Saturday, September 25, 2010

Sourdough Banana Aebleskiver (Vegan)

I am an Indian (Geez, you didn't know that right?). We eat Indian food every day. Bread is not one of the main things we eat everyday. I think I bake so much bread for my passion rather than for consuming. No wonder my neighbors, colleagues love me. For the same passion, I maintain a sourdough starter. And every week when I have to feed it, if I am not making bread using that, I have to come up with something else to do. You know me by now, I don't usually throw stuff out.
So, I brought out the starter container from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature. It was time for the feed. I measured out 1 cup of it and replenished my starter with equal amounts of flour and water by weight. Then it hit me. Starter is just flour and water mixture which has some yeast in it. I can make Aebleskiver or Paniyaram/Gundupongal/Paddu as we call it in India. There goes my experiment and I should say a successful one.

Ingredients:
This gave me 40 Aebleskivers
Sourdough Starter - 1 cup (unfed room temperature) - See Notes
Whole Wheat flour - 1 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup - 1 cup (I used 1 cup but can be cut down to 3/4 cup)
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Salt - a pinch (optional)
Water - 1/2 cup (You could use milk if you prefer)
Banana - 1 large mashed (about 1/2 cup)
Oil - 10 tsp for cooking.
Cardamom - 5 pods powdered (optional - you could use vanilla extract instead)

Method:
In a bowl mash banana. Add Whole wheat flour, sourdough starter, sugar and mix well. Add cardamom powder and salt if using. Stir. Add the baking powder and very gently fold in. Set aside. Heat the Aebleskiver pan. Put 1/4 tsp of oil into each hole of your Aebleskiver pan. When hot and ready, pour enough batter to each hole. Cover with a lid. It gets cooked pretty fast. In a minute or two, carefully flip them to cook the other side. You don't have to cover with a lid after flipping. Take it out when lightly golden. The first batch I made turned a bit darker.


Notes:
You don't have to have sourdough starter to make this. Just use 1 cup of all purpose flour or whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup of water mixed together in its place. You don't have to limit this to a banana flavored one. You could use any fruit puree in its place or crushed pineapple. Add Coconut if you love coconut about 1/2 cup shredded.
Don't like sweet dish, you can make it savory by not using sugar and adding some pepper, salt, garlic and some green onions or chives. You can come up with your own preferred combination of herbs and spices to make it savory.

Counting Calories:

I am sending this to Susan's Yeastspotting.

Enjoy!!

10 comments:

  1. Sounds delicious!! I must try this recipe.
    Have a great afternoon!!
    Helene

    ReplyDelete
  2. great twist to Paniyaram. thanks for the clorie content count.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice that you have used the yeast to make paniyaram. We make it with dosa batter in which the yeast is present, I guess this would work out too. Nice. I am happy that you are making things with bread dough.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cute looking vegan paniyarams, yumm!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks everyone for nice words.
    Char,
    You can mix one cup of all purpose flour with 1/2 cup of water for every cup of sourdough starter. If it is a bread which needs yeast, increase the yeast by 1/4 tsp if I have mentioned 'fed starter'. If I have used 'unfed' starter, you can skip the yeast all together.

    ReplyDelete
  6. These look really amazing! I must try them, because I have the same problem/passion with the sourdough ;)
    I have used the sourdough for blinis in the past, and they come out delicious too...

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a sourdough culture in the fridge too- that looks like a great thing to make with it!

    ReplyDelete

If you have a question and you leave it as a comment, I'll surely answer the question to the best of my knowledge. Thanks for visiting.