RAGI & OATS DRY FRUIT CAKE

With a lockdown in force and all activity on the back burner, the instinct is to turn to the next best thing – food !

A recent cartoon was floating around suggesting that the highest job application after the Covid19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown would be for Master Chef Australia … Maybe I should apply too!!

I took to cooking and baking very early in life. I still remember using the square black oven we placed directly onto the stovetop to bake a cake! Those were the days when special baking tools and egg beaters weren't available but the cakes still turned out fine. All the effort of manual labour and the sweat that went into the baking seemed to be worth it !

Cooking is an art they say and as my mother always used to say, it’s your love for the food and family that shapes your creations. And it’s true – always carry happy thoughts in your mind when you cook or bake and you will see the difference in the final result! 

So now after so many years of learning how to cook delectable food for family and friends I have ventured, at their insistence into blog writing.

So it's at Ku king that I am going to share my cooking experiences and my special recipes with you - so why not begin with kuch mitha aur woh bhi healthy!

This Raagi Cake recipe I am sharing with you today was something I came up with while I was making Sooji Halwa for my granddaughter Anahita. The one and a half year old wasn’t particularly relishing the same semi-solid Sooji Halwa given to her every day. I, therefore, owe this idea to her as it made me think of making something different, something healthier, yet sweet and tasty, that would appeal to her toddler taste buds!  Children love sweets but too much sugar as all mothers know is a definite no even for adults. 

It is also especially not recommended for cancer survivors like me and others!

That’s when I thought of Jaggery as an alternative for this cake but I soon realized that too much of Jaggery was sugar too.  So, again as an alternative I experimented with something fruit-based with more of dates and dry fruits and less of Jaggery or not at all.

It turned out to be a great idea as both my granddaughter and my son-in-law too relished it and were gorging on it each time I baked it!

I am sure you will too……….. let me know!

 Raagi and Oats Cake with Dry Fruits and Apple Puree

Ingredients

My Recipe of   : Raagi and Oats Cake with Dry Fruits and Apple Puree

Ingredients :

1 Cup Raagi Flour
1 Cup Oats
1 Cup Jaggery dissolved in water
250 gm pure Ghee (melted)
2 tsps Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Walnuts broken into pieces
6 to 8 Almond slivers
5 to 6  sliced  dates
1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder and Cardamom powder each 
A pinch of clove and nutmeg powder OR 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
8 tbsps Milk
2 to 4 Apples -  cooked and Pureed (you can use banana too if  apples are not available)
2 tsps of Kismis, Manuka each (Optional)
1 tsp Sunflower seeds
1 tsp watermelon seeds (Optional)

Method

Mix all ingredients well and prove for 15 minutes.

Bake for 35 min at 180-200 degrees. Cool and remove .


NB :  For those who want to :

1. If you want to avoid 1 cup Jaggery you can take 1/4 cup Jaggery and increase Dates to 1 1/2 cup.

2. Those who want to avoid Jaggery totally, increase the quantity of Dates to 2 cups and also add kismis and manukas

3. Since I do not use Baking Powder I prove it overnight.

Check my next post ........