Eggless Bottlegourd muffins

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Bottle gourd is one of the earliest vegetables cultivated by man, believed to be originated in Africa. Not very familiar to the western world, it is one of the favorite vegetables in Indian Cuisine.

Bottle gourd or Lauki has many beneficial properties that are valued in traditional healing. It is low in fat and cholesterol but high in fiber. It is excellent for light low calorie diets, as well as for small children, people with digestive problems and diabetics. The juice of a bottle gourd is an excellent remedy for acidity, indigestion and ulcers.

I started including this in my diet only when I settled in Delhi for a while after my marriage. All I would do was make a rasdar with some onions and tomatoes. But after coming to the US, I learned that lot more was possible with this vegetable like the kheer, raita and teplas. Nowadays, I make all kinds of dishes with lauki(however yet to try the kheer). Around the time I started this food blog which is now 2 months old, I got the urge to try some muffins with it and immediately put it down on my to do trials list. To me, these gourds were similar in color and texture to that of zucchinis. Many of us out there know that zucchini breads or muffins are as popular as the carrot or banana ones. Here I am trying this wonderful vegetable in the form of muffins. I searched on the net to find this recipe for zucchini muffin here which interested me and replaced it with some bottle gourd.

I followed the recipe by the letter except for these few minor changes. I halved the original recipe which gave me a yield of 9 medium size muffins. The recipe called for some raisins, dried fruits or chocolate chips. I just used very few chips towards the end for the last three muffins. The baking time given in the recipe was for the bread. So I reduced the baking time to 25 minutes. The muffins turned out to be very soft and delicious with the nice aroma of the cinnamon...try it and you will also love these muffins!!


This muffin recipe goes to Show me your Muffin event at Dil Se.

Comments

  1. Anjali Bapna ShuklaApril 30, 2011 at 2:29 PM

    Wow...these look really yum n healthy too...would surely try once... :)
    Do stop by 'Spice n Sugar Tales' at anjali-cooklog.blogspot.com sometime. :)

    ReplyDelete

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