Banana Carrot Oatmeal Muffin N Bread

Breakfast on weekdays sometimes sounds like a challenge to me. Most of the times I end up eating something sweet. I don't mean I eat it really sweet...but end up making pancakes, muffins, scones.....where a minimum amount of sweetness in the form of sugar is added to bring up the flavor. So since when I am making these kind of breakfast on the go's I need to substitute other ingredients with a wholesome healthy ingredients. So this muffin is one of the kind. I added almost all healthy ingredients, other than the sugar. Well even now I don't mean to say is sugar is completely bad for us...but it was under the recommended quantity, because the quantity mentioned below yields 12 muffins and I eat just one for breakfast, so this amount of sugar is not bad at all.

Wow....after writing and reading the above part of the post I feel lot better now. :) and I am happy that I incorporated ingredients like banana and oats (which I usually don't like to eat it as it is) into something healthy and would definitely make it again. :)

Note: Substitute 1/3 cup of Oil with Unsweetened Apple Sauce - I didn't have it so had to use oil instead. :(

Method:

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1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. In a mixing bowl add flour, oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

3. In another bowl mix in oil/applesauce, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, grated carrot, and mashed bananas, mix just until blended.

4. Combine dry and wet ingredients and fill greased muffin cups to make muffins or a loaf pan to make a bread.

5. Bake it for about 20 - 22 mins or until the top of the muffin/bread turns golden brown.

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Beet Donut with Beet Chocolate Honey Glaze - HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

What can you think of a special treat for valentine's day.....well I call it a "Pink Day" :) Because, from so many days I was planning to do these donuts, and kept on postponing it. Well now I believe that every single thing happens for a reason, and it will happen only when it is meant to be. :) Guess what, why am I jumping into some philosophy here.....he he. Let's not waste time, instead virtually enjoy these donuts. :)

As this is Valentine's Day, lets talk a little about the history behind this day.....

St. Valentine's day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. He was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire; during his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. Legend states that before his execution he wrote "from your Valentine" as a farewell to her. Today St. Valentine's Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion, as well as in the Lutheran Church.

The day first associated with romantic love when the tradition of country love flourished. By the 15th century,  it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards.

After all these we need to enjoy this beautiful day with a yummy treat......here you go!!

Note: These measurements are for a small portion, you can double it to make more donuts. :)

Method:
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1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cayenne.
3. In a food processor or mixer blender, puree the beets with milk.

4. Mix this puree to the flour mixture, stir in vanilla, butter and egg.
5. Line a baking sheet pan and spread the batter evenly.
6. Bake for about 8-11 mins, when touched, it should spring back up.

7. Now take a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut into shapes. I got the hollow shape by taking a bigger cookie cutter and in between had the smaller cookie cutter cut shapes.
8. Allow it to cool in a cooling rack.

Glaze:
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1. In a sauce pan add the beet puree, with milk, cook it again for more 20 mins, now add the honey and cook it until it thickens a bit.
2. Now add butter and dark chocolate chips, off the flame and keep stirring until the chocolate melts.

3. Allow it to cool a bit.
4. Now layer this chocolate beet glaze over the heart shaped donut. and cool it completely until the chocolate hardens a bit.

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BON BONS with Dark Chocolate Cake and Beets (NO Oil/Butter)

WOW! Bon Bons....it was new to me just before I tasted it at one of my friends house. Thinking about the name itself makes my mouth water. I should describe these cute little balls as a mouth full of goodness, chocolaty and a new version around the cake. :))

When my friend told about this bon bon....I could not visualize the exact thing in my mind...so I started looking up in the internet....gosh when I did...I could not resist until I tasted one and obviously could not stop after one LOL!!!.

So I thought of sharing some information for those who didn't know as I did.... :)) So here it is.....

 BonBons / Bon-Bon refers to any of several types of sweets, especially small candies en-robed in chocolate.

So "Bon" means "Good" in French and other several European languages.

I made the chocolate cake with a dark chocolate moist cake mix and obviously wanted to keep it healthy and replace as much as fat from the boxed instructions, because I am sure that I will not stop with one and neither my son would....so have to watch what I doing and still eat it as much as I want to. :) So I replaced the amount of oil the recipe called for, with grated beets and, for making the chocolate coating/dip and as well as the chocolate frosting, I used only dark chocolate. The other final thing I did is that I made few variety toppings like few with sprinkles, few with cocoa powder and few with nuts (pecans).You can use any kind of nuts or any kinda decoration you want. These look very pretty and tastes awesome even without any topping over it, because u will not get time to think so much!

OK, now that I have just talked so much about these bon bons, you might be wondering is there a recipe at all?? he he....well here it is....I adapted this recipe from Betty Crocker's Holiday Cake Bon Bons recipe.

Ingredients:
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1 box Betty Crocker Super Moist Cake Mix ( I used dark chocolate)
Note: Water, Grated Beets (equal to the amount of Oil mentioned), and eggs called for on cake mix box
Note: I used grated beets instead of oil, you can use even unsweetened apple sauce.
1 container Rich & Creamy Dark Chocolate Frosting
3 oz Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Chips

Method:
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1. Heat oven to 350F, Spray bottom of a cake pan with baking spray with flour.
2. Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box, using water, grated beets (instead of oil) and eggs. Mix until blended.

3. Pour into cake pan and bake it for about 30-33 mins or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool it for 5 - 10 mins.
4. In a large mixing bowl, crumble the warm cake, stir int he frosting until well blended and refrigerate it for about 1-2 hrs.

5. Using a melon scoop, scoop out the mixture and shape into balls. (If mixture is too sticky, refregerate until firm enough to shape.) and arrange them in a plate so that they don't stick to each other.
6. Now freeze these balls for about 30 mins.

7. In a microwaveable bowl add the chocolate chips and first microwave it for about 20 secs and then with a wooden spoon or fork mix it. Then again melt it for more 20 secs. Then again stir it. Repeat this step until the chocolate chips are almost melted.

8. Now on the stove place a sauce pan with 1/2 of it filled with water and heat the water up. Make sure the sauce pan is is bigger than the microwavable bowl.
9. Now place the bowl in b/w and be careful that water does not go into the chocolate bowl. Now reduce the heat to the lowest possible.

Note: We have to make sure that the chocolate is melted as long as we dip all the balls into it, until we finish making all the bon bons.
10. Now with the help of a tooth pick, prick the bon bons and gently dip the balls into the chocolate mixture and then coat all it all over and just shake off the excess and place it on a wire rack, lined with another cookie sheet in the bottom so that the extra chocolate drip off.

11. Since the chocolate balls are already frozen n cold, the warm melted chocolate will harden as soon as it is coated.
12. Now as fast as you can, after placing the chocolate coated bon bons on the wire rack, sprinkle with your choice of spinkles, or coat with nuts. I did few with sprinkles, nuts and cocoa powder.

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Cocoa Cake with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Cinnamon Frosting

I wanted to do something different for my Halloween Event, had lot of things in mind, but could not accomplish all because of the time crunch and in weekdays I get much tired and loose interest in experiments too much. So I kept it simple, but tried to include the ingredients related to my event and as always keep in mind to use healthy alternative on ingredients. Well I hope I accomplished it with the recipe, but by the time I made this and waited on the cake to cool down to decorate with frosting, it was night and could not do well on the pictures. But anyways something is better than nothing right ?? :)

Ingredients:

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Method:

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1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In a mixing bowl add the dry ingredients and mix them with a whisk.

3. In another mixing bowl with a hand mixer blend all the wet ingredients.

4. Now add the dry ingredients to the wet and blend it slowly or until mixed.

5. You can either fill this mixture in a a cup cake pan to make cup cakes or in a baking pan to make cake. I used the baking pan and baked it as a cake.

6. If the batter is used to make cup cakes it will make about 6 cup cakes and will make a medium sized cake.

7. I topped it with walnuts, you can choose any kind of nuts or keep it optional.

8. Bake the cake for about 20 - 25 mins or until done.

9. Allow it to cool and then decorate with the frosting.

Method:

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1. In a bowl add all the ingredients, and with a hand mixer blend all the ingredients well.

2. Refrigerate it until the cake is done and cooled.

3. Now pipe the frosting on to the cake with any design of your choice or just spread it over the cake or cupcake.

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