Fresh Blueberries Muffins @ cupcakes....

Oh, the weather is so hot and humid today, yet no lazying around. The day started with a bit of housework, that is, mop the floor.

Had my shower, ate Korean instant noodles for lunch, and was beginning to feel restless when I decided to browse Aunty Lucy's blogpage for inspiration. Simple bake should be ok.

Fresh blueberries were selling at $2.88 per punnet at NTUC and I bought 2 punnets. So this is my take of fresh blueberries cupcakes.

This is a receipe for muffins, then again I tweaked it with 100g of ground almond as I ran out of cake flour and I do not have muffin trays.... so... well, you know.

Simply love the purplish look of the blueberries oozing within the cake batter whilst it baked and aint my paper cupcake lovely in pink red flowers with green leaves adorned.

(*pictures taken when bakes were fresh out of oven at 3pm just now....)

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes

My 1st attempt at making chocolate mint cupcakes with the receipe from Aunty Lucy's blogpage. This receipe has been with me for the longest time and yet it is only today that I finally decided to try the baking. To answer that, well, its because, I have been very distracted to try other bakes too. Curious distractions indeed.

And instead of using the plain chocolate chips, I sprinkled in the colored chocolate chips and that kinda brightened up the dark chocolatety look. With my generous portion of the peppermint essence into the making, you can imagine the strong pepperminty aroma that lingered in the kitchen due to the dampness of the air from the rain pour this afternoon.

The cupcake was not the smooth dome shape which I had initially hoped for probably due to the high oven temperature. However, the cupcakes were soft in texture with crisp umbrella shape.

Interesting aftertaste from the strong peppermint but gotta reduce the essence abit more coz Mom's not keen into the 'power' scent.

Lychee Muffins

Last month Jestina (Hut of Cranberry) 'tickled' my tastebuds with her beautiful bakes of Lychee Muffins and recently, LeeLee (Baking Mum), followed the same receipe and loaded her blogsite with the lovely pictures posting. Alas, again, there I began to drool. As one of the fellow blogger said, 'dont drool, follow the receipe and bake your own.'

So on this wet, gloomy Tuesday, (notwithstanding), I finally got down to baking these lovely muffins of my own too. I am not exaggerating in mention that even during the preparation stage of just stirring and blending the ingredients, you can already smell the lovely fruitty fragrance from the lychees, and plus 30 mins of setting aside time for the mixture to 'thicken', goodness, my kitchen smells simply heavenly.

And when the muffins were in the oven, baking, with the dampness from the rain, the heaviness of the air with the cool wind blowing, the aroma of the bakes immensely filtered into the whole house (well, mine is a small HDB flat, small space, so the smell was like full coverage), and maybe, the fresh baking aroma 'found' its way into my neighbours' domain as well, perhaps. Gosh, I wonder if any of them had drooled.

The muffins were soft and fluffy sweetened by the crunch of the juicy pieces of bite size lychees. yumz.

Thanks to Jestina for sharing the receipe.

Orange Yoghurt Muffins

Defination of Muffins from www.answers.com :
= A small, cup-shaped quick bread, often sweetened.
= An English muffin.

Interesting, eh, how food history and defination dates back to the ancient days.

As usual, my 'pattern' when it comes to what to bake depends largely on whats available or coming close to expiry. I believe alot of people share this common behaviour. (just a wild guess, do not quote me.)

From the last bake of lemon yoghurt muffins, I changed it to orange flavoured since thats the only citrus alternative available in my fridge. I added the grated zest of the sunkist orange as well to give the muffins the extra 'umph' of orange taste.

I must say that this is an easier way to get everyone in the house to have yoghurt rather than hoping that they help themselves to finish a small cuppa of 150ml of yoghurt. In any case, I have not acquired the taste of taking plain yoghurt either. It has to be the fruity, mixed yoghurt.

Like the last round, the moist, soft texture of the muffins pleases my palate. i like.

Lemon Yoghurt Muffins

After last Tuesday's fried chicken wings for dinner, the following day I had sore throat, followed by fever, cold and coughs. Probably due to the weather also, but the main root for the sickly frame of mine, which i am certain was the 'over indulgence' of the deep fried chicken wings. Yupz, greedy me. =p

So you can imagine how 'trapped' I had been able not being able to access the kitchen to cook or to bake. Half the time for the last few days, i was blowing my 'biggy' nose one minute and then coughing within the next second. Felt so lousy. All I could do was to eat the medications timely to nurse and rebuild my stamina back again.

Feeling less zombie and much better today, i 'itched' to bake something simple. And while thinking, I searched the fridge and realised that the lemons which I bought about 2 weeks back were still untouched. One had turned mouldy, and had to be thrown away immediately. I needed to salvage ('make something good') out of the 3 remaining lemons and fast is THE word. (no wastage allowed!)

Promptly, I did a quick check online and found Aunty Yochana's receipe on Lemon Yoghurt Muffin. http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2007/06/lemon-yoghurt-muffins.html and incorporated some additions of the lemon zest and the glaze touches from another webpage.

Within an hour, I had 6 lemon yoghurt muffins, 3 with lemon glaze and the balance lemon juice into a small glass of lemonade. Pretty effortless but the warm muffins are moist and soft in texture and I had to quickly take a foto shoot of the remaining 4 muffins before its all gone.

Sesame Seeds & Walnut Muffin

There are many baking receipes that I would love to try my hands on making and today, while rummaging through the cabinets, some remaining balance of self raising flour and cake flour. And so had to make do with whatever ingredients in the house as the supermarket seems so far away under such humidity. (yep, thats my excuse.)

I came across this lovely receipe on Sesame Seeds & Walnut Muffin from Aunty Yochana's blogsite and as usual, drooled over. Unshyly and thickheadedly, I loaded Aunty with queries and she patiently gave me tips. Hence, I decided to give it a shot.

During preparation stage, what caught my attention were words in bold print which read "wash before use" on my recently purchased black and white sesame seeds packs from NTUC. Hadnt seen those bold words before from the previous leftover pack. Well, the product is Made In China, so there had to be some valid, good reason(s) for the recommendation. So, 'clumsily and obediently', the black and white sesame seeds were rinsed and washed before roasted under slow fire in the fry pan. Simply love the aura of the roasting sesame seeds, popping and jumping in the fry pan, fragrance refreshing.

Followed the steps in Aunty Yochana's receipe http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2007/08/sesame-and-walnuts-cupcakes.html and viola, lovely muffins (instead of cupcakes) for me. Even my brother who is not a cake eater, munched one and half portions with compliments on its unique taste and fragrance.

Thumbs up for this receipe! Thanks to Aunty Yochana for sharing.

Carrot & Orange muffin

With so many receipes galore on the variations on the making of assorted muffins, i decided to try my hands on baking homemade muffins as well. I came across a receipe from a cooking book borrowed from the community library which features mostly collections of dishes focussed on healthy living, healthy cooking, which means low carb, low fat and high fibre.

The simple steps of this carrot & orange muffin caught my eye. This is my 2nd attempt at the making and the muffins turned out lovely indeed. In fact, carrot & orange as blended juice are already a "hit" with many as the combi of both contents are high in fibre and Vitamin C. A delightful indulgence without feeling sinful and 'fuss free'.

Ingredients :

150g self raising flour

75g sugar

100g semi skimmed milk ( i used meiji low fat fresh milk instead )

zest & juice of one orange

125g coarsely grated carrot

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

2 tbsp corn oil

1/2 tsp baking flour

Steps

Shift flour, baking powder, grated carrot, orange zest & sugar into a mixing bowl. Mix well. Set aside.

Mix milk, sugar, orange juice, oil till well blended.

Make hole in the centre of the flour bowl and pour in liquids and mix till well blended.

Pour into muffin cups and place in well greased muffin tins.

Bake in preheat oven of 200 degrees for about 20mins.