our heart's content. I shared a picture of facebook and friends came up with suggestions to have these with chilled milk. Intrigued, I searched the internet and found someone had blended the Ice apples with soaked cashew to make a payasam. I loved the idea as we both love cashew nuts a lot.

And there came our first Nungu payasam.

I made this one with soaked cashew nuts paste blended with reduced milk (evaporated milk) and added chopped tender Ice apples. This was heaven in a bowl when chilled.

Just a dozen soaked cashew nuts blended with a little milk, added to a cup of reduced milk and a cup of chopped Ice apples. I did not add any sugar and the flavours of ice apple in the natural sweetness of cashew and reduced milk was something we will keep craving till the next time we get Ice apples.

And the next day I added some chopped mangoes to the same mix to make Nungu Mango payasam, and had it chilled for breakfast. This is going to be one of the best breakfasts we ever had. We love fruits and we love milk, this combination of milk and fruits is going to be one of the most favourite thing we did.

Clicking pictures was difficult as I kept eating while I clicked and took just 3 pictures to document the recipe.

This Nungu Mango payasam has no such recipe again. A dozen soaked cashew nuts blended with little milk, added to a cup pf reduced evaporated) milk and then mixed with 3/4 cup of chopped Ice apples and 1 cup of chopped ripe mangoes. No added sugar and still so sweet and flavourful. 

No added sugar to kill the natural sweetness of these flavourful fruits.

And remember this dish can be served as a chilled dessert too, you might like to add just a hint of honey to it if you find it bland as per your 'dessert sense'. My dessert sense agrees with the natural sweetness of fruits.

So a larger serving of such a dessert for breakfast is a good idea for me.

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101 gluten free breakfasts | buckwheat banana scones (egg-less) with cinnamon chocolate chips

When bananas get overripe you bake banana bread and when you want something gluten free you bake a round loaf for buckwheat banana scones. Scones are similar to quick bread, a little dense and dry than a bread and a little moist than a biscuit. I have loads of buckwheat that needs to be used up soon so baking this buckwheat banana scones was an effort to do just that. The scones were a good idea because I have just too many little jars of home made fruit preserves that I keep making now and then. We liked these scones with pomegranate and rhododendron jelly but orange marmalade, plum jam, strawberry jam or mulberry jam will be as good.

It has been long time since I baked something for week day breakfasts, all baking I did for the recipe trials of the products I develop and that kind of work almost killed my desire to bake anymore for the two of us. And when I decided to bake this loaf for the scones I was reminded of the cinnamon chocolate chips Deeba had gifted me long time back. These were lying unused since I was not baking for ourselves at all, a little because of all the travel I did and also because I was just too busy with work. The cinnamon chocolate chips are a burst of flavours on the palate, I had never imagined these will be so good, even for someone who is not too fond of chocolate.

The rich cinnamon chocolate chips added a beautiful depth of flavours to the scones,  I added some flax seeds to make the scones softer as buckwheat tends to get a little dry when baked. Baking with buckwheat flour gives better results when banana and flax seeds are used if not eggs.

ingredients 
(for 8 medium sized scones)

buckwheat flour 220 gm (I ground buckwheat groats in mixie)
baking soda 1/2 tsp
butter 60 gm
banana 140 gm (2 medium bananas)
flax seeds powder 40 gm
chocolate chips 50 gm
mixed nuts chopped 50 gm ( I used almonds and walnuts)
salt 2 gm

procedure 

Mix baking soda with buckwheat flour and sieve a few times to mix well. Add cubes of cold butter and rub to make it look like breadcrumbs. Or run through a food processor to get this.

Now mash the bananas and mix with flax seeds meal. Add this to the flour mix and add the chopped nuts and chocolate chips. Take care if the chocolate chips are kept at room temperature in Indian summers, it may disintegrate in the dough, so refrigerate for better result.

Mix to make a tacky dough, the dough is very soft and sticks to fingers.

Prepare a baking tray lined with baking sheet. Make a loose ball of the whole dough and slap it on the baking tray. Flatten with your fingers to make a 2 cm thick round shape. Usually scones are cut into wedges at this time but since this dough is too sticky, we will do it after the baking is done.

Bake this round disc at 180C in preheated oven for 40 minutes. Check with a skewer and bake a little more if required. The surface gets a few pinkish brown patches this way, if you brown it a bit more it gets a little dry after baking. Buckwheat flour behaves a lot differently than regular flour.

Let the disc cool in the baking tray, it might break if you try to transfer on a wire rack while still hot.

Cut into wedges when cool and store refrigerated. Reheat and serve with honey or fruit preserves. The scones are not sweet even though there is banana in it, the flax seeds and buckwheat almost absorb all the sweetness of bananas. I would still recommend not using any sugar in the recipe, you can always slap on as much fruit preserve or honey as you want.

It makes a filling breakfast with milk or juice if you wish. I rarely eat sweet kind of breakfast and I did not eat these too. I am more into 'idli steamed in my bowl' these days, I need my kick of spices and salt to start the day. The same buckwheat is being used to make my idli too, it takes just 2 minutes to steam in the microwave when I have the batter ready. Will share that too soon.

But these scones and any such muffins/breakfast cakes or quick breads make my mornings more organised as I don't have to worry about making a separate breakfast for the husband. He loves anything that is slathered with honey or fruit preserves.

These scones are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee as well. Served with either clotted cream or fruit preserve it could be a mini meal or snack any time of the day.

I am planning to bake savoury scones with buckwheat. I have some nice herbs growing in the garden and some yellow cherry tomatoes too. It would be great if I could use some of these to bake some nice scones or muffins using these.

Till then bake some buckwheat banana scones.

I have been getting queries about where to get buckwheat in India. My first choice is Down to Earth for whole buckwheat and buckwheat flour but you do get buckwheat in khari baoli market (old Delhi) too and some grocery stores stock too. Although the availability of buckwheat is better during Navratri days as this is a fasting food.

This buckwheat banana scones recipe is also a fasting compatible recipe and can be consumed during navratri fasting. I have always considered that Navratri fasting was devised for healthy living and detoxing the body twice a year.

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baking with buckwheat : a buckwheat groats granola bar and a buckwheat flour and dates cookie | no added sugar

Healthy baking using alternative flours and natural sweeteners looks difficult for most bakers but many of them do it with ease. I think it is just about keeping your mind open and trying new flavours with real ingredients and not artificial flavouring agents and texture enhancers. I am here with another Wednesday post for Home Baker's Guild discussing buckwheat and amaranth as ingredients for baking a couple of healthy bars and cookies with no added sugar.

Baking a granola bar and a cookie with buckwheat this time as I have always noticed that most families consume a lot of biscuits every single day. Many people start the day with a biscuit or a rusk along with their tea or coffee and keep having a couple of different types of biscuits in between meals as snacks when they get bored or just to accompany a cup of tea. So much so that even kids are fed biscuits as meals when they refuse to eat regular food. This needs to change. One must bake some alternative dry snacks at home or try and get them made by local bakeries. Once the commercial establishments know what you are looking for, they would see a business opportunity in it and such snacks will be easily available.

Baking granola bar using fresh fruit pulp and buckwheat groats and some coarsely powdered almonds is really easy. One of those recipes where you just mix everything and spread on the baking sheet before pushing the tray into the oven. Adding some natural sugar is optional, I have added a spoonful of honey in this bar as we like mild sweet snacks and not too sugary. A little grated jaggery will be good to add if you want it more sweet.

It will be good to know a few properties of buckwheat if this grain (pseudo grain) is new for you. Cooking with buckwheat and it's flour can be tricky if you don't realise it can be a slimy goop when cooked, here are a few clever ways to cook and bake with buckwheat.

• Buckwheat groats get a little slimy when soaked or cooked with water, roasting them before adding water helps if you want the groats cooked separately in pulao like recipes.
• Whole buckwheat is more suited for roasting the grains first and then cooking it with water to get cooked plump buckwheat that can be seasoned or dressed like a pasta. One can soak the buckwheat and cook with some more water and a little butter to get a pulao, rice or pasta like texture.
• Buckwheat flour gets really slimy when made into a batter with water, milk or buttermilk. It almost behaves like flaxmeal slurry but this property is useful in baking egg less cakes and breads. This buckwheat English muffin recipe works well even when you want a bread that bakes on a skillet.
• Because of it's sliminess buckwheat flour has a good capacity to bind ingredients. This peoperty can be used to add loads of grated vegetables or fruits to make pancakes of sweet or savoury type.
• Do not add liquids if you are baking cookies with buckwheat. The dough would result in hard cookies. Use lightly moist dates or figs that help binding along with butter and make the cookie dough.

Note that you can make your own buckwheat groats or buckwheat flour if you have whole buckwheat. Just run through a coffee grinder or spice grinder of a mixie for a second and you get groats. Grind it for about 2 minutes and you get a white fine powder. Buckwheat is a soft seed that powders quickly.

ingredients 
(makes about 20 bars)

buckwheat groats 200 gm (or run the whole buckwheat in blender for a second and use)
almonds 200 gm (coarsely powdered)
Fresh apricots seeds removed 180 gm
honey 1 tbsp or a little more
nutmeg powder a pinch

procedure 

Pulp the apricots well along with the honey. You might want to use a little more honey of the apricots are tart.

Mix with the buckwheat groats and almond meal using hands and knead lightly to make a sticky dough. Adding the apricot pulp slowly works better, add a little more of the pulp if required as it depends on how ripe and juicy the apricots are.

Spread this mixture on silpat sheet or any nonstick baking sheet and pat to make a thin layer of the mixture (a little less than one cm). Use a flat spatula to keep the margins straight. Then mark the sheet to cut bars.

Bake in preheated oven at 160 C for 25 minutes. Take out the baking tray and invert the silpat on a large chopping board. Cut the bars as marked. Spread them again on the baking sheet and bake again on 150 C for 30 minutes or till they get firm and crunchy.

I have been working on many recipes of granola bars and cookies baked using alternative flours. Some are here on this blog and some more to come but the thing is, we rarely snack on these cookies and granola bars. These kind of cookies, bars and some roasted nuts are useful only when we travel to places where we have to trek or hike and carrying light weight dry food is convenient. At home we love to snack on fruits and some freshly cooked snacks like roasted nuts, a bowl of poha, jhal mudi or a sprouts chaat.

This granola bar using amaranth flour is also baked sometimes for everyday snacking.

Being ginger and jaggery rich, this amaranth bar is more suited for winters. Even the cookies with buckwheat that I am sharing now will be more suited for winters with war spicing. It would be great if you add bits of candied ginger ti the dough.

This cookie with buckwheat flour would surprise you in the way it looks and the way it tastes. Mildly spiced and pleasantly sweet and nutty, this cookie has not used any nuts in it. Add a little more butter to this cookie when baking for kids as with lesser butter (as in this recipe) the cookies are better suited for adults. Butter makes these cookies really crisp. Sticking some chopped nuts or poppy seeds on these cookies will make it more attractive for the kids as well.

This cookie dough is a very good base for tarts as well. Try that sometime to make gluten free fruit tarts for kids.

ingredients
(for 20 small cookies(
I am giving cup measurements as the battery of my kitchen weighing scale died as I was making it.

buckwheat flour 1 cup
good quality soft dates (not sticky ones) 18
butter 1/4 cup
clove powder 1 pinch
nutmeg powder 1 pinch
ginger powder 1/4th tsp

procedure

Chop the dates and remove seeds.
Place all ingredients in a blender and mix well till it resembles bread crumbs or is the consistency of a tart dough. If you take a spoonful of mixture and apply pressure, it binds well.

Make small balls of this mixture, flatten all of them and arrange on a baking sheet.

Bake in a preheated oven at 160 C for 25 minutes.

This cookie is dense but a nice nutty crunch with a hint of spice gives it a unique flavour. You might like to add some chopped dehydrated fruits like cranberries or candied peel to this cookie dough to make it more enjoyable for the kids. This is an easy almost 2 step recipe suitable for busy adults who bake in the night to save time. Yes I baked this cookie in the night.

You would know how tasty buckwheat can be if you use it the right way. There are many buckwheat recipes on my blog you can try once you start getting buckwheat in your pastry. Buckwheat has been used in our homes for centuries, more for fasting foods during navratri and other festivals.

So buckwheat is completely sattvic in vedic terms, tags like gluten free and low glycemic, high protein etc started being relevant only recently. And did you notice how apricots and dates make wonderful natural sweeteners?

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3 ways to use fresh peaches : a peaches and cream dessert, a salad and a salsa with peaches

What do you do when you have the freshest peaches possible, you eat some you let them soften in the fruit basket and make some yummy desserts and salad with them. I even make pasta with peaches. I have been bringing loads of fruits from my frequent visits to Dhanachuli, seasonal fruits freshly plucked from the orchards of fruit sellers themselves most of the times. I have been making jams and preserves for the friends and family as well but those I rarely eat myself. Sugar free fruit desserts and salads are more my type of fruit consumption.

This 'peaches and cream' dessert is actually fresh soft ripe peaches and coconut cream blended together with a hint of Litchi honey. Thats it. Coconut cream can make any dessert great I feel. Especially if you like the subtle sweetness in it and the way it infuses with the chosen fruit. I love mangoes too with coconut cream. This coconut and cream dessert is almost frozen as frozen peaches and coconut cream is used in it. But the ice crystals get emulsified well when you blend it really hard resulting in a silken texture of this peaches and cream dessert.

ingredients
(4 servings)

fully ripe peaches 2 large (or 300 gm)
coconut cream 200 ml (use coconut milk if cream is not available)
honey 1-2 tbsp as required
coconut flakes or chips (lightly dry roasted if you like) 1 tbsp or as required

procedure

Halve the peaches and peel the thin skin as you would peel the skin of parboiled tomatoes. Fully ripe softened peach would allow you to do that. Chop and freeze in a container. Freeze the coconut cream in an ice tray to make it easy to blend. Freeze both of these for at least 2 hours.

Empty both the contents into a heavy duty blender and blend till completely smooth and silky.

Scoop out the semi frozen peaches and cream dessert into glasses or mugs. I used these beautiful glasses from Borosil, just perfect for such a delicate dessert.

Sprinkle coconut flakes over the dessert and serve right away.

You can plan this dessert a day ahead and blend right after the meal so it can be enjoyed at the right temperature. You can always use your ice cream maker and serve as desired.

You can also make Popsicle with the same peaches and cream dessert if you wish. I don;t mind it even if it is a little softer or creamier.

A salad with peaches is also a great way to use up the plenty you have brought home. Aren't you just like me who gets greedy for fruits and buys a lot?

I have been making peach salads and peach pasta every season and this version of insalata caprese is quite a favourite at our place. Sometime we just like it with salt, pepper and torn basil but sometimes I drizzle some basil pesto in the salad or just drizzle some garlic and rosemary infused olive oil.

I have used fresh paneer cubes and fully ripe peeled peaches in this saald. Just chop the peaches in bite sized cubes and toss with paneer cubes and torn basil in a preferred dressing. Sometimes I replace basil with mint and sprinkle some chaat masala to give it an Indian punch.

Being lightly sweetened peaches make a good addition to salads and can replace tomatoes in many recipes. A peach salsa and peach sauce is also really good if you like to spread it over grilled meat or chicken.

Peach salsa salad has the potential to become your family favourite too. Arvind took this salsa in his lunch box twice this week and loved it. Although I have been making tomato salsa, mango salsa and kiwi salsa as well and he has loved all of them. At least some of our choices are similar.

The recipe of the peach salsa salad is really quick. Just cube about a cup of ripe peeled peaches, add 1/2 cup of cubed ripe mango, one ripe plum cubed or a few pomegranate seeds and toss with chopped onion, minced green chillies (as much heat as you like) and some herb of your choice. I love coriander greens and mint leaves in this salsa salad so I use them generously. Add some chopped tomatoes and some chopped cucumber if you wish and season with Himalayan pink salt (or any salt you like) and pepper powder. I added a pinch of dry ginger powder to make the taste deeper and loved it.

 We enjoyed the salsa with some potato papad (alu ke papad from Banaras, microwave roasted) and few multigrain crackers crusted with poppy seeds.

This salsa can be made hot or mild as per taste, you can refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving as it helps melding the flavours better. This lovely jar of salsa will keep enticing everyone as soon as it is served on the dining table. Keep loads of crackers handy for it.

This post is written for the second round of #mybeautifulfood contest organised by Indiblogger and Borosil. For me the food should be healthy first but making it beautiful is not that tough if you get a little creative and prepare the food with love. Serving ware helps a lot you see.

You can find more peach recipes on this blog.
This peach salad with rucola and feta cheese has been phenomenally popular with friends and family.
Peach salad with red cabbage and onions, nuts etc is one more recipe that I keep repeating.
This peach salad with mint has been a perennial favourite too.
I even make iced tea with peaches and basil seeds.
This pasta with peaches is something you must try. Basically you can replace peaches with tomatoes pretty much all the time or replace half the quantity of tomatoes with peaches. Try and see how you like it. And let me know if you did.

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