Recipe for carrot raisin muffins. Muffins made with 100% whole wheat flour. This recipe is refined sugar free and uses jaggery for sweetness. Its egg-less, dairy free and vegan. Healthy breakfast muffins recipe.
These breakfast muffins are so so good!!! Its made with 100% whole wheat flour (atta) and is refined sugar free. I have used jaggery and raisins to sweeten them. Its also egg-less, dairy free and vegan. This recipe makes 12 jumbo muffins and one muffin will fill you up along with some fruits in the morning. I like to cut the muffins in half and slightly toast them and then have it after it has slightly crisped up on the edges for breakfast. These muffins can be stored in the refrigerator for up-to three days. Since jaggery is hygroscopic, these muffins become very moist the next day. Toast the muffins in a toaster or oven for five minutes at 200C and then serve warm. Each Muffin loads roughly about 275 calories. These breakfast muffins are great. Do try.
Here is the video of How to do Vegan Carrot Raisin Muffins
Here is the printable recipe for Vegan Carrot Raisin Muffins
Dry Ingredients
- 50 grams cashews
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- 300 grams whole wheat flour (atta)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dry ginger powder
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
- 200 grams grated carrot
Wet Ingredients
165 grams jaggery
100 grams raisins
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven for 15 minutes at 200 C.
Roast the cashews in coconut oil till golden. Remove to a plate and set aside to cool. Chop the cashews coarsely into small bits. Set aside.
Roughly chop the jaggery and add it to a bowl. To the bowl add in the raisins and a cup of water. Grind everything to a puree. If you have an Indian mixie, add water little by little while grinding. Else the raisins wont get ground properly.
To the puree, add in the oil, vinegar and vanilla. Whisk well. Set aside.
Take a big bowl and keep a sifter on top of the bowl. Add in all the dry ingredients except cashews, fresh ginger and carrots to the sifter. Sift well so the dry ingredients can combine. Add in the cashews, fresh grated ginger and carrots.
Add in the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients
Mix gently with a spatula. Stop mixing when there is no more dry flour to be seen. Mixing for a long time will yield hard muffins. Avoid over mixing.
Line jumbo muffin liners on a muffin tin and using an ice-cream scoop, scoop out the batter into the liners. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes on 200C. Check after 20 minutes.
If a toothpick inserted comes clean, the muffins are done.
Remove the pans and set aside to cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator and use within three days.
To serve – Toast the muffins in a toaster or oven for five minutes at 200C and then serve warm.
Notes
If using regular cupcake liners, you will need to bake for lesser time as the liners are small. Usually the regular liners bake in about 15-18 minutes. Keep that in mind.
- Author: Suguna Vinodh
- Prep Time: 15m
- Cook Time: 25m
Dry Ingredients
- 50 grams cashews
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- 300 grams whole wheat flour (atta)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
- 1/2 teaspoon dry ginger powder
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
- 200 grams grated carrot
Wet Ingredients
165 grams jaggery
100 grams raisins
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven for 15 minutes at 200 C.
Roast the cashews in coconut oil till golden. Remove to a plate and set aside to cool. Chop the cashews coarsely into small bits. Set aside.
Roughly chop the jaggery and add it to a bowl. To the bowl add in the raisins and a cup of water. Grind everything to a puree. If you have an Indian mixie, add water little by little while grinding. Else the raisins wont get ground properly.
To the puree, add in the oil, vinegar and vanilla. Whisk well. Set aside.
Take a big bowl and keep a sifter on top of the bowl. Add in all the dry ingredients except cashews, fresh ginger and carrots to the sifter. Sift well so the dry ingredients can combine. Add in the cashews, fresh grated ginger and carrots.
Add in the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients
Mix gently with a spatula. Stop mixing when there is no more dry flour to be seen. Mixing for a long time will yield hard muffins. Avoid over mixing.
Line jumbo muffin liners on a muffin tin and using an ice-cream scoop, scoop out the batter into the liners. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes on 200C. Check after 20 minutes.
If a toothpick inserted comes clean, the muffins are done.
Remove the pans and set aside to cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator and use within three days.
To serve – Toast the muffins in a toaster or oven for five minutes at 200C and then serve warm.
Notes
If using regular cupcake liners, you will need to bake for lesser time as the liners are small. Usually the regular liners bake in about 15-18 minutes. Keep that in mind.
- Author: Suguna Vinodh
- Prep Time: 15m
- Cook Time: 25m
Find it online : https://www.kannammacooks.com/carrot-raisin-muffins/
Homemade ghee made by collecting the malai / cream from milk. The cream is then cultured / fermented to make butter and the butter is then made into ghee.
Indian ghee is an emotion for a lot of us. Indian ghee is always made with cultured butter. The fermentation process gives it a very nice aroma and heavenly taste that you cannot get by making it with normal store-bought butter. The milk cream is collected and stored for days. The cream is then cultured. The cultured / fermented cream is then churned to make butter. The butter is then made into ghee. Even though making ghee at home is a lengthy process, I make it all the time as it gives me a sense of accomplishment and nothing can beat the taste of homemade ghee. I have shared my ghee making stories on social media a lot of times before. Since many of you readers have asked for the method of how to make it at home, I am sharing it here. A note on what kind of milk is better for making butter and ghee at home. Homogenized milk would not work for making homemade butter as the cream will never separate (Paalaadai as we call in Tamil). Homogenization is a process where the fat globules from the milk is emulsified so the fat/cream does not separate. Most of the packet milk in India these days is homogenized. You wont get the desired results with that milk. For best results, use non-pasteurized and non-homogenized milk. Buffalo milk produces white color butter whereas cow milk produces pale yellow looking butter. But buffalo milk produces a lot of cream (as its fatty) while cow milk does not produce that much cream.
Here is how to collect cream from milk for making homemade ghee Bring the milk to a rolling boil and let it foam up. Once it foams and starts coming up in the pan, switch off the flame. Once the milk comes to room temperature, keep it in the fridge. The next day morning, a thick film of cream ( Paalaadai as we call in Tamil ) would float on the top.
Just strain the milk to get the cream. I use the strained milk for making coffee, tea, making yogurt, etc… Of course the milk will be a little lite as the cream has been taken away.
After straining the cream, transfer the cream to a bowl and store in the freezer. We will collect the cream everyday and add it to the bowl. Store the collected cream in the freezer at all times. Once the bowl is full, its time to make ghee. My bowl holds about 500ml of cream. 500ml of cream roughly produces about 300ml of ghee.
Transfer the bowl from the freezer and thaw the cream in the refrigerator over-nite. Once the cream is completely thawed in the refrigerator, transfer it to a bowl. The cream will still be very cold.
Whisk the cream well so it gets uniformly mixed. Set aside.
Fermenting the cream for homemade ghee
Heat half a cup of water till a rolling boil. Add it to the whisked cream. Beat well. We will be heating the cream on a low flame now. The hot water will give it a head start and will help in avoiding the fat from separating while heating. Some of the fat will still separate and that’s OK.
Now heat the bowl with the cream on a very low flame. Keep whisking all the time so it does not scorch at the bottom. Heat for 2-3 minutes till its very slightly hot to the touch. Do not heat for long. A finger inserted in the bowl should feel slightly hot.
Remove the cream and transfer it to a bowl. Do not waste any cream leftover in the bowl. Use a silicone spatula to get every little drop.
While the cream mixture is still warm, add a tablespoon of plain yogurt / curd (home made or store-bought is fine) and mix well. If you are living in a colder climate, add two tablespoon yogurt. Its important the cream is still warm so the fermentation process will start. If using store-bought yogurt, make sure it has live cultures.
Cover the bowl with a lid and keep it in a warm draft free place. I keep it inside a cupboard. Let the cream ferment for 8-10 hours.
Making Butter for homemade ghee Once the cream is fermented, it would have become thick. Cream churns better and gives good butter when cold. So chill the fermented cream for 8-10 hours or over-nite. The cream would now be very thick and the top layer would have solidified. That’s OK.
A food processor, hand mixer or a stand mixer does the job of churning the cream into butter well. I do not like to use a mixie as it heats up the cream. My mom still churns the butter by hand using a wooden whisk. Whisk the cold fermented cream on a low speed in a mixer for about 3-4 minutes till the cream curdles and butter starts to form. Its important that the cream is really cold.
The butter and whey would have separated and look like the picture below.
Clean the whisk to get all the butter sticking to it. You do not want to waste even a small drop of this golden goodness. Try taking the curdled cream / butter in your palm gently.
Try shaping the butter into a ball in your hands. This does two things. It gets rid of the excess water and also shapes to form homemade butter. Repeat until all of it has been formed into butter and excess water has been squeezed out. Discard the whey / leftover water after the butter is taken.
When the weather is cold, you will be able to get nice shaped butter balls. When the weather is very hot, the butter may be very loose like below. Both are perfectly OK.
Now we will make our homemade ghee. Transfer the homemade butter in a heavy pan. Heavy pan is important so it does not scorch at the bottom. Heat the butter on a medium flame.
After a while the fat will start to foam up. To avoid overflowing from the pan, stir with a spatula or spoon and reduce the flame to low. Once the foam settles up, increase the flame. No need to remove any scum that floats on top. Its just the milk whey that floats on top. After a while, it will settle to the bottom on its own.
After a while (10-15 minutes depending on the quantity), the milk solids / white foam from the top will slowly start to settle at the bottom. At this stage add a small handful of any of the following leaves. Curry leaves or moringa leaves (murungai ilai). It’s a common practice in South India to add moringa leaves or curry leaves while making ghee. I always thought that it was mainly for the flavour. Ghee is an anhydrous milk fat and in a tropical country like India, lots of ghee gets spoiled due to oxidative rancidity. Betel leaves, moringa leaves and curry leaves possess antioxidant properties and have been used to prevent oxidative rancidity which will not only improve the shelf life and taste of the product but also they are safe to consume unlike synthetic antioxidants which have carcinogenic effects. Further adding these leaves imparts a refreshing aroma and flavor.
After adding the leaves, let it be on a simmer.
The milk solids would settle at the bottom and stick like the picture below. Once the liquid starts clearing up and look golden in color, its time to strain. If you keep cooking, it will turn to an amber color and then brown. We do not want that.
After straining, allow the ghee to completely come to room temperature. Homemade ghee is ready. Store the ghee at room temperature and use within a month. The ghee will naturally solidify in colder climates. Just heat up for a few seconds to make it liquid again. The leaves that you strained, do not throw it away. Mix it with a cup of rice and a little salt and serve. You can even roll it in a chapati and have it as a snack. It tastes so heavenly.
That’s some golden goodness.
Enjoy the homemade ghee!
