Cajun-Basil Eggless Cheese Muffins

A good Savoury Muffin recipe that is vegetarian, easy to make and tasty has been eluding me for long now. One recipe gave me really tasty ones but they got really stuck to the liners :( The second time around, the flavours were mild and they popped out of the muffin pan in a breeze but then the baking soda left a vague bitter aftertaste which was more pronounced as the muffins cooled... Farrukh has a lovely blog on http://www.cubesnjuliennes.com/. I have tried some of her bakes before, not only are they amazing, but you have to see the pictures to believe it. She had published a wonderful recipe of cheesy-chive muffins that were eggless and I wanted to try it out. What I did was I stuck to the basic flour-fat-liquid proportions from her recipe and changed the flavours to the ones I had available in my pantry.

My adapted recipe goes like this... INGREDIENTS:- 110 gms. maida 50 gms. butter, softened ½ cup, curd (I used the set dahi curd) 80 ml. milk ½ tsp. baking soda 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh Basil 1 tbsp chilli Flakes 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder 1/2 of pickled Jalapeno (seeds removed and chopped fine) 1/2 tbsp. sugar 6-8 black olives chopped fine 1/2 tablespoon tomato Ketchup 1 tsp. Cajun seasoning 2 tablespoons cheddar cheese (grated) ½ tsp, salt Cheddar cheese, grated, as required for topping Method: This recipe yields 6 medium muffins... Pre-heat the oven at 170 degrees, grease the muffin pan. In bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, cajun seasoning, garlic powder and chilli flakes. In another bowl, mix together butter, jalapenos, olives, cheddar cheese, basil, curd, tomato ketchup. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk, mix until combined well Add remaining half of the flour mixture and remaining milk, mix until combined well (do not over mix, work with a light hand else you get rubbery muffins) Fill the muffin pan with the batter upto 2/3. Top with some grated cheddar cheese. Note: These muffins do not rise much Bake them in pre-heated oven for 15 minutes. Take out and cool. Serve them warm with more ketchup :) if your palette is anything like my kids' Enjoy....

Focaccia Caprese

New year brings new beginnings they say and mine will be to blog regularly about the recipes I try out in the kitchen regularly. I am kinda de cluttering my life and putting blogging high up on my priority list :) so those of my friends who have been asking me when the next post is coming up. Here it is. I have joined a fabulous bread baking group started by Aparna that's called We Knead to Bake. She gives out a tested and a fabulous recipe every month and we need to bake along. There is nothing like a gang of virtual bakers egging you on to try bread recipes and they are so helpful in sharing tips and tricks and the finer nuances of bread baking. I love baking breads and think that breads for snacks are definitely a healthier option. I haven't tried out very complicated ones like croissants yet but have come a long way since my first foray some 2 years back. More about the recipe now....There are loads of variations in focaccia like plain, herbed, topped etc and this is the first time I am trying a recipe that has a lot of toppings along with a flavoured oil drizzle. I think that's the secret of keeping this bread moist and bursting with flavour. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.mydiversekitchen.com/2014/01/we-knead-to-bake-13-focaccia-caprese.html I did not make any changes to the recipe. Just added some black olives to the other topping ingredients. Fresh Mozzarella definitely makes this bread special. Do try to bake with this cheese but ensure that the cheese is well drained else the top becomes soggy. So without rambling on any further, here is my version of the Focaccia Caperese.

The bread is light and moist. Its best consumed immediately after baking. The bread was being baked in the oven when my daughter came back home from school. One sniff and she guessed that a 'yummy bread' was being baked :) Note: I use my KitchenAid stand mixer to knead the dough but you should be able to achive good results by hand too. If you are using KA then it takes just about 7-8 minutes for mixing and kneading the dough. Substitute with mozzarella if you cannot find the fresh one. You need about 1/2 cup of oil for the entire recipe (1/4 cup of flavoured oil and 1/4 cup plain) but what I did was used herbs and seasoning to the half cup of oil to OD the flavour. Try it and let me know if it worked for you too...