An Air Fryer can Bake? What a Blessing!
When we first received our air fryer last year, we didn't know much about the uses and thought, "oh how cute, we can now have a healthier option to fried food as it uses little to no oil."
An "Air Fryer" has always been advertised as an appliance that cooks food with little to no oil and therefore is lower in fat and calories, making them a healthier option to deep fried foods.
As much as you think this would entice a person, we were grateful, but hardly used our air fryer to its full potential. But this slowly started to change.
Late night working and snacking became a treat as we realised that the crumbed chicken strips and crumbed chicken pops that we loved to snack on, were better and efficiently made in the air fryer!
Think 11pm hunger, opening the freezer, taking out crumbed chicken pops, popping a few into the air fryer (do not fill it up), 180 degrees for 7 minutes, and an effortless snack is served!
But wait, there's more!
When we mentioned to a family member how we missed having baked goodies especially pies since we can no longer use an oven, they told us that we had an air fryer so we can just bake it in there... "someone even baked cupcakes in an air fryer, so you have that option as well!"
This was mind blowing - we had to put it to the test!
We used ready-made puff pastry, placed viennas inside to make our favourite - cocktail vienna pies. Sprayed a bit of cook and bake in the pan before placing the pies spaciously in the pan of the air fryer, turning the heat to 160 degrees for ten minutes and walaa!
*Please remember that different makes and sizes of air fryers use different temperatures and timing.
It came out just like oven baked pies - we even forgot to brush egg or milk over the pies!
After that, we experimented with everything that we could think off - peanut butter cookies, bread, rolls, and even pizza - all made from scratch!
It really was an effortless and quick way to bake as well as cook anything. Even reheating, made the taste much better than reheating in a microwave.
The only thing is that we got tired of the taste of the chips - sometimes we don't want it to taste "that healthy"... yes, that's a thing with us!
But we learnt that the skinny-cut chips work best and give a better taste than normal cut or even slaptjips, when frying in an air fryer.
Also with an air fryer, it's best to finish off whatever you've cooked/ baked after making them, instead of keeping it as leftover.
We love using our air fryer - it was truly a God sent. Alhamdulillah! (All praise due to the Almighty).
... thoughts from Nabihah Plaatjes
RELATED ARTICLES:
https://www.iloveza.com/blogs/recipes/easy-3-ingredient-peanut-butter-cookies-made-with-an-air-fryer
https://www.iloveza.com/blogs/news/national-pie-day-top-pies-in-south-africa
