Holiday home baking class

I had arranged for a cleaner to come in today. At the last minute, she did not turn up. I had no plans and thus did not know what to do. The intention was to go to the hairdresser's, but as it was still early in the morning, I decided to bake some muffins and cookies with my girl.

During most of her school hols, I like to occupy her with activities. While looking up cooking classes for kids, I found a lot of them tend to be very highly-priced. The stuff that were interesting, she wouldn't like to eat them, and the basic ones were too boring. I thus decided that I should teach her on my own. My cousins are already on the list for the next couple of weeks. Their mum wants them to pick up some cooking and baking skills and I've been arrowed to teach them a lesson or two. Once it's not done in my house, I'm happy. :D Did you already know I hate cleaning? Well, I really do. Cooking and baking is fun but cleaning and dusting, not my forte. I clean because I need to, not because I want to.

So well, having recently done a volunteer session of baking with the girls at school, I had a tub of yoghurt leftover, and not wanting to waste it, decided to let her bake using the recipe I had gotten from here. I did not follow the recipe, just used it as a base. Oreo was the substitute for Nutella and peanut butter.

Here you go, princess' first muffins all done by herself except that I had to help her place and remove tray from oven. Mummy's fault that it was too brown as I had set the oven to bake fan-forced. Yikes!

There was plenty of time left so we decided to bake cookies as well. The girl had requested for soft and chewy chocolate chip muffins and I remembered watching Anna Olson on tv one time, making just those cookies. A quick google and I found it easily. I did not cut down on sugar and am glad that it was just a nice sweet. However, the Valrhona dark chocolate chunks I had used were a bit bitter, they are fine once you get used to the taste. I suggest sticking to the original recipe. It is perfect as it is. Crispy on the outside and soft chewy on the inside.

When we were finally done with everything, a big thunderstorm started and we got stuck comfortable at home. In the end, we didn't get our hair done, but we spent a most enjoyable day at home doing nothing. :)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into chunks

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (I used 165 deg C)
   
2. Cream together butter and sugars until smooth. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.
3. Stir in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.
4. Drop by tablespoons onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown around the edge.
5. Let cool slightly and enjoy.
   

School bento #5 + Muffins

This bento was very hastily put together in minimal time. The only things that needed to be done in the morning were to put the McDonald chicken nuggets in the oven and cut up some dragonfruit.

I had baked some muffins for the girl the day before. Had planned to do them to put in her bentos, and I so happened to receive a mini silicon baking tray then, so it got me excited to try it out. The muffins were really cute, definitely mini! I made them in three flavours - blueberry, chocolate chip and banana. It's literally bite size so just pop them in your mouth and they are gone.

Thank you for the gift, dear friend. I love it to bits! Making more today to take to the nurses at the hospital as a thank you gift. :)

Lemon Curd muffins

I have been itching to bake lately and have been spending quite a bit of time in the kitchen. From jams, to pancakes, to now, muffins. There were cakes along the way, and biscuits too.

I have limited butter in the fridge, actually after this recipe, it's 'had'. To be exact, only 33gm left and it was just perfect for this half recipe which I found in Noobcook and made my own variation based on her base recipe.

Instead of blueberries, I made use of the lemon curd I had made 3 months' back. I liked the end product and it was very easy to do. However, I didn't bother sifting the flour, as a characteristic of muffins is density and not a cake-like, airy feel. I'm glad it turned out well.

Ingredients: (Makes about half a dozen muffins )

- 3/4cups plain flour
- 3/4egg, beaten
- 1/4 tbsp baking powder (oops I made a mistake and used a tsp but it still rose perfectly)
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 6 tsp lemon curd for filling
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla essence/extract
- 33 grams butter, melted

Method:

1. Mix flour, baking powder and sugar together.
2. Add in milk, vanilla extract, eggs and butter and stir until just blended (and lumpy). Be careful not to over mix as it will result in a tough texture.
3. Place baking cases in muffin tins. Spoon a teaspoonful of mixture into the cases. Fill with a teaspoonful of curd and then top it up till cup is 3/4 full.
4. Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven of 190 deg C or until slightly golden brown. Allow to rest for several minutes before serving. Store for a day in an airtight container.

A Bake Date

Inspiration struck this morning when I visited dear Peony's blog. As it was pretty early and I hadn't had breakfast, the beautiful and moist chocolate chip muffins were calling out to me. Logging onto gmail, I 'saw' my dear friend C. I guess we were both captivated by said muffins and she had this idea for us to bake together, although 'together' didn't mean literally. She is across the far end of the Causeway, so we baked in our own homes and made variations to the original recipe. I decided to add some banana and walnuts to mine, while she was making hers a nutty version, with the addition of some cranberries.

I have come to the conclusion that I am not into cakes without butter. I have tried a few recipes which use oil, but at the end of the day, it's back to butter. Muffin recipes, on the other hand, works best with oil, just gently mixed in. I believe the difference in texture is that butter = more flaky, soft cake, whereas oil = more starchy? It's just my observation as I am no pro at baking.

Muffins are super easy to do: you do not need to sift the flour (phew), as what you do not want in a muffin is soft, flaky cupcake-like texture. Sifting flour incorporates air (I still remember what I learned in Home Econs class yonks ago!). You do not overmix it, and as Peony says in her recipe, you want lumps in muffins. And best of all, it's done in a very short time. If you are 'hardworking' enough, you can make muffins for breakfast in an instant, but that's not me. :)

I added 2 mashed bananas to the original recipe and it made the muffins more moist. Instead of chocolate chips, I spied a bottle of chocolate rice so I thought to use that, just for a change.

The recipe yielded 22 small cups of 3.3cm each, and the remainder I put them into pretty cups as I had run out of the former. Basing on the same 3.3cm cup measurement, I would have gotten 28 muffins. These are easy, pop in the mouth cups and very adorable. I think I got them from Penang on my last trip there.

It has been a very fun experience baking with a friend. I look forward to more of these. However, lots of hiccups as we kept missing each other but we still managed to finish it off at pretty much the same time.

These muffins are yummy. Try them, I-M, if you are reading this. It's super duper easy and you need not use any apparatus except a mixing bowl and a measuring cup. I simply used a rice spoon to mix all of it together.

Thanks for sharing the recipe, Peony. These are delicious! Check out C's version here.

Busy busy week

So what else is new... I'm busy every week. I have a waitlist of people wanting us to go on playdates but not enough days in a week to accede to all their requests. Was tied up with funfair preparations last week, doing up posters, etc. And was baking muffins half of Saturday and spent the other half helping out with the setting-up of the hall. Hardly slept that night as was afraid would wake up late with tons to do in the morning. Thank goodness was up by 7am and did some little labels for the foodstuff we were selling. Unfortunately, I did not take one photo. It was a great photo opportunity lost as I was too wrecked by the time the fair started and was busy on-site. My contribution to the funfair, initially, was sausages and fishballs. I figured they were very simple to prepare and wouldn't take up too much of my time. However, a week before the fair, a mum said she was contributing 250 fishballs, so ok I was down to only sausages. Having come across Cranberry's muffin recipe, I was keen to try it out. I sent them out to taste-testers a few days before the actual mass baking and the response was good. (WL, I don't think you'd want to touch any muffin again after this. Sorry about that.) ;)

For the fillings, I had fresh blueberries, peanut butter, Oreo. All were well-received. However, for the funfair I did not use blueberries (as they didn't cost $2.95 then. ;P). Instead I made chocolate banana. Unfortunately I didn't try any of that so I don't know how it tasted.

This recipe is a keeper. Thanks, Cranberry. I made another batch just yesterday, the day after the funfair because it was that good! :D

Hi all!

Hi there to my fellow blogger friends. First off, I'd like to apologize to those who have left comments but I've not had the chance to reply them. Thanks for taking the time to.

I just don't know what I've been really occupied with. Anything and everything I guess. My diary is filled every day of the week, and every weekend there is a birthday party to attend. To kick start the month of April, we had 2 birthday parties one after another last Saturday and for the next 3 weekends to come. Thus, have been shopping around for presents, burning a giant hole in the pocket! And also, we've started swimming class again last week. So, mega busy this mummy has been. On the flip side, little princess is really happy to meet up with her swimming pals once more and they've picked up where they left off. The great thing is that at this new pool where they go for class now, there is a little wadding pool perfect for them to play in after their half hour lesson is over. However, we mums aren't too pleased with the timing of the class but the coach can't change it. It's right smack in the hottest part of the afternoon at 3pm and for those of you living in Singapore, you'd know that the weather now is a killer. The 8am sun feels like 12pm, so you can imagine the intensity of the 3pm sun! I have picked up for her a long-sleeved UV protection swim top to give her little body as much cover as possible from the sun's harmful rays. Now, I just pray that she doesn't get goggle eyes. You know those, you see them on little swimmers who spend too much time in the sun using goggles.

In the time I've been missing, I did some cooking. However, they are stuff that I have blogged about before. Or else, I'd packed food from the coffee shop, or bought ready chicken thighs and served them with this potato salad below. This is the ultimate comfort food. Boiled potatoes with chopped onions, spring onions, slathered with mayonnaise and topped with bacon bits (fresh, not canned). Yum!

I made these Orange, Carrot & Chocolate Muffins for a school outing yesterday, by the request of little princess. She had wanted me to make Lemon Poppyseed. I was like, huh, I can't feed the kids that! So orange muffins they were.

Was super tired after the outing yesterday and to make matters worse, my phone gave me problems, so had to drop it in to the Ericsson service centre to get it repaired and will only get it back on Friday after 2pm. So, friends who read my blog and have been trying to get me in vain, please note that I will only be able to contact you after Friday afternoon. However, am trying to get my hands on a phone to use. I don't believe that all the phones at the service centre are out. Are there so many phones spoiled that so many have sent theirs for repair? Well, it will be the last Ericsson I'm getting for sure. I had to trade-in my last one early as it gave me problems, and this one, less than 2mths old, and already problematic. Gosh! Don't I ever learn??!!!

Alright, I've digressed. Meant to be talking about my dinner. So, not having the energy to go to the supermarket and then racking my brains as to what to prepare for dinner, I thought of what I had left in my fridge, put the ingredients together and decided to fry a dish of bee hoon for us last night. So here I present my Fried Bee Hoon with baby kailan, shredded carrots, sausages, prawns, fresh button mushrooms and some corned beef leftover from my corned beef fried rice last week. Fried an omelette and sliced it up to garnish, together with fried shallots.

Delicious Lychee Muffins

I finally tried out this recipe by Cranberry, yesterday. I followed the original recipe as I had unsalted butter. However, I put in approximately 200g ( a whole can would yield 230g) of lychee and found that it was rather easy to peel apart, without the need to chop them. Just break into chunks. The funny thing, though, I couldn't get the egg and sugar mixture to increase by threefold, so I just whisked it for 3 mins and added the other ingredients as per the recipe. It still turned out nice. The sugar I used was 70g but I feel I can still cut it down by another 10g as the juice from lychee can was sweet enough. I also used vanilla essence as I thought it'd be impractical for me to buy a bottle of lychee essence just for the purpose of using 1tspful. It was deliciously moist and very lovely, a change from the usual chocolate ones that I tend to bake a lot of.

Busy busy

Was a busy day today. Picked little one from school before classes ended to rush down to the paed before the clinic closed for lunch. Made a big 'donation' to the paed but what to do, hopefully this will sort out the problem of her cough. The GP had suggested that if she still wasn't well after this round of medication, that she should go for an x-ray. Huh? Is it really so serious? We decided to go to the paed instead. The minute we saw him he diagnosed it straightaway as an allergy. He asked if she coughs after a run, and yes she does. Also she coughs straight after eating ice-cream. I guess that's what you pay for. It's the experience that they have. Even if it's way more than the cost of seeing a GP, it at least answers my questions. I don't think it warrants an x-ray. I mean she's had it before and we went for TCM after western medication didn't help. Well, it eventually tapered off, but I really pitied her that time. Had to force her to down the yucky chinese medicine (I doubt I can drink that myself), but after threats with cane, and the buckets of tears every time, we finally found a solution, that was to add honey to it and she drank it much better (I was really so proud of her), but always accompanied by some preserved plums. :) She loves them. That is so Chinese. I think her Chinese genes are much stronger than Irish. And I guess living here in Asia contributes to that as well. She loves noodles and tofu more than potatoes or roasts.

So for the next 7 days we have to do this inhaler thing. It was a lot to absorb at the paed's. Goodness, must remember all the steps etc. So we have to get up a little earlier in the mornings to get it out of the way before leaving for school. Sigh. Then after 7 days have to report back to paed and continue for another 3 weeks. Mega sigh. But he says it works better than liquid allergy medicine. And also thank God it's not the nebulizer or it would have been more costly to rent the equipment etc.

Note to self - No pineapple/orange juices, berries (basically acidic food), no nuts. No green kiwi, golden kiwi is fine. Can take apples, papaya.

On a happier note, the tooth fairy visited for the 2nd time this month. The tooth has been bugging her for ages since the 1st one came out (they were both shaky together) and the poor child couldn't eat the last 2 days and the 1st thing she said when it dropped while she was eating papaya was, 'Yay! Now I can eat!'. Hahaha. The greedy child. She was really happy. This time the 'tooth master' decided that the tooth fairy should give the little princess $10 instead. Woohoo!! We woke up all happy this morning when we found out what the tooth fairy brought us.

This funny thing happened before she went to bed this evening. She mentioned that she could smell brownies, hmmm, they smell so yummy. I said I didn't smell anything. But she did. Oh well, weird, considering I was planning to make some brownie muffins after she went off to sleep. Haha. Hmmm... 6th sense??


This is for you, Peony...

Chocolate Brownie Muffins

Ingredients -

2 cups (300g) sr flour
1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
1/3 cup (75g) caster sugar
60g butter, melted
1/2 cup (95g) chocolate bits
1/2 cup (75g) chopped pistachios (optional - I omitted, or you can substitute with other types)
1/2 cup (125ml) Nutella
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup (180ml) milk
1/2 cup (125ml) sour cream

Method -

1. Grease 12 hole muffin pan.

2. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl, stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon mixture into prepared pan.

3. Bake in moderately hot oven about 20mins (I used fan-forced 160 deg C). Makes 12.

Note - The muffins were really light and soft with a lovely crusting on the top when eaten freshly baked. However, this morning, it's gone heavier. Maybe a quick zap in the microwave for a few seconds will make it warm and soft again? I have not tried.

Also, special thanks to inspiredmumof2 for kindly offering me the loan of her baking book where I got this recipe from. Can't remember the title and publisher.

Orange Chocolate Muffins

Have been feeling out of sorts the past 2 days and got up this morning not wanting to go down to get breakfast so decided to make some muffins. I have a list of 5 items I want to make this weekend. Have made two of them, one of which was lemon curd. It's for some lemon cupcakes which I plan to do tomorrow or on Monday when I feel better. This 'orange chocolate muffins' recipe has been on my to-do list for ages. I made sure I had to do them. And I did want some muffins for brekkie this morning. Boy, was I rewarded! The muffins were lovely.


Orange Chocolate Muffins (slightly modified recipe from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients -

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup)
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup orange juice
6 dsp milk
2 tbsp grated orange peel
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 squares (1oz) bittersweet chocolate

Method -

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in sour cream, orange juice, milk and peel. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and grated chocolate; stir into creamed mixture just until moistened. Fill paper-lined muffin tray or baking cups 3/4 full.

2. Bake at 400 deg F (200 deg C) for 15-20 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 mins before removing from pans to wire racks.


This I made for princess' lunch yesterday. Just to satisfy the curiosity of what a 'haw cake' is. It isn't really a cake. For those who know, it is san cha, or haw flakes. It's those little round reddish snack which most of us liked when growing up. Well, I still like them now. ;P

Muffins & bowling

Princess requested for blueberry muffins today. So we made some. Since we were meeting cousin n nephew, decided to make some chocolate chip ones as not sure if he'd eat blueberries. So divided mixture into two and made equal amounts of each flavour. I have not tried the chocolate chip one and not sure if it's too dry, but the blueberries add moisture to the muffin so that one was nice.


The kids had a good outing today. We went bowling (erm, the kids, not the mums). Haha. We were just there for the phototaking. Hehe.