Nut Laden Vegan Date Rolls

I love Indian sweets. So Much. Especially Rasgullas and Rasmalais. Or should I say Roshgullas and Roshmolois? Hearing a Bengali pronounce these names gives me a silly, juvenile pleasure. The way they say it conjures up delicious images of perfectly round, soft, juice little roshgolla babies in my head. Aaaaaaaah :)

The thing about Indian sweets- They're so hard to veganize! They're unabashedly rich, and ooze with oceans of milk and ghee. And they're meant to. Sugar free sweets for diabetics are pretty common now, (however terrible they may taste) but suggest dairy free sweets to a sweet loving Indian and be prepared to be met with horrified  looks.

I am newly vegan, and I decided that this Janmashtami, I would make at least one vegan sweet and it would taste good.

I started with the impossible. Rasgulla. I tried a small batch of Rasgullas using soymilk.  (I know, I know, what was I thinking?) But the balls eventually cracked when I was cooking them and yes, they tasted chalky and beany. 

Then I found this PeTA recipe here. It's a recipe raining with nuts. One of those Burfis that your local sweet shop will sell for Rs 1000 a kilo.

I didn't want to use quite so many nuts, and I didn't want to rely solely on dates for the sweetness so I did modify it a fair bit.

Here's what you need.

500 grams dates, deseeded

100 grams blanched chopped almonds

a handful of chopped cashew nuts

two handfuls of chopped walnuts

6 tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon Cardamom powder

flour (to dust)

To prepare the date roll mixture:

1. Soak the dates in a little water for about an hour so that it becomes soft.
2. Blend the dates into a nice puree.
3. Pour the puree onto a pan and cook for about 5 to ten minutes, stirring regularly, till the puree dries. At this point the dates will begin to get that 'cooked' smell and will be of the consistency of a very sticky dough. 
4. Put the paste into a bowl.  Add the almonds, cashew nuts and cardamom powder and mix well with a spoon. The paste will be too sticky to handle with your fingers.
5. Refrigerate till cool. I refrigerated mine overnight.

To prepare the candied walnuts:

1. Put the sugar in a pan on medium heat. Once the sugar begins to met, stir continuously.
2. Once it all becomes a golden liquid, add in the chopped walnuts and keep stirring till the walnuts become brown. Be very careful not to let it burn.
3. Once done, immediately take off the heat and pour the mixture onto a flat plate. Don't make a towering mess of the candy, try and spread it out as much as possible and let it be as flat as possible.
4. Once cool, break into bits. For small pieces, place the back of a spoon on the candy and press hard on top.

To make the rolls:

1. Dust some all purpose flour on a tray. 
2. Take a small ball of the chilled dough and spread it out with your fingers on the flour as evenly as possible. The flour is just to help you knead the mixture. Try and get it into a rectangle shape, as thin as you can without it cracking.
3. Place some of the candied walnuts on the rectangle and roll it into a cylinder. (Don't place the walnuts too close to the edge, place them slightly away for easy rolling.)
4. Similarly roll out the rest of the dough. For each little cylinder that you make, use some flour to dust.

                        How do they taste? Strongly of dates. They are very sweet, and yes, load up on the candied walnuts because the sweet crunch in the middle is such a treat. If you have a sweet tooth, this sweet will leave you pretty satisfied, vegan or not. Date lovers, rejoice!

A very low fat eggless banana cake

Ever since I got hooked onto baking, I've always been on the lookout for eggless sponge cake recipes, especially ones without lots of butter, condensed milk and guilt. I have tried a few butterless sponges that I found online, but they're always very disappointing.

Another seemingly impossible recipe on my wishlist - An eggless, low fat, banana sponge. I have tried and failed many times to create that perfect banana sponge, but yesterday, I did manage to put together a guilt free banana cake that I was reasonably satisfied with. By no means a sponge, but definitely soft, moist, not very dense and incredibly flavorful. My oh my the smells! I was overwhelmed by the beautiful smells coming out of the oven which complimented eachother so wonderfully. I'd nailed the perfect combination finally- Too much banana isn't pleasant, it's quite headache inducing. And yet you need enough to replace the fats and bind everything together.

This is no birthday cake, but it's a pleasant smelling sweet snack for when you really want to bake a cake but without so much of the guilt!

 

Here's what you need.

1 & 1/4 cup All purpose flour

3 teaspoons Cocoa Powder

3/4 cup yogurt (I used low fat)

3/4 cup sugar

1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 tablespoons vinegar

one medium sized very ripe banana

1 teaspoon vanilla 

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F or 175°C. Prepare your cake tin.

2. Sift flour, cocoa powder into one bowl.

3. Blend the yogurt, sugar and pieces of the banana into a smooth mixture.

4. Add half a teaspoon of baking powder and the vanilla essence to the banana mixture and beat well. Let there be lots of  bubbles!

5. Tip into the flour mixture and gently mix.

6. JUST before you pour the batter into the tin, add the remaining baking powder to the vinegar and mix quickly. Tip this mixture into the batter, give it one good mix and get it into the oven as soon as possible so as to not lose the air bubbles.

7. My cake was done in 30 minutes, but check just in case yours is done sooner. When its almost done you get this gorgeous smell so watch out for that!

And this is one of those cakes which tastes even better the next day. But if you can't wait till then,     

tuck in! :)