Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year !!🎄🎄🎄⭐⛪🔔🎅☃️❄️❄️🎇✨

The festival of Merriment has arrived again emanating its joyous spirit within us. I love this festival and this time of the year, even though I feel little sad after it comes because with it the year comes knocking at your door to bid farewell to you in a few more days. Despite this gloomy fact, Christmas is also a bright, joyous and cosy festival amidst the chilling winter, when santa claus with his jingles bells at your doors in the midnight, gifts you with goodies and makes you feel happy. I love the sounds of carols, the church prayers, jingling bells, the midnight mass, the sights of Christmas trees, the colourful lights and decorations of the festival, which lifts up your spirits. But above all these, I do love baking some cakes and other baked goodies on the occasion which keeps up with this Yuletide spirit. Baking cakes, muffins, swiss rolls, pies and what not is the most fun part of this festival and even though I am not a Christian, I keep up with the spirit of this festival by invariably indulging in some baking every year, and this year is also no exception.

Even though I am an amateur baker, yet I love to incorporate some not so common stuff or ingredients into my baking to make it more adventurous and healthier. While keeping health as a priority in my mind, I never use yeast in my baking and I also love to experiment with healthier and newer kinds of flours as a replacement for the usual refined flour e.g., gram flour, rice flour, corn flour, whole wheat flour or any other flour that can serve well as an alternative without compromising on the taste. Now, since this year i.e. 2023 is the International year of Millets and we are into the last week of the last month of this year, I thought of promoting millets in my own way by incorporating it into my Christmas baking this time, in continuation with my attempt to promote millets through my previous post on Millets soup.

As millets are exceptionally healthy and nutritious, I wonder why they are still not replacing wheat or rice in a big way. Seeing their richness in nutrients and healthiness, millets are definitely going to be our future and alternative source of staple food crops. I tried to do my bit to promote these wonder ingredients by baking my eggless, gluten free cake with Millet flour, which was a combination of Barnyard Millet and Buckwheat flour and the result was wonderful. My cake, which I had flavoured with apple, cinnamon and vanilla, came out really delicious and quite good in texture even though I baked it in a pressure cooker. The main challenge with millet flour in baking is it’s dryness especially the barnyard millet which is not a baking friendly ingredient and you have to take special care to make it moist. I have added apple pulp which helped in reducing the dryness & at the same time imparted a nice flavour to my cake along with the cinnamon. You may now want to have a look on the recipe, which goes as follows :

RECIPE :

Ingredients :

A) Dry Mix :

1. Barnyard Millet / Samak rice (finely ground powder) – 1 cup.
2. Buckwheat Flour / Kuttu atta – 2/3 cup.
3. Sabudana / Tapioca Pearl (finely ground) – 1/3 cup.
4. Baking powder – 1+ 1/4th tsp.
5. Baking soda – 3/4th tsp.
6. Cinnamon powder – ½ tsp.
7. Salt – A pinch

B) Wet ingredients Mix :

1. Apple mashed/grated – 1 small size.
2. Plain yogurt – 3/4th cup.
3. Refined oil – 1/3rd cup.
4. Powdered sugar – 3/4th cup.
5. Vanilla essence – 2-3 drops.
6. Chopped dry fruits (Cashews, almonds & dry dates) – As per taste.

Preparation :

1. In a mixing bowl, sift all the ingredients of the dry mix together i.e. samak rice flour, buckwheat flour, tapioca flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon powder and salt. Sift 2-3 times to mix everything uniformly and keep aside.
2. In another mixing bowl, add powdered sugar and oil and beat the mixture using a wire whisk to melt the sugar completely forming a slightly frothy mixture.
3. Add yogurt and mix again to form a creamy light mixture.
4. Add apple pulp and mix well again making a homogeneous mixture.
5. Pre-heat your pressure cooker by removing the whistle and gasket and filling 1/3rd of the cooker with sand or salt for making a bed.
6. Keep a wire stand over the bed and place a wire stand or separator over it.
7. Cover the cooker lid and heat for 5 minutes on a high to medium flame.
8. In the meantime, add the dry mix in batches to the wet ingredients mixture and mix by gently folding the batter so that no lumps are left.
9. Add vanilla essence and chopped dry fruits to the mixture and mix gently. Do not over mix as it may turn your cake chewy and dense. Mix until only the dry mix incorporates completely into the wet mix.
10. Pour the batter in a greased cake mould or the container you are using for baking. You may dust some rice flour or refined flour over the greased mould before pouring in the batter to avoid the cake sticking to the mould.
11. Garnish with some chopped cashews and almonds and keep for baking over the wire stand inside the pressure cooker.
12. Bring down the flame to low and close the lid of the pressure cooker without whistle and gasket.
13. Bake for around 45 minutes to 1 hour. You may check the baking after 45 minutes by inserting a toothpick at the centre. If the toothpaste comes out clean, your cake is baked. If not, bake for another 10 to 15 minutes. Do not overbake as the cake may turn dry and hard. (Note : The colour of the cake may not be that dark even if it is fully baked. Baking for making it darker may turn the crust hard. So check carefully whether it is done already or not and then proceed for further baking).
14. Switch off the flame and open the lid of the cooker to take out your cake.
15. Keep the cake over a wire rack and let it cool.
16. Your yummy warm millets cake is now ready for relishing. Let’s take a bite.