Slices of Gingerbread still warm from the oven
When Santhi announced flour as the theme for JFI, I thought it would be very easy. I have a stock of flours in my pantry at all times. Mainly:
Wheat flour
Gram flour
Rice flour
Millet flour
But it wasn’t easy at all deciding what to make. Chapatis, Parathas, dosas were too ‘everydayish’ for this wonderful event. Then were the list of fried snacks like murukku, tenkuzhal, ribbon pakoda etc, which I must admit, I avoid making. Ofcourse if mom or my aunts make for me, I love to munch on them!
I thought of baking something then for the event. There are some excellent vegan, fat-free recipes for a healthy living at the PCRM website. Their baking projects are amazingly easy and all that with minimal use of oil. In this case no oil or fat.
Simple wheat flour and semolina is spiked with the bold flavours of ginger, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, sweetened with a mix of sugar and jaggery, fortified with dates and raisins. This bread or cake, if i may call it that, is a breeze to bake and a joy to serve, because it is absolutely guilt-free. It all health and yet full of taste.
The original recipe from PCRM is here. You must check out their vegan food plan for 15 days, with a complete menu and recipes.
Ginger is supposed to a pain-fighting food and this recipe was originally published in the book Foods that fight pain by Dr.Neal Barnard.
Guilt-free Gingerbread - JFI Flour
Ingredients
Method
- Combine the raisins, dates, sugar, salt, spices, and water in a large saucepan, and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and cool completely **(This is important).
- Once thoroughly cool, preheat oven to 350xb0F / 175 C. Stir the flours, baking soda, and baking powder together.
- Add to the cooled fruit mixture and stir to mix. Spread into a 9- x 9-inch pan lined with non-stick foil bake for 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
- Makes a 9 X9 inch cake. Cut into thin slices and save in an air-tight container.
Came to your blog through sigfood postings. The Gingerbread looks yummy. I can smell it!Did you use crystallized ginger, fresh or powdered? Or a combination of all?
Woo…that was fast Malini…you see the recipe details now-and glad to find you here, hope to catch you on RyzeCheersIt’s fresh ginger -grated!
This Indeed will be a winner in Guit-free foods that taste Gr8 Nandita.Thank you so very much for participating in the event.
oooh! thank you for the recipe….I love low-fat/fat-free recipes that still taste great!
Wow they look awesome and guilt free indeed. Rich in flavours. I would love to try this recipe. Thanks nanditha for wonderful slices of bread.
Santhi-glad you liked itNabeela, Madhu-I urge you to try this, you will Lovvvvve it!
WOW…the bread looks great. Will surely give it a try this weekend ..and I am glad it does not have eggs 🙂
Oooh you know how to make the women happy :-)Those look yummy.Hey N I heard that blogspot wasnt working in India? People couldnt blog or see other blogs…is that right? How do you update your site then?
This looks gorgeous, sounds like it tastes gorgeous too. Just wondered if you’ve made it with flour that isnt what … if so, how it turned out in terms of texture?Great post!:)
it is mouthwatering, love the taste of ginger, I think I have all the ingredients I need to make this, I will try to bake it this weekend.
Oh wow!!!! Excellent.
Dianne-I sneaked in half a cup of semolina flour (available as ‘rava’ in Indian stores) for it’s high fibre content and also to give that granular texture. The cake is fairly dense, something you can dip into your coffee and it wont melt in- I expected it to be so as there is no oil / butter / eggs in the recipe. If you substituted half cup of oil into the 1 3/4 cups water, you would get a softer cake.Shankari- do try and substitute some oil as I’ve mentioned above-if you’d like a softer cake and if you are not to keen on fat-free cake.Pushpa- A wow coming from the baking queen herself, is quite an honour 🙂
Gingerbread looks delectable! A must try recipe!
Hey, I have all ingredients except zero cook and bake. Any substitutes? Thanks.
RP-I used Zero to reduce the sugar content, by all means increase the sugar and jaggery to make up for the Zero, or you may use Splenda.DO let me know how it turned out.
Hi Nandhitha,Excellent recipe without eggs.Pictures are great. Thanx for sharing.
Great recipe nandita, I love to bake too but the sugar and the butter needed are the main deterants. I definitely need to avoid those to keep a check on my ever increasing stats.Thanks
This one looks good, Nandita. Actually, the bread slices looked almost like biscotti to me the first time. Once I read ‘semolina’ in the recipe, I knew where the dense texture came from. A sweet bread with dates and without fat or eggs is straight out of my dreams. 🙂
Anupama-May be then this is the best bake for you, you can completely replace the sugar and jaggery with splenda and there is not a drop of oil / butter in this recipeVaish- Yeah the shape in which I had to cut this one made it look like a biscotti -because i baked it in a 9X9 pan and cut in by half and then sliced themDo try out, Im sure you’ll love it 🙂
This looks delicious- perfect for my sweet cravings. Thanks for sharing.
hey Nandita, I love ginger flavoured anything, so I’m kinda waiting to try this one out! Looks yummmm!Could you please tell me if I can make this in a microwave one, cos that’s all I have, and any changes that need to be made if any? Thanks!
hi I had a question what does T mean is it tbsp
Hi NanditaI want to thank you for the recipe. I baked it with some alterations. The cake was very dense & wasnt correctly sweet too. Though it looked very much like what you’ve posted, but I was not fully satisfied. It probably could be the alterations that I did. Or maybe I should have added that oil you mentioned in the comment. I will be posting my variation about tomorrow. Could you pls do me the favor n go thru the recipe to find out if wht I did would really make a lot of difference. Basically I didnt have the Splenda & jaggery – so I added about 3 tspn each of more sugar more & i/o of jaggery I added brown sugar?? Pls help.
Is the whole wheat flour used here, atta?
yes atta