Rava Banana Cake

Quick & easy Rava (semolina) banana cake in Microwave!
Ingredients

1-2 tbsp Ghee / Unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup rava (bombay rava, which we use for making upma)
3/4 cup jaggery
3 bananas – ripe / medium sized
1 pack thick coconut milk – (Dabur’s coconut milk 200 ml pack)
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Method

1.Grease a microwave safe flat bowl with some ghee on your fingertips. Keep aside.
2.In a mixie, place the 3 peeled bananas with the jaggery / brown sugar, make a smooth paste and keep aside.
3.Heat the ghee in a heavy bottomed kadai, add the rava. On very low flame, constantly stir it around until it turns lightly golden. This part requires your full attention for 5-7 minutes and the slightest burnt rava will spoil the taste of the cake.
4.Once the rava turns in to light golden brown, turn flame to lowest possible, pour in the banana-jaggery paste, stir till it is nearly absorbed by the rava.
5. Meanwhile in a separate bowl, whisk the coconut milk, water, salt, baking powder, cardamom powder well and pour it into the rava mix in the wok. Stir well till ingredients are blended through.
6.Pour this mix into the greased microwave safe dish. Garnish with any nuts /dried fruits or candied fruit.
7.Microwave at 100% for 6 minutes. Check the degree to which the cake is cooked and then depending on that microwave at 80% for 2 minutes or so. Remove, cool and cut into squares /diamonds.
8. Serve warm.

Chocolate Brownies

It is very hard to resist yummy dark, fudgy chocolate brownies, whether it is served with a cup of hot coffee or with scoops of vanilla ice-cream. My son and my dear friend J will vouch for this along with me.

I used to drool for the choco brownies sold at Auroville and Fab India and my passion for the perfect eggless brownies has been finally perfected over time. This churns out the same every time and you can make this in a jiffy.

The preparation time is about 10 minutes and the cooking time is even more less – for microwave it is 7 minutes and in the oven it takes 15 minutes.

The use of demerara – the brown cane sugar imparts a natural flavour to this recipe. Demerara sugar is a type of unrefined sugar with a large grain and gives a crunchy and chewy texture to the brownies. It is much better than using powdered sugar.. (saves time too..). The cold milk is actually a substitute for eggs.

Enjoy the sizzling sinful brownies and forget about diets and calories.. Sometimes it makes sense to live to eat, rather than eat to live!

Ingredients

Maida – 1 cup
Demerara Sugar – 1 cup
Baking powder – ½ tsp
Unsalted butter – 3/4 cup
3 tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder
Vanilla Essence – 1 small tsp
Walnuts / cashewnuts – handful
Cold Milk – 1.5 cups
Hershey’s Choco syrup

1. Heat butter in a microwave bowl for 1.5 minutes. Take the melted butter and whisk in 3 tsp of cocoa powder, Keep it aside.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together - Maida, Sugar and baking powder. Add Vanilla essence, cold milk little by little and gently mix in the melted butter-cocoa mixture along with walnuts or cashew nuts.

3. Grease a baking pan and fold in this batter.

4. If you are using a microwave, use a microwave safe dish and bake it in high for the first five minutes and low for the rest 2 minutes. The brownie should be little moist while done in a microwave, and will still continue to cook in the standing time. Allow to cool.

5. If you are using a conventional oven, bake it for 15 minutes at 150 deg C.

6. Allow to cool before you invert in to a plate. Generously add Hershey’s choco syrup as a topping sauce so that it retains the chewy moisture and you can later cut in to squares.