Category: Desserts

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Eggless

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Eggless is a delicious crumbly, creamy cookie that I baked for a bake sale at my daughter’s  school for charity fund raiser. Occasions like this, gives me a chance to try out something new also, so I too look forward to such bakes sales where home made treats are greatly appreciated by the ever hungry teenage crowd. The cookies were sold in a very short time, which shows how appealing the creamy peanut butter look was atop a chocolate base!

The texture was firm to hold but on biting, it just crumbled in the mouth. The saltiness of the peanut butter giving an edge to the chocolate flavour. I am glad I chanced upon this recipe in the Southern Living, and had to adapt it make it eggless as well as experiment with milk chocolate and dark bittersweet chocolate toppings!

Of the two topping choices, my personal favourite is the dark bittersweet one, however the kids preferred the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Base topping as it gives a creamy depth and a nice contrast to the chocolate base of the cookie. The amount of peanut butter is just right and blends in well, giving a rich, nutty flavour to this awesome Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Eggless, and people will  often ask you how come the cookies are so soft , yet eggless? Answer is simple – it’s gotta a lot of butter!!! So go nuts, like we did, about these Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies that remained soft even after a day!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Eggless

Time to  Prep 25 min

Time to Cook 20

Ingredients

[shopeat_button]

For the chocolate peanut butter cookies eggless

• 1 2/3 cup self raising flour preferable, otherwise all purpose flour (King Arthur Brand)
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup fine sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 11/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup water

For the peanut butter topping

• 1/2 cup peanut butter (plus 2 tbsp extra peanut butter, if using bittersweet chocolate)
• 2 tbsp butter softened
• 4 oz milk chocolate bar or bittersweet chocolate bar
• 1/2 cup icing sugar if using milk chocolate
• 1 cup icing sugar if using bittersweet chocolate
• 4 tbsp whole milk

Method

For the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Eggless

• Beat the unsalted butter for about 5 minutes using hand blender or in the electric mixer.

• Add brown sugar and fine sugar to the butter and beat for 3 minutes more.

• Sieve the flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder together and mix well.

• Gently fold in/add in mixed flour to the beaten butter sugar.
• Add in the vanilla essence and water and bind into a dough either in the electric mixer or by hand.

• Divide the dough into 30 round balls.
• Line two baking tray with parchment paper.
• Lay the round balls half an inch apart on the baking tray.

• Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees in convection and 350 degrees in regular oven
• Lay the baking trays on the 2nd and 4th rack if you have options, or at the middle and low racks.
• After 6 minutes, flip the positions of tray from top- bottom and vice versa and also turn the tray from front to back.
• Bake for 7 minutes and remove from the oven.

• Cool the cookie rack for 5 minutes.
• Top it with peanut butter topping  and store the chocolate peanut butter cookies in an airtight container.

To make Peanut Butter Topping

• Heat the chocolate in a bowl for 30-45  seconds, stir and heat again for 30 seconds.
• Stir the chocolate so that it is all melted and mixed well.
• Add this melted chocolate with all the other ingredients and beat for 3 minutes.

• Using an icing nozzle,  decorate the cookies with the above peanut butter topping. The below picture is with dark bittersweet chocolate peanut butter topping.

TIps

Use a star nozzle for the wavy look on the topping,

If the icing does not drop well, add 1/2 tbsp water.

Sieving the icing sugar before use, will give the toppings a smooth texture.

Taste the cookie dough for sweetness and peanut butter flavour level before baking

Replace brown sugar with 3/4 cup white sugar, but using brown sugar will make the cookies more moist.

Instinct Factor

Cookie Dough should be pliable and soft, but should hold its shape.

If  it is extremely round after 13 minutes of baking continue for 1-2 minutes,  paying close watch to cookies

The cookies should  be soft to touch when just out of the oven and using a self raising flour from King Arthur’s brand will make it stay soft, even after a day!

Feel Factor

Yum!!! Peanut butter is a nutty flavour that has slight salty taste to it and the texture of the topping  is extremely creamy. Chocolate is another weakness of mine, so when both the great flavours of chocolate and peanut butter are combined, the result is quite delicious!!  Creating an eggless recipe from an egg based recipe, by relying on one’s instinct, is quite satisfying for sure! Specially when the final result  is a great looking cookie with highly appealing and inviting topping! Enjoy this unique flavour of chocolate and peanut butter combination in Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Eggless that will melt in your mouth!

Happy New Year folks with a sweet delectable Eggless Fresh Orange Ice Cream with Zest!  Its 2016, or shall we say sweet 16 of the 20th century?!! Recently we travelled to Australia for my daughter’s 16th birthday celebration gift and she loved it over there and so did her mom!!! We fell in love with Melbourne, a place I briefly lived in the past and still today is known as the most livable city in the world!  Melbourne has so much to offer, a great work life balance, aa positive approach for tourists, its lovely Central Business District and not to mention that it is  the Cultural, Food and Sports Capital of Australia. Shopping, Climate, Food, Fun all get top marks in this lovely city of a lovely continent country called Australia!

For a foodie like me, a place that has excellent vegetarian food is of utmost priority, and I was so happy to get another chance to eat our favorite Focaccia Bread Sandwiches at DeGraves St, and just eating any meal in Melbourne, was far tastier because of the quality of its ingredients. Australia has higher quality control  and also I believe that the Australian soil still has its nutrients to make simple cabbage, tomatoes, lettuce, avocados taste way sweeter than organic stuff in USA!

There are many many cuisines available in Melbourne, as it is the food capital and one such restaurant was MoMo under Grand Hyatt, a high end restaurant. Its one time prestigious chef Greg Malouf, now relocated I believe to Dubai, once served an orange ice cream, and I found a recipe inspired by this chef’s recipe on the web, which again I had to fine tune , to be rewarded with a highly fresh, delectable Eggless Fresh Orange Ice cream with Zest.

Oranges are one of my favorite fruits, and I had made this ice cream over my birthday, as I like tangy flavour and I wanted to experiment with zest. I love the orange color, the flavour of fresh orange juice in a rich creamy texture of ice cream! I had it again today after two months and the taste is still fresh as ever, and the color of the ice cream has turned even more orange, as the molecules break in!.

The freshness of the new year, new day, new beginning can be related to the fresh feeling one gets when eating this Eggless Fresh Orange Ice cream with Zest. It is one cooling, sweet, refreshing ice cream that is so playfully colorful that a relative of mine, requested this recipe, so here it is, a sweet beginning for all of you with this ice cream recipe as the the opening recipe for a sweet and HAPPY 2016!!

Recipe makes 1 quart

Time to make : 40 min

Chilling time : 36 hours

Ingredients

• 2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/2 cup of fresh orange juice
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp grated zest of fresh oranges
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder(optional)

Cones for serving (optional)

Method

• In a pan boil, milk, sugar, orange juice, vanilla essence and 1 1/2 tbsp zest on a slow flame.
• Remove from flame and cool it for about half an hour or so, till no longer warm.

• Put the heavy cream and the boiled mixture in the ice cream maker.
• Churn for about 30 minutes, till the texture is firm,

• Add the remaining zest and churn for another 3-4 min.
• Remove the ice cream and put it to freeze.

• Freeze for at least 36 hours if you can or minimum 24 hours.

• Serve with toppings of your choice.

Tips

Using full fat milk and heavy cream will ensure a nice richness to the ice cream

Using freshly squeezed orange juice will have the extra edge,  as compared to ready made juice.

Always check the sugar level before freezing, as you can always add mix in some more if needed.

Instinct Factor

If the ice cream maker does not firm the ice cream, it could be that the ice cream maker container, needs to be freezed for another couple of days, before making it. I normally keep the empty container always in my refrigerator, so that it is always chilled enough to get a great texture on the ice cream.

As the days pass, the ice cream will get more orange in color!

Feel Factor

A perfect way to give a big  shout out to someone’s birthday or to just uplift your mood with this homemade delectable ice cream! Tasty, delicious, refreshing, wanna more, colorful, tangy, and a yummy start to 2016 with this Eggless Fresh Orange Ice cream with Zest! Its zest of the oranges that gives the refreshing tone to this great ice cream!

A happy moment to celebrate as a new ICE RINK is coming soon this winter in our neighbourhood!! Looking forward to some bad falls but an overall highly enjoyable time in the upcoming  winter. So here am I , welcoming the ICE Rink with Chocolate ICE Cream- the no age bar flavour in my view!! I recently made this in India and was well appreciated out there, so here is the recipe for folks back home too!

This  is a single step recipe  and is extremely easy and less time consuming and results in a professional finish and taste! Cannot go wrong with this one, so enjoy happy and low moments with frequent scoops of eggless chocolate ice cream and try tempting toppings, such as sea salt almonds. dark chocolate with salt, toasted coconut chips or even marshmallows!

Have a choco filled winter this year!

Recipe makes  1 quart of eggless ice cream

Ingredients

• 1 cup full fat milk chilled
• 2 cups full fat half cream chilled
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar

Method

• Mix in all the ingredients into an ice cream maker and mix in for 25-30 min, till a firm consistency is reached.

• Let the ice cream set in for 8 hours minimum, best result after 15-20 hours.

• Top it with variety of toppings and enjoy!

 Tips

If you have the time, it would help to blend everything with an immersion blender and then pour it into the ice cream maker. This way you will have extremely smooth finish,

Always put milk first,  into the container, then all the ingredients.

Ensure that cream milk and container are well chilled,

Instinct Factor

You can variate different chocolate flavours, by melting some chocolate bars and then remixing them into the ice cream mix, In that case cocoa powder can be omitted or you can go combination of both

if you like it sweet, increase the white sugar to 3/4 cups too.

Feel Factor

Eggless Chocolate Recipe is a one step recipe, that is the easy and simple to make and can be on par  commercially sold! Love the taste, love the finish and love the fact that it is like magic- throw in the ingredients and voila!- A delicious chocolate ice cream all for you!! The taste is rich, dense, and not too sweet and healthier too, without any preservatives. An all time favourite for the family!!

Time for some dessert today!!  Roger Federer meets Novak Djokovic at the US Open!!May the best win and we celebrate with the Eggless Red Plum Ice Cream with a hint of cinnamon. Other reason for it being an important day, as when you read the doctrine of Kalpasutra during Paryushan, you come to the chapter of Bhagwan Mahavir’s birth on the fifth day of Paryushan, and major celebration happens amongst Shwetamber Jains.

I thought of sharing the dessert that I recently made in India. The idea was to see if I can recreate the ice cream flavour as in USA. with Indian ingredients, and without the use of an ice cream maker. At the time of my visit, the red plums were in season and were extremely juicy and sweet, so wanted to explore a whole new flavour of plum ice cream, and at the same time my mother was experimenting making a plum jam!!

I was happy with the flavour of plum ice cream, to which I added some cinnamon powder, as just wanted a hint of haunting sweetness to the ice cream. The Indian ingredients of Amul cream worked well, and the texture of the ice cream was not as fluffy as when using an ice cream maker, but still very good , as the taste of fresh homemade ice creams is parallel to some of the best ice creams commercially available in India.

The tanginess of plum and the color of the red/pink amongst the white base was pleasing, so a hint of tanginess, warmth of the red and spice of cinnamon added the needed depth to this ice cream. If you are not fond of cinnamon, then one can skip this and add a bit more of sugar.  To top the flavour I added my mother’s extra delicious plum jam to add bit more of color, texture and needed sweetness. You need to have a bit of adventurous gene in you to try this combination, so give it a shot and enjoy this Eggless Red Plum Ice Cream with Cinnamon!

Recipe makes 1 quart of ice cream

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream with full fat ( Amul Full Fat Cream for India)

• 1 cup full fat milk
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
• 1 and 1/4 cup chopped red plum

Method

• Blend the chopped plums into a puree.
• Mix the plum puree, essence, sugar, heavy cream, milk and cinnamon powder.

• Using a double blender or whisk, continue mixing on high speed for 30 minutes or so.

• Add 1/4 cup of chopped plum in very small pieces to the ice cream mix and set to freeze for at least 8-10 hours.

• Server chilled and top it with a plum jam, raspberry jam or any toppings of your choice.

Tips

Low fat milk will  not be easy to work with here.

Taste the mixture before setting to freeze and sugar level has to be adjusted depending on the sourness of plums

Instinct Factor

Its instinct that led to this flavour, so let that be your guiding light!

Once can also variate this with black plum, Italian Jacket Red plums to their liking.

Feel Factor
Experiment and create new flavours for the fun of it! Eggless Red Plum Ice cream with Cinnamon is a flavour I liked and was happy to successfully make ice cream at home in India

Summer is here, and so is the delicious season, if I may say so, of eating ice creams!! At least more prominent in families living in tropical climates, who turn to cold things to beat the heat. Banana Chocolate Chip Eggless Ice Cream is an eclectic flavour in my view, as the whole process of making this ice cream makes you feel like you just earned a feather in your cap!!

Very very likely, that this ice cream will have everyone go nuts over it, besides the monkeys, if they had the chance to taste it! I like the chocolate combination with banana and you can even top it with some roasted walnuts, as they go well with this combination.

The texture is creamy, with just the right level of banana taste and cocoa flavour. If you have access to sugar cones or waffle cones, readily available in grocery chain stores in USA, you truly can enjoy a fantastic ice cream experience in your own home!

So enjoy the process of making this ice cream as you relish the end result of a yummy delicious Banana Chocolate Chip Eggless Ice cream flavour, and also do check out the health benefits of eating bananas regularly at http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/25-powerful-reasons-to-eat-bananas. This article will also motivate you to go through the extra steps and elaborate process  and making this ice cream more rewarding too!

Recipe makes about 1 quart of ice cream

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract ( 1 1/2 tsp if not using vanilla bean)
• 1 whole vanilla bean- halved and scraped
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar ( or 1 cup sugar if no brown sugar)
• 2 large bannanas, cut into inch size
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/3  cup bitter sweet chocolate chips or 2 oz of bitter sweet chocolate
• 3 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup chopped and roasted small walnut pieces ( optional)

Method

• On a slow flame, put the heavy cream, milk, vanilla essence, vanilla bean, to boil. Remove from flame, as soon as it comes to boil. And let the mixture sit for about 30-45 min.

• In a shallow thick pan bring the sugar and water to heat, and keep stirring. Add the butter, as the sugar melts. Add the chopped bananas to this, as soon as the butter melts, and cook for 3-4 min, till the bananas soften, and you can smell the sweet fragrance of cooked banana in melted sugar. You should have some sugar syrup which needs to be separated from banana, by using a slotted spoon if possible

• Pour the lemon juice on the cooked bananas and add it to the cooled mixture of heavy cream and milk.

• Remove the vanilla pod, and blend the bananas into the mixture, if the bananas are not totally soft. Blending will also help in integrating the banana flavour well into the ice cream mixture. Refrigerate this overnight or at least 4- 5 hours before putting it in the ice cream maker.
• After its well chilled, put into ice cream mix and churn for at least 20-25 min, till there is no liquid left to churn.

• While the ice cream is being churned, melt the chocolate in a double boiler . Or put the chocolates in a bowl for 5-7 min, over the lid of a pan of boiling water
• Add this when the ice cream is almost done, and after a few minutes, add the extra sugar syrup, retained from the cooked bananas.
• If the sugar syrup is very lumpy thin it by adding a tsp of water.
• Chill the ice cream to set for about 7-8 hours.

• Garnish it with roasted walnut chips if you want extra crunchy feel atop the ice cream.

TIps

Do taste the ice cream mixture before starting to churn, for the sweetness. Extra sugar can also be added while the ice cream is being churned, Sweetness will also vary according to the sweetness of bananas, hence this is a vital step.

if you do not prefer creamier taste in ice cream, add 1/2 cup of milk extra, with extra sugar, if needed.

Readers residing in India, need to halve the sugar measurement-so do make a note of that.

Instinct Factor

If the bananas are not nicely caramelized in look, need not worry, as everything gets ultimately blended into the ice cream. Variate the topping with some roasted almond slices or coconut slices to give extra edge to an incredibly tasty ice cream.

Feel Factor

In a word, just YUM, coupled with a feeling of accomplishment, once you find a comfort level in making this ice cream. It sounds a little laborious, but the results are well worth the time, as mostly these ice creams in the store do contain eggs, and here you have it made fresh at home with the best of the ingredients. The bitter sweet chocolate and brown sugar add extra depth to the ice cream flavour making the Banana Chocolate Chip Eggless Ice Cream  a rich dessert.