A recent visit to the health foods aisle of a grocery store brought my attention to this earthy and wholesome millet (Ragi). I have been reading about the bakers trying out alternate flours for baking sweet treats, tarts and quiches,  truly for health reasons.

Ragi and other finger millet are not new to me. It’s just that I hadn’t tried them in my baking. Even today, my mother cooks healthy and comforting pearl millet (bajra) and lentil soup during cold and dull winter days, and that is just awesome.

So, I took home a small pack of this beautiful wholesome flour in a hope to cook some storm in the kitchen. Sadly, when I couldn’t think of much of a recipe, I thought of baking brownies.

I replaced the butter with olive oil in brownies, because I had planned to serve them with a nice drizzle of salted butter caramel. And I didn’t want to kill the goodness of this super food by loading it with too much butter. I have baked brownies with olive oil before and trust me they come out really nice, moist and light. If you want, you can completely skip out caramel sauce and the brownies will still be very good.

You can bake them in mini tart pans, like I did. Hassle free single serving mini brownies…I just love petite dessert simply because of them being non-fussy. But if you wish to be more conventional, feel free to bake them in a square pan.

Millet Brownies, recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

100 ml olive oil
170 gm dark chocolate
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup millet flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup strong coffee

Instructions

1. In a bowl, melt chocolate, cocoa powder and oil over a double boiler or in microwave.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together millet flour, corn flour, salt, baking powder and keep aside.
3. In another bowl, beat sugar and eggs for about 3 minutes, until pale and fluffy.
4. Beat in vanilla extract and coffee, followed by chocolate mixture.
5. Add the flour mixture and stir to combine well.
6. Pour the batter into buttered square pan or into 8 2″ tart pans.
7. Bake for 20 minutes (tart pans)/35 minutes (square pan) in a 180 degree Celsius preheated oven.
8. Let cool in pan completely.

Salted Butter Caramel, recipe adapted from Two Pea And Their Pod

Ingredients

50 gm salted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup low fat cream

Instructions

1. In a non reactive saucepan, heat the sugar on a medium high heat. Keep whisking until it starts to melt.
2. Stop whisking once it has melted completely and let it cook until it reaches dark amber color. You can swirl the pan to move sugar around but do not whisk.
3. Once it has reached the dark amber color, add the butter and let it melt completely.
4. Take the pan off the heat and add cream and whisk vigorously and carefully (it will splatter at this stage) to make it a smooth and creamy sauce.
5. Let cool in pan for 10-15 minutes and then store in sterilized glass jar. It can be stored in fridge for about 2 weeks.