Banana Chocolate Pottukadalai Muffin

Remember the story of the Stone soup, weary Traveler(s) tricking the villagers into contributing ingredients to make a nourishing pot of soup
Every morning is a stone soup in reverse for me, I have to trick my son into eating something before he leaves for school. 
The days where I could threaten him with dire health consequences are long gone past, now I have to tempt him with a little chocolate first.
Then I can add, fruits, grains, proteins, milk/ yogurt, eggs....
All baked together in single serve sizes, it is basically a Muffin! 
Not a cupcake with its high butter to other ingredients ratio, but a Muffin. 
Preferably with a light crumb, but a dense one will be tolerated if the chocolate ratio is sufficiently high.
I have made many many varieties of muffins with varying success ;  Changing the basic grains used - whole wheat, gluten free, sattu maavu, oats; Adding fruits/vegetables - carrot, apple, banana, mango, pear, banana; Adding yogurt/milk; Replacing eggs with Yogurt/Flaxseed; Replacing sugar with Honey or Brown Sugar or Nattuchakkarai; Replacing butter with Oil/Ghee.  
But, I had never ventured into adding lentils into my muffin. Before today.

I had a half kilo packet of Roasted Gram or Pottukadali, leftover from Janmashtami, and a burning desire to incorporate lentils in baking much like incorporating lentils in every lunch or dinner menu.  I also had 2 bananas languishing on the counter from Janmashtami, so I had to use them in the baked goodie as well.

I tried to minimize changes to standard muffin recipes to ensure Gau would actually try the muffin.  So,

 no to whole wheat flour or wheat germs like my regular muffins, yes to all purpose flour, 

no to egg substitute(s), yes to regular eggs
no to oil,  yes to butter (in this case clarified butter again left over from Janmashtami)


pottudalai
bananas, sugar, eggs and ghee
self raising flour and pottukadalai















 

Bowl A:
  1. 1 cup all purpose flour (I used self-raising flour I had bought for a different, as yet unrealised purpose)
  2. 1 cup roasted gram flour (I whizzed 1.5 cups of roasted gram in the small jar of my blender and then measured out 1 cup;  No need to sieve)
  3. 1 teaspoon baking powder
Bowl B:
  1. 2 ripe/over ripe large bananas, mashed well  (use a blender for smashing if the bananas are not over ripe)
  2. 1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes (I used fresh; Optional, use three bananas instead)
  3. 2/3 cup brown sugar
  4. 1/3 cup clarified butter
  5. 2 eggs
  6. 1 teaspoon vanilla essence  
Optional:
  1. 75 g chocolate chips or chopped chocolate bar
  2. 50 g nuts (almonds, pista)
  • Butter a 12 muffin pan (regular sized)
  • Preheat oven to 175 deg C
  • Mix ingredients in Bowl A together.  Use your fingertips to ensure the yellow Pottukadalai maavu is uniformly laced through the maida.  Ensures baking powder is evenly distributed.
  • In Bowl B, beat the bananas, coconut and sugar together.  Add eggs one at a time and beat until fully incorporated.  Add the butter, essence and beat together until well incorporated.
  • Tip Bowl A into Bowl B and mix until just incorporated.
  • Add the chocolate and nuts and mix it in. 
  • Pour batter into muffin pan and bake 20 - 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  • Cool and Savour with morning coffee.
Hot Off the Oven!

We make lots of sweets with lentil flour - Besan laddu, Moong Laddu, Mysorepak, Pottukadalai urundai etc... The most logical lentil flour to use should have been Besan (Chickpea flour).  But I don't like the stickiness  of besan which can only be eliminated by frying  in clarified butter over a low flame for a looooooong time.  Not a breakfast kind of thing. 

Chickpea lentils aka chana dal, especially the ones (Kala Chana Based) from which the roasted gram is made has a very low glycemic index.  Unfortunately, It is not as much of a staple as the other lentils - Moong, Toor, Masoor etc...

This would therefore be an Uncommonly Good way to use an uncommon but good lentil ;)


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