Tag: cherry


Jul
2017

Orange Cherry Baked Donuts ~ Eggfree, Low-fat

categories: Baking, Desserts, Doughnuts, Summer

Oh hello donuts! How I missed thee. I baked these lovely orange cherry donuts couple weeks ago and because it’s been way too long since I baked any donuts, you can imagine my excitement.

Life here has been a bit of mumbo jumbo lately and I am falling short of words on how to describe my current disposition so instead let’s talk about the awesomeness that these donuts are. Summer (or any season for that matter) makes me crave citrus desserts and if you know me you know I prefer lemony desserts over chocolate almost every single time. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love chocolate and there are times when nothing else will do. But on most days, I crave lemon and orange comes close second.

The combination of orange and fresh cherries is just sublime. A delicate cake bursting with orange zest and citrusy notes, soft and pillowy, with a piece of cherry in each bite to make you swoon. The ingredient list is short with no funky stuff and the method no fuss. The recipe doesn’t even call for any oil or butter, isn’t that awesome? Yogurt and orange juice lends soft and fluffy interiors to these donuts. You can have them ready under 30 minutes flat, totally foolproof! You could totally make the recipe vegan by using vegan yogurt. Win-win for all!

So don’t wait until weekend to bake these. Get on them now! ?

Print Recipe
 Orange Cherry Baked Donuts ~ Eggfree, Low-fat
The combination of orange and fresh cherries is just sublime. A delicate cake bursting with orange zest and citrusy notes, soft and pillowy, with a piece of cherry in each bite to make you swoon.
Course Desserts, Donuts
Cuisine American
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings
donuts
Ingredients
Course Desserts, Donuts
Cuisine American
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Servings
donuts
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven at 180ºC / 350ºF. Grease 12-count donut pan with oil. Set aside.
  2. In one bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
  3. In a mixing bowl, add orange zest and sugar and rub together with finger to release oils from the zest. Whisk in yogurt, orange juice and vanilla extract until the mixture formed is completely smooth.
  4. Slowly fold in dry ingredients into wet ingredients using rubber spatula until just combined. Do not overmix.
  5. Arrange 3 pitted, fresh cherries in each mould of the donut pan. Do this for 9 moulds. Divide the batter among 9 donut moulds (let 3 moulds empty). Be careful not to overfill the moulds, 3/4th would be just fine.
  6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a center comes out clean. Let cool in the baking pan over a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Then carefully turn out doughnuts onto the rack to cool completely. Tastes best the next day, chilled in the refrigerator. Keeps well 3-5 days stored in an airtight container in refrigerator.
Recipe Notes

Don't own a cherry pitter? No problem, a chopstick will do the job! ?

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Here are some items I used to make today’s recipe.

                    

Some of the links above are affiliate links, which pay me a small commission for my referral at no extra cost to you! Thank you for supporting Cook By Book.

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Jun
2017

No Churn Dark Chocolate Cherry Ice cream

categories: Desserts, Ice-creams, Summer

 

Hello beautiful people!

Hope you all had an excellent weekend. I have FINALLY exported all the content from wordpress blog to my own website (yayyy!) and I am ecstatic to be writing this first, fresh blogpost from here. There was a hiatus of 2 months over here due to all the work involved with the website building and understanding all the technical nitty-gritty for a novice like me (using wordpress was definitely a piece of cake!) along with my day job. Please bear with me for days to come (in case you face any technical issues around here) till I work on aesthetics and fine-tune the works. A lot of you had messaged asking for this ice-cream recipe I am sharing today after I posted this picture on my Instagram. So I decided to abandon beautifying the website for now and share the recipe with y’all immediately. So let’s talk about dark dark chocolate, shall we?

This Instagram-fame chocolate ice cream is abso-freaking-lutely delicious. Rich, creamy, decadent, not-over-the-top sweet and most importantly super-simple, no-churn piece of work. Yes sir, no ice cream maker required, just like all the other awesome recipes I have shared with you in the past. No churn does not mean the ice cream is not smooth or forms ice crystals upon freezing but makes utterly good-looking scoops too.

The base of this ice cream is made with the trio of coconut cream, Mascarpone cheese and fresh cream. To this, we add chocolate ganache made with 75% good-quality dark chocolate. Together it forms a fluffy, mousse-like mixture and trust me, you will want to eat it as is, even before it freezes so patience is a key here! Every bite of this over-the-top-chocolatey ice cream is bursting with fresh cherries which are first simmered with dark rum. A-M-A-Z-E-B-A-L-L-S! I urge you to make this ice cream at least once before Summer and cherry season pass you by. Pretty please?

 

Print Recipe
 No Churn Dark Chocolate Cherry Ice cream
Dark, decadent no churn chocolate ice cream bursting with fresh cherries in each bite.
Course Frozen Treats
Cuisine American
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Passive Time 6 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Boozy cherries
Chocolate mix
Ice cream base
Course Frozen Treats
Cuisine American
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Passive Time 6 hours
Servings
people
Ingredients
Boozy cherries
Chocolate mix
Ice cream base
Instructions
Boozy cherries
  1. Heat a medium sized fry pan on a medium-high heat and add cherries, rum/water and sugar to the pan. Let simmer for about 20 minutes until syrupy.
  2. Take it off the heat and let it cool for about 10-15 minutes on the counter and then refrigerate until cold, for about 2 hours at least.
Chocolate mix
  1. Put one large mixing bowl and whisk of your electric mixer in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
  2. After 10 minutes, take out the mixing bowl from the freezer. Without tipping, take out overnight chilled pack/can of coconut milk from the refrigerator. Gently scoop out the thick coconut cream from the top and put it into the chilled mixing bowl. Return the bowl to the refrigerator (not freezer this time).
  3. Take the reserved liquid from the coconut milk pack/can to a microwave safe glass bowl. Add milk, chopped chocolate, cocoa powder to this bowl. Microwave on low-power in the burst of 30-seconds 3-4 times, whisking in between, until chocolate completely melts. You could also do this step on double boiler instead. Whisk in vanilla extract at the end. Let the mix cool and in the meantime, proceed to the following steps.
Ice cream base
  1. Take out the bowl with coconut cream from refrigerator and whisk from freezer. Add Mascarpone cheese and heavy cream to the mixing bowl. Whisk with the electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy for about 2 minutes.
  2. Add confectioners sugar and whisk on medium-high speed until soft peaks form, for another 3-5 minutes.
  3. Decrease the speed to low and slowly whisk in chocolate mix to it, until just combined. The ice cream mix will have mousse consistency at this point.
  4. Gently fold in syrupy cherries to the ice cream mix.
  5. Transfer the ice cream to a loaf pan and freeze. Freeze for couple of hours for softer consistency. Freeze overnight for firmer consistency.
  6. Set out for at least 25 minutes prior to scooping and use a scoop warmed under hot water for proper scoop.
  7. Ice cream will keep in the freezer for a week but tastes best when fresh.
Recipe Notes

If you are using water instead of rum to make syrupy cherries, then strain the liquid before folding the cherries to the ice cream base in step-4 (and discard the liquid) as it may form ice crystals after freezing.

 

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Aug
2014

Skinny Summer Popsicles

categories: Desserts, Ice-creams, Summer
Skinny Summer Popsicles1
I love popsicles any time of the day. Be it for breakfast, an afternoon snack or dessert. I mean who doesn’t, right?! This one here is so refreshing and healthy without addition of any sugar, be it refined or unrefined. Just some fresh fruit pieces blended along with little bit of fruit juice. It’s a perfect pick-me-up treat using all the gorgeous summer bounty on offer. I bet you can’t stop at just one!
Hope you all are having a great Monday!
xx
Skinny Summer Popsicles
Yields: 4 popsicles | Prep time: 5 minutes | Cook time: 0 | Freeze time: 4-5 hours/overnight
Ingredients:
Puree 1:
  • 6 slices fresh pineapple
  • 1/3 cup pineapple juice (freshly squeezed or packed)
  • Pinch of salt
  • Zest from 1/2 orange
Puree 2:
  • 1/4 cup cherries, pitted
  • 1 medium nectarine, cored
  • 1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 1 orange)
  • Pinch of salt

Directions:

  1. Puree 1: In a blender, blend together pineapple slices, pineapple juice and salt. Stir in orange zest to it and divide the puree among 4 popsicle moulds.
  2. Puree 2: Wash and wipe the blender dry. Add all the ingredients mentioned under puree 2 in a blender and process until smooth. Top the popsicle moulds with puree 2, dividing equally.
  3. Insert stick in the centre of each mould, cover and freeze for about 6-7 hours. To demould, run the moulds under warm running water for 30-50 seconds. Enjoy!

*Recipe can be easily doubled or tripled or quadrupled!

 

Skinny Summer Popsicles2

 

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Apr
2013

Skinny Cherry Banana Muffins

categories: Baking, Cupcakes & Muffins

Cherry Banana Cupcakes1

I know I knowwww.. I bake all the time!  Anyone who knows me know about my love for baking & eating baked stuff!!! In fact, if you keep following me here, you might as well believe this to be a baking blog!! 😀

So after disguising myself behind the first 2 posts of salad and appetizer, I decided to come out with this skinny cherry banana muffin recipe.

If you like to kick-start your day with something sweet then these muffins are just what you want! I love muffins and making them a teensy bit healthier is so easy to do. I love to bake them in a small batch of 6 to last me for a couple of days. I can grab one on the way to work and later snack on one after I get home. They are pretty convenient and I don’t feel guilty at all digging in. 😉

Cherry Banana Cupcakes2

Healthy recipes that do not taste healthy at all is like finding a treasure!

I loooveee helthifying recipes as that is the only way I can have them too much! 😛 Plus, these muffins are insanely easy to make. If they weren’t, you can bet all your money that I wouldn’t have baked them on a weekday! Oh yeah, they are that easy and quick to whip up!

Start with some of your wet ingredients: unsweetened Applesauce, some sugar, mashed banana, low-fat buttermilk and vanilla extract. Applesauce is taking the place of butter and oil in this recipe as there is simply no need for the added fat. And min you, if you think these are gonna be dry and crumbly without butter and egg then you are mistaken! I can’t stress enough that these are NOT anything like that. All the wet ingredients mentioned above do a fine job of keeping the baked muffins soft, tender and moist.

There is only 1/4 cup of white sugar in the whole recipe, yielding 6 large muffins. So you get my point when I am repeatedly saying these are extremely healthy and still decadent tasting!

The dry ingredients are simple: whole wheat flour, quick-cooking oats and your leavening agents. You can sift the flour before mixing it with wet ingredients. This step is not necessary and you can skip it.

And the last thing you add? Cherries of course! I used glazed cherries cut into bite size pieces but you can easily replace them with fresh or canned cherries. Plus, a sprinkle of walnuts just before popping them into oven.

Cherry Banana Cupcakes

These muffins taste great with the cup of milk or coffee!

The muffins take an easy 18-20 minutes in the oven. Mine took 20 minutes. Be careful with these though, you don’t want to overbake them, which will lead  to dry, course muffins. Insert a toothpick in one at the 18 minutes mark. If it comes out clean, they are ready. If not, bake for 2 more minutes.

Today’s recipe is perfectly healthy and quick to prepare as no mixer required,  practically taking 10 minutes to prepare the batter. Okay, I’m done convincing you. Make these!! 🙂

Skinny Cherry Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup Applesauce
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 medium over ripe mashed banana
  • 1/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 15-20 glazed cherries, chopped into bite size pieces
  • 2 Tbsp chopped walnuts

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Line 6-count muffin pan with liners.
  2. In a large bowl, combine apple sauce, sugar, mashed banana, buttermilk and vanilla. Whisk them all together until smooth.
  3. In a small bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Slowly stir in to the wet ingredients , being careful not to overmix. Get any dry pocket of flour out. Fold in the cherries. The batter will be smooth but not too runny.
  4. Fill paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Sprinkle with walnuts. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  5. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for 5 minutes before removing them from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe source: http://cookbybook.wordpress.com

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