Chocolate Hazelnuts Melts Muffin

Well, this batch of cupcakes was prepared by my maid, ah-sih. She was so happy with the result ^.^ Original recipe from a book from library, Muffin Magic. This book introduced a very simple way of preparing muffin and even your kid can do it with minimum help from adult ^.^


Both my husband and brother also commented GooOOOD! But to me, I feel a bit too sweet. Suggested to my maid maybe we can try replace Nutella filling with melted-dark-chocolate or reduced the sugar ^.^

Ingredients:
- 100g or 1C toasted hazelnuts (chopped), plus extra (whole hazelnuts) to decorate
- 200g or 1 1/3C plain flour
- 1T baking powder (I reduced to 2t)
- 3T cocoa powder
- 150g sugar (should reduce to 120g, else too sweet)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 200ml buttermilk
- 2T milk
- 85g butter, melted
- 4T Nutella or other chocolate and hazelnut spread (for filling)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190C.
2. Combine nuts with flour, baking powder, cocoa and sugar and sift into large bowl. (Don't worry if all the nuts don't go through, just sprinkle them over the top.)
3. In separate bowl, combine egg, buttermilk and milk. Then stir in butter.
4. Pour WET mixture into dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
5. Spoon small dollops of mixture into prepared muffin cup. Using back of the teaspoon to make a slight indent in the mixture and spoon 1t Nutella into the centre of each muffin. Top with the remaining mixture and press a few whole hazelnuts into the top.
6. Bake for 20mins till risen and firm to touch.

Banana Chocolate Chips Cupcakes

Here come the close up! These are the cupcakes that I've prepared for my daughter's birthday celebration @ childcare ^.^ The children loves it!

Reason why we didn't buy cake from the cakeshop because teacher said we are not advised to buy creamy cake. And I've tried to bake this previously and "submit for approval" to my daughter and she loves it as well.

Thus, decided to bake this. Total cupcakes produced with 2xoriginal recipe is 42. After put it nicely, managed to squeeze in 37 cupcakes ^.^

Ingredients: (original recipe from Delicious Cakes by Y3K cookbooks bought from Popular
(A)
- 5 eggs
- 15g ovalette (orange-in-color)
- 230g sugar
(B) Mixed together
- 170ml oil (I used canola-oil)
- 230g cakeflour
- 1t baking-powder
(C) Mixed together
- 250g ripen pisang berangan (mashed in plastic bag) - I used those small bananas
- 60g evaporated milk
- 1t baking soda
- 1t banana essence (I just use 1drop, will opt this out if the bananas already have strong nice smell)

Method:
1. Preheat oven @ 180C.
2. Whisk at high speed (A) till light and fluffy.
3. Gradually add (B) beat at low speed. Lastly add (C).
4. Pour batter into prepared greased/lined tin or cupcakes-paper and bake for 55-60mis.
5. Sprinkle chocolate/chips/candies for decoration [optional].

Coffee Chocolate Chips Cupcakes

Wanted to bake cupcakes recently after few cookies sessions... decided to choose this as it was simple ^.^

It was very soft and light. I added chocolate chips to "attract" someone to grab it. Managed to produce only 11cupcakes and finish within 4days.

Lemon Cupcakes

Forgot already where I got this recipe from but as I mentioned earlier, wanted to try out citrus flavor cake... so, here what I got ^.^

Actually last weekend I planned to visit a friend of mine. She was celebrating her grandma's birthday and invites me and my daughter to join. So, I decorated few of the cupcakes with colorful sprinkles and chocolate chips for the girls (her 2 lovely daughters and my daughter).

But my 2 naughty boys were giving my trouble and didn't take their nap till 5pm. It would be very hard for my maid to entertain the boys at 9pm later as the boys would still be very energetic by then.

If they take their nap like usual, around 2pm, by 9plus @ night, the youngest will need to "re-charge battery" (sleep) already. So, my maid only need to entertain the big boy.... So, end up, I didn't go :(


But I promised my friend that I will bake strawberries shortcake and few cupcakes for her girl's coming birthday ^.^

Mocha Muffins with Chocolate Chips & Pecan

All I can say is.... my kids love this!

The only thing I will change next time if I want to bake this: Should use a smaller muffin cup cause for a kid, it's too much I guess ^.^ The espresso smell was so nice and the chocolate chips was the attraction to have another bite :)

Let's that a look of the inner beauty of the muffin =) I will definitely make this again very soon!

Orange butter cupcakes

Managed to bake this last weekend after my son's birthday. My mixer was spoilt and I brought back to repair but instead, they change a brand new mixer for me.. happy!

Cause I do not want to bake anything related to cocoa cause kind of bored :P so, I bake this orange butter cupcakes which my daughter loves orange. But... because it will cause phlegm so I "ban" her from drinking or eating orange. I guess eating orange cupcakes will not cause the phlegm? hahahahaa... an excuse? dunno...

Here's the look (not able to shoot it nicely using mobile phone cause holding youngest boy with me :P)


And here's the photo taken after youngest boy and me eating half of the cupcakes :P


The texture was soft and suitable for baby (not baby lar..but kids ) cause it's easy to bite and it will melt in the mouth =) The recipe didn't instruct to add sultana, but i got it on hand and my kids love it also, so i added into the batter. I even add in some chocolate rice to the other half of the batter :D

Will definitely try this again whenever I'm bored with cocoa/chocolate, not bored eating, but bored baking using cocoa/melting the chocolate :D
Maybe I'm too tired to spend time after burning few days taking care my kids that all fall sick (fever, cough & flu) the same period of time. Not enough rest/sleep but want to bake sometimes for them to eat as they don't have appetite to eat their meal ^.^

Chocolate Chips and Raisin Cupcakes

This is a wait and wait and wait cupcakes. Why? Because the recipe told me so :P

Yeast was part of the ingredient and it takes time to react on the mixture.
So, I mixed the first batch of ingredients, cover with cling wrap and let it rest for more than 45 minutes. The recipe stated only rest for 45 minutes and I let it rest more than that because I went to NTUC Fair Price with my husband and kids to buy something :P hahahahaa... I can't just sit there to wait for the yeast to do the job right?

By the time I reach home, the mixture was double in bulk, which it was meant to be :)

Then, I combined raisin, chocolate chips and some melted baking chocolate chips that was cut into small pieces. The recipe instructed to let the mixture to rest for a while again, but I didn't as I think I let it rest enough :P So, I applied the beaten egg on top of the cupcakes and baked @ 200C for 20 minutes. Yes! I read the recipe 3 times to confirm on the heat and timing, it's really 200C and 20 minutes, kind of high heat and long timing compare to what I've baked so far.

The taste as in sweetness was just right. BUT, it's kinda dry and when you have a bite together with the raisin, it felt like you chewing some 'moist' dessicated coconut :P hahahaaa, not sure where went wrong, maybe my mistake for not letting the mixture to rest for the 2nd time after combing the raisin and chocolate chips. :P Will try again and see if I can fix this =)

Why I use 'some melted baking chocolate chips and was cut into small pieces (since it was melted already)'?

I melted this baking chocolate chips wrongly for the crispy cookies (I should have used chocolate couvertures for the crispy cookies) and I felt that it would be wasted to throw away. So I cut it into a small pieces (it was kept in the fridge, so I have to cut into small pieces) and added into this cupcakes, That's why you can notice there's big pieces of chocolate in the cupcakes =P

Baked on 10 Aug 2009.