Carrot, Peach and Raisin Cupcake

I had 3 sticks of carrots in the fridge which I do not know what to do with them, as the 2 at home refuse to touch this orange color veggie.  So, in order to con them into eating carrots, I had them grated finely and hidden them inside the cupcake :p

Also, to make them more healthier, I added wheat bran and fresh peach into the cupcake as well.

I adapted the recipe from Joy of Baking, altered a bit to make it more healthier, the cupcakes turned out very light, moist and yummy.

Ingredients
240g all purpose flour
20g wheat bran
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 large eggs
160g brown sugar
1 cup corn oil
210g finely grated raw carrots
1 large fresh peach, skinned and chopped coarsely
100g raisins

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Sift flour, baking soda and ground cinnamon together, add in salt
3. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and oil until slightly thickened
4. Fold in the flour mixture until incorporated
5. With a large rubber spatula, fold in the grated carrots, chopped peach and raisins
6. Evenly spoon the batter into muffin cups and bake about 20 minutes (I baked for another 10 minutes on 200C as they were still pretty wet after the said baking time) or a tooth pick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean
7. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack

I had all the ingredients for the cream cheese frosting ready, but due to lack of time, I didn't make the frosting, I believe these cupcakes will taste lagi best with it :p

It tasted even better a day later

Made 9 small and 6 medium cups

Oreo Muffins

Boy, I'd been longing for a batch of muffins since yesterday.  Originally I thot of baking carrot & raisin muffins, but little girl rejected the offer as she dislike carrot and afraid that she may taste the carrot in the muffins.  Then I suggested oreo muffins, it couldn't go wrong with this, as 3 of us adore oreo, and of course little girl approved it.

I googled for a recipe during lunch this afternoon, found this but decided to change the recipe slightly to the ingredients I have on hand.

Ingredients:
(yield 8 muffins)

1 3/4 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup yogurt
1 egg
1/4 cup corn oil
10 Oreo cookies, coarsely chopped

1. Mix flour, sugar and salt in a medium bowl, set aside
2. Blend milk, yogurt and egg in a small bowl, stir in flour mixture with oil until just combined.  Gently stir in chopped oreo cookies.  Spoon batter into muffin cups
3. Bake at 200C for 20 minutes

Got 8 of them from the recipe

Oh boy, they smell so good while baking

Should I eat it with coffee or milk?

Chocolate Chips & Hazelnut Muffin

Little girl has been complaining that I didn't bake muffins for her in a long time.  I remembered I still have some chocolate chips left and promised to bake her a batch of chocolate chips muffin again.

I googled n found Nigella Lawson's website, she has a simple & easy version of chocolate chips muffin recipe.  I altered the recipe slightly and managed to get a dozen of the muffins after 40 minutes (the batter mixing & baking time taken)!

Ingredients
(yield 12)

250g plain flour (I used 200g flour and 50g ground hazelnut)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
2 tbsp best quality cocoa
175g caster sugar (used only 150g)
150g chocolate chips
250ml milk
90ml vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Weigh out the dry ingredients into a large bowl.  Pour all the liquid ingredients into a measuring jug
3. Mix both together - it will be a runny batter - then spoon into waiting muffin cases
4. Sprinkle more chocolate chips on top then bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are risen and springy

These babies r very delicious, rich and moist too, yum!  I had one immediately once it was slightly cool off, almost swallowing my tongue along :p

Added a teaspoon of nutella into 3 of this muffins, more yum!

Break up 1 to show u the yumminess in the muffin

Quadruple Chocolate Muffin

By adding a Kisses (dark chocolate) into the same batter from previous posting (the Triple Chocolate Muffin), I produced this lovely and most sinful Quadruple Chocolate Muffins.

These babies may look similar to the Triple Chocolate Muffins but each of them carrying a deadly bomb that will surely weak your knees

Little girl has declared this as the best muffin in the world!

Triple Chocolate Muffin

Warning, warning, warning..... Beware: this posting contains lots of chocolate & fat which may cause fattening! Read at your risk.

Little girl complained that I kept trying new muffins/cakes instead of baking her favorite chocolate chips muffins, therefore I promised to bake her a batch, not only chocolate chips but triple chocolate!

Actually, I googled and found the recipe here, however, I altered it so much that I am claiming it my own recipe now, hehehe.... hope the original recipe holder don mind :p

Ingredients

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup white chocolate chips

1/3 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup milo

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 cup butter milk

? cup melt butter (I forgot to measure this, I think it was around 3/4 to 1 cup)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 190C
2. Mix chocolate chips with white chocolate chips, reserve 1/3 cup for later use
3. Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda
4. Mix in brown sugar, salt, milo and chocolate chips
5. In another bowl, beat egg, vanilla, butter milk and melt butter until well combine
6. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients, fold lightly til just combine, do not over mix
7. Spoon batter into muffin cups til 3/4 full, sprinkle remaining chocolate chips (from the reserve 1/3 cup) on to each muffins
8. Bake for 20 minutes.

The silly me forgot to measure the melt butter, I just pour it directly into the egg mixture, then only I realized, but everything was too late, I had to proceed as I don wanna waste the ingredients. Sigh... these may surely causing a few extra inches or grams, I am definitely not jumping onto the scale for the next 1 week, that will save me from a foresee heart attack :p

I tell u, this baby is very moist, rich, chocolaty, oily, messy and sinful! Have it with a cup of warm milo, that will surely be a taste of heaven (or hell since it is sinful lol).

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Found few weeks old apples hiding in the fridge this morning, of course they r still edible but rather use all up in one go then eating it one by one. Search for a simple apple cinnamon muffin recipe and I was landed here. I chose this recipe cos I don have a lot of butter in hand and the recipe looks simple enough.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredient

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger (I excluded this)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk (made it by mixing 1 cup milk and 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar)

1 1/2 cups diced apple (used about 3 cups)

1. Preheat oven to 190C
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices
3. In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar and egg
4. Whisk in melted butter, vegetable oil and vanilla
5. Working in two or three additions, alternately stir in flour mixture and buttermilk, ending with an addition of flour and mixing only until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter
6. Stir in diced apple
7. Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each to the top, or slightly over
8. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean
9. Cool muffins on a wire rack

Made 28 of this small muffins, love the smell of the sweet cinnamon, also the muffins r moist and not too sweet, delicious! Little girl had 2 after school and 2 for her supper too!

Vegetarian Chocolate Chips Muffin and Rainbow & Saltana Muffin

Little girl requested a batch of muffins yesterday b4 she left to school, promised her with this muffins:

Chocolate Chips Muffin

Rainbow Sprinkle & Saltana Muffin

Recipe was adapted from Wendy Kor's Cakes' Talk. I divided the batter half to get the 2 batches of muffins.

They r eggless but still yummy, little girl ate plenty after school, even asking 4 few just after dinner for an early supper, ;)

A sad encountered - my hand mixer called 4 retirement during the preparation, * sob sob sob *

P/s Kept 1/2 of the muffins for Eve & her sons, they'll b delivered to u later, girl!

White Coffee Muffin with Surprises!

I altered the Blueberry Jam Filled Muffin recipe to this White Coffee Muffin as I don have milk on hand and so happen that hubby was enjoying his cup of white coffee, I stole 1/4 cup from him ;p

Ingredients

120g flour

30g sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

40g melted butter

1/2 cup yogurt

1/4 cup 3-in-1 white coffee

some Kisses chocolate

some peanut butter

some toffee bits

1. Preheat oven to 200 C
2. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt
3. In another bowl, blend sugar with melted butter, then add in egg, yogurt and white coffee
4. Gradually combine dry ingredients into wet mixture
5. Spoon a tablespoon of batter into muffin cup, drop in 1 Kisses chocolate or a tsp of peanut butter, cover with more batter til 2/3 full
6. Bake in oven for 15 - 20 minutes

White coffee muffin with toffee bits:

I filled up the coffee batter til 2/3 cup full, and sprinkled with lots of toffee bits

White coffee muffin with Kisses chocolate

White coffee muffin with peanut butter

Just look at the melting peanut butter, so sinfully delicious!

Blueberry Jam Filled Muffins

Adapted the recipe here, by looking at the photo over there oledi made me drooling, couldn't resist myself to try it out.

I filled the muffins with blueberry jam, few more with Kisses dark & milk chocolate.  There were 2 or 3 muffins erupted with blueberry lava while baking, causing the kitchen to infuse with sweetness, just love it.

The muffin was not very sweet, it was balanced out with the jam while savoring it, yummy!

These r the kisses filled muffins, look so obscene ;p

Sweet Potato Muffins

Saw Yam Tea Cake recipe from Alex Goh's 'Creative making of Cakes', but since I don have yam and coconut milk, I substituted with sweet potato, yogurt and milk.

Ingredients

(A)

250g     butter

180g     sugar

Pinch of salt

(B)

4           eggs

(C)

180g     sweet potato, steamed (I used those purple potatoes)

25g       sugar

80ml    yogurt

80ml    milk

(D)

290g     flour

1 tbsp    milk powder

1/2 tsp  baking powder

1. Cream (A) til light and fluffy
2. Add (B) and cream til light and smooth
3. Mix (C) til well blended while the cooked sweet potato is still hot.  Leave to cool.  Add it into the above mixture and mix til combined
4. Lastly, fold in the sieved (D) and mix til well incorporated
5. Pour mixture into muffin cups
6. Bake at 180 C for 20 minutes

After I mashed the sweet potato, I found that it contained some tiny roots, afraid that it may ruin the texture, I rub it thru a sieve to get rid of the roots and made the sweet potato smoother, cost me about 15 minutes for this tedious process.

I had the 1st batch with chocolate chips which is little girls favorites

2nd batch with toffee bits

Satisfied with the texture and taste, fluffy and yummy!

Orange Muffins

Promised RX (little girl's cousin, a very pretty girl with beautiful eyes) to bake her some muffins last Sat.  As I was quite tired after the day out on Mon, I had to wake up early on Tue morning to bake this batch of orange muffins.

The recipe was from Alex Goh's "Creative making of Cakes".

Ingredients:

      (A)

200 g      Flour

1/4 tsp    Baking powder

1/2 tbsp  Milk powder

250g       Butter

       (B)

5              Eggs

175g         Sugar

       (C)

2 tbsps   Orange juice

Zest of 1 orange

I altered his method of making the muffins as I hand-beaten the batter, so here was my method:

1. Whip (B) til light and thick

2. Add (C) into (B) and mix til evenly blended

3. Fold in bit of dry ingredients from (A), mix well, then bit of melted butter, mix well, then repeat dry and wet til all blended

4. Place the batter into muffin cups

5. Bake at 190 C for 20 minutes

I added some chocolate chips to a few baby muffins as little girl adore chocolate chips very much.  So, here are the end results:

Kiddy version: Orange muffins with chocolate chips and plain orange muffins

Adult version: orange muffins

We visited RX n her family after 3pm, little girl enjoyed playing with RX, her chubby bro JX and quiet cousin QR.  Hope her family likes and enjoys the muffins.

Milo Muffins with Surprises!

Make another batch of muffins today, it was a recipe I found during google searching for nutella muffin recipe, remember my previous posting on nutella banana muffin?

I found the recipe here, but I altered the recipe slightly as I don have cocoa powder, I substituted it with milo, therefore the color of the muffins are not that dark.  I cut down the sugar by 2 tbsp too and used a mix of brown n white sugar.

Also, other than nutella for the stuffings, I had some muffins with chocolate chips or with Kisses dark or milk chocolate.

Milo n chocolate chips muffins without filling

Milo muffins with nutella filling

Milo muffins with Kisses dark or milk chocolate filling

Kiddy muffins - milo n chocolate chips muffins (left) and plain milo muffin without filling (right)

Different chocolate snack in a box: almond london (top), plain milo muffin with nutella topping n colorful sprinkles (bottom left) and milo n chocolate chips muffin

Little girl and me preferred this muffin than the nutella banana muffin, it's very moist, not too sweet and yummy.

Nutella Banana Muffins

I was browsing thru the net on Tue nite and came across that it'd be The World Nutella Day 2009 on 5 Feb!  Since we r a big fan of nutella in this hsehold, I decided to google search for some muffin recipes, found this site with a gorgeous muffin photo.

Tried out the recipe yesterday, I baked 2 batches of muffins, 24 small baby muffins for little girl to bring to her pre-school and 8 medium size muffins for ourselves.

This is the tiny muffin ...

These r the medium size muffins, I stuffed a Hershey's Kisses chocolate (used 2 types, milk chocolate and dark chocolate) into each of these muffins, as a surprise :)

But due to my greediness on pouring the muffin batter, I got the following result, which made me kind of sad :(

dare not show it big, so malu-lah!

Thus, didn't bother to decorate the muffins.  Anyway, although they looked so awful, they tasted marvelous, is a must try recipe.

Honey Mango Muffin

I bought a few over-ripe with bit of black spots mangoes on Sun (cheap mah!), thinking of making mango enzyme, however, once I reached mum's hse, dad attacked one of the mango, later at the evening bro thought the mangoes were going to spoilt, so he got the helper to cut all the fruits.  Aiyah!  Everybody were drooling over those mangoes, but they couldn't finish all, left a big bag in the fridge.

This afternoon, mum asked me to proceed with the enzyme making with some extra mangoes she bought yesterday, however, since those leftover mangoes were cut n not fresh any more, I dare not try making enzyme.

In order not to waste those mangoes, I decided to google search for a mango muffin recipe, and lucky enough, I got it, a simple one too!

Mango Muffin

2 cups              flour

4 tsp                 baking powder  (I used 2 tsp only)

1/2 tsp              salt

1 cup                sugar or 3/4 cup honey (I used honey only)

1/4 cup            vegetable oil (I used corn oil)

1 cup                milk

1                        egg

1 to 1 1/2 cup  mango pulp (I used 2 cups of mango cut to chunk)

1. Cut and peel mango and reduce to soft pulp and juice

2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in large bowl

3. In a separate bowl combine oil, milk, and egg

4. Mix liquid ingredients with dry until just moist and stir in mango pulp

5. Fill greased muffin tins or paper cups two third full

6. Bake at 400F (200C) for 15 - 18 minutes

These muffin smelt really good, the whole hse was infused with the honey aroma while baking.

The texture is a bit moist/wet, mum said it was due to the honey.  Soft and not too sweet, it's indeed very yummy!