Sunday breakfast With Apple Streusel muffins

So after my doubts on the cupcake vs muffin debate, I decide to make some good ole hearty and nutritous muffins. These are healthy, breakfast muffins with a wonderful texture.

I sometimes carry some muesli bars (granola bars for the Americans) to work for those hunger pangs in the evenings. These muffins are a wonderful, light and delicious replacement for them I must say. Of course I should mention that I made only half a dozen as part of our

Sunday breakfast. But as they were finished in almost no time, I actually made another batch the very next day! I think I could add even more apples to this batter because the moist apples along with all the cake is such a wonderful combination.

Apple Streusel Muffins

1-1/3 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup rolled oats ground to a powder

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1-1/3 cups chopped peeled apples

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

For the Topping:

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

In a food processor, add 1/2 a cup of rolled oats, and blitz them so they become a powder. You could use oat bran if you can find it. Or, use the Quaker Oats quick cooking variety if it is available in your country.

Sift together the dry ingredients into a large bowl. In a seperate bowl, whisk together the egg, oil and milk. Pour over the wet ingredients into the dry, and quickly mix to combine. As always, do not overmix - it should be just enough so it all moistened.

The topping is a wonderful addition to these muffins. They give it a wonderful texture and bite. Try not to miss it. We liked it so much that I even used the same topping for a banana bread I made the other day.
Bake it at 400 degrees F for 25 minutes or so.

This makes for a wonderful snack and also for a breakfast on the go. Try it, and let me know how you find it :-)

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Orange, Almond and Fennel cookies

Our vacation was almost 2 weeks ago, and I am already hoping we had another one! You know the first thing I did the day I returned to work? There were some 1500 e-mails staring at me, and my colleagues had already given me a low down on the umpteen number of items waiting for my attention! I looked for the holiday calender, and counted the number of days to the next long weekend! :-)
We were spoilt my our moms and grandmoms! I was off my usual "Eat healthy" ramble, and made sure I ate everything that is deep-fried, unhealthy and fatty. As long it tasted great, I was fine!

So coming home was a bit of a wake-up. These cookies are a healthy version - it uses whole wheat flour, and some oil. Here is the recipe - inspired from Sunita's post



2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tblsp of ground almonds
1 tsp of ground fennel seeds
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tblsp of orange zest
5 tblsp of sunflower or vegetable oil
5 tblsp of icing sugar
1/2 C of milk

Some slivered almonds, and fennel seeds for topping.
Mix together the flour, soda, almonds, icing sugar, orange zest, powdered fennel with your fingers until they resemble fine crumbs.
Mix together the milk and oil. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and tip in the milk mixture.
Fold in quickly, with a rubber spatula or fingertips, till just mixed.
Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven at 180 deg c and line a baking tray.
With slightly damp hands, make 25 balls of the dough and arrange them on the tray, a little apart from each other. Flatten the balls a little with the fingertips and press an almond sliver on top. I placed fennel seeds as well - to kind of make a face, but a lot of them fell off :-(
Place the tray in the centre of the pre heated oven and bake for about 22-25 minutes or till the tops are light golden.
Cool on the tray for a couple of seconds and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Reminder - The DMBLGIT for February 2010 is currently on. Please send me your entries Share

Healthy whole wheat and oatmeal cookies

It is only on weekends that you can have the luxury of having warm, freshly baked, straight from the oven cookies with your evening tea(or coffee). I was in the mood for some chocolate chip ones, but they usually demand such a lot of butter that sometimes just the thought of pouring that amount of butter puts me off. Surely I would happily eat it up of I were to see it with my lunch at Subway or with a Starbucks'-so-called-espresso ;)

So I made up a batch of cookies. And guess the ingredients. Let me give you some clues. Its healthy. Its light. I'd happily eat them up for breakfast. All of'em.



So heres how its made. And this is not my recipe. I took it from the Whole Grain gourmet website with a few changes(http://wholegraingourmet.com/recipes/43-cookies/75-healthy-steel-cut-oatmeal-cookies.html).

1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup Steel cut Oats. You could add more but I didnt want it to be too oat-y.
1/4 tspn baking soda,
1 tspn baking powder
a pinch of salt, a tablespoon vanilla sugar(or vanilla essence if you have), a tablespoon cinnamon, 1/2 tablespoon cardamom powder.
a few chopped almonds. Walnuts would be better I guess, but I didnt have them on hand
Half a bar of 70% chocolate that I chopped up.

Then it is as simple as mixing it all up, and dropping my the tablespoon fulls on the cookie sheet. Bake it on 375 for 15 minutes. Share

Blueberry and peach Clafoutis

Clafoutis. No not 'klafootis', but its French so pronounce it 'klafutee'. Doesnt it sound beautiful, chic and sort of romantic? Actually all of French is so poshly romantic. I mean the language :). Oh and Paris too. Chic haute cuisine par excellence. Its all French. But the French fries are in no way french. They wouldnt give the fries a name so bland. I thought it must be an American version. A bit of googling later - its Belgian. The Swiss dont bother crediting any country though - we here simply call it Pommes Frites - meaning potato fries. Simple.

Today I wasnt in the mood to make crepes for breakfast. But was looking for something sweet and easy. And have the 3 buzzwords I look for in a recipe - nutritious, easy and tasty.

Clafoutis is a dessert, sort of like a baked custard traditionally made with cherries, but then who'd bother with pitting all the cherries. I used whole wheat flour, blueberries and peaches in my version. Herez how I made it


1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
1 and 1/4 cup whole milk
3 eggs
About a cup of blueberries
1 peach.
and of course the usual pinch of salt and vanilla essence. For some reason we dont get vanilla extract in bottles here in Switzerland the way it is available the world over (that, and packed brown sugar too ..sigh..). So I either use a table spoon of vanilla sugar instead or a vanilla bean.
And about a cup of blueberries, and 1 peach.

Mix up flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, milk and salt. Whisk it a bit. Add eggs. Whisk again. And you're almost there. Cut the peaches, wash the blueberries. Butter the pan nicely till the edges coz its going to puff up. Layer the fruit, pour over the batter. Bake for about 40 minutes in a 350 oven. C'est magnifique !

P.S. - I cant but resist sharing this snippet I read somewhere
Q :Why is it good to be French?
A : You can surrender at the beginning of the war, and the U.S. will win it for you. Share