If she can do it, so can you.

Yogurt Marble Cupcakes March 20, 2008

Yogurt Marble Cake 

Ingredients (A)
85g unsalted butter, cut into pieces 170g sugar (original recipe uses 200g)
2 tsps vanilla extract

Ingredients (B) –
whisk together till smooth
2 tsp instant coffee granules
37g unsweetened cocoa powder
70g sugar
60 ml water

Ingredients (C)
2 eggs

Ingredients (D) –
sift together 225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp plus 1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

240 ml unsweetened nonfat yogurt

1) Preheat oven to 180C.Grease a 21 cm tube pan.

2) Cream butter and sugar in (A) till light and creamy. Beat in vanilla. Dribble in (C) slowly, about 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly for about 2 mins*

3) On LOW speed, beat in 1/3 of (D). Mix until just combined. Beat in ½ the yogurt. Beat in 1/2 of the remaining flour mixture, followed by the rest of the yogurt. Lastly, beat in the rest of the flour. Take care not to overmix.

4) Measure out about half of the batter and fold in (B). Set aside.

5) Alternate large spoonfuls of the white and chocolate batters into the pan.

6)Use a table knife to marble the batters together in a zig-zag or circular motion, taking care not to blend them too much.

7) Bake for 45 to 50 mins till skewer inserted comes out clean. 8)Cool in pan for 10 mins. Unmold and cool completely.

* if mixture curdles after adding in eggs, try adding in 2 tbsps of the flour mixture and beat on LOW. Mixture should look smoother, continue adding flour and yogurt.

Butterfly Cupcakes January 8, 2007

I’ve been such a bummer this school holidays. I was so excited when my dreaded exams finished because I had so many recipes I wanted to try! But alas… when the holidays came, all I wanted to do was sit back and relax. haha…

Yes yes, I know, such a slacker huh?

But well… it was a fantastic break… I enjoyed myself lots, even though all I was doing was relaxing… Heh! But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end!

In fact, today’s the 1st day of school! But this sem, I have no classes on Mondays. How nice huh? No Monday blues! Weee!

Yesterday, I made this pretty lil’ darling. I got a fantastic cupcake book from my bestie(Thanks Kai dear!) during christmas and I was so fascinated with this cake! Its simple, but yet, it looked so adorable. 

Tada!

Yeap, its just a simple vanilla cupcake and you can put any kind of jam inside the cake! From strawberry jam, to mango jam or even durian pulp! Its really up to you!

After baking the cupcake, slice off the top of the cupcake with a knife, fill with about 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of jam, then top with freshly whipped cream(non-dairy kinds or dairy kinds will do fine) put back the top and finish the decorations by piping the body, feelers and eyes and putting a little sugar dragee to form the eye balls!~

Yeap! Its THAT EASY! hehe…

There are tons of simple cupcake recipes out there, so try any of your favourite and have fun decorating! 🙂

Blueberry Baby Cakes June 7, 2006

Ooo…

Baby cakes…

The sound of it just sounds so cute doesn't it?

Okok, they are just cupcakes with a cuter name… Hehehehe…

I got this recipe from Gina from KC…Her version was made of cranberries but I had a pack of dried blueberries and decided to have a blueberry one instead…

This recipe uses a tub of natural yogurt, making it moist and soft.

Once again, I cut the sugar down cos my mum doesn't like cakes to be too sweet… 

Overall, I like the texture… it was fluffy and had a nice crust when it was eaten warm. (I baked it yesterday night… I just had one for breakfast this morn… the crust is no longer there but the smell of the muffin is sweeter and more fragrant!)

The sweetness complemented the slight sourness of the blueberries. So overall, it was a good recipe. Would definately try the cranberry version soon… 🙂

Makes 24 baby cakes

What to do! 
1. In a small bowl, add yoghurt and blueberries to mix together.
2. Let it stand for 30 mins(room temperature).
3. In a cake mixer bowl, add butter and sugar to beat till creamy.
4. Add eggs, 1 at a time to mix.
5. Add vanilla essence to mix.
6. Turn off cake mixer.
7. Add blueberry yoghurt mixture and mix with a spoon till evenly mixed.
8. Fold in sifted flour/baking powder till well blended.
9. Put paper cups into muffin tray.
10. Spoon mix into each cup.
11. Baked in preheated oven 180C for 20 mins till golden brown.
12. Serve warm.

Enjoy! 😀

Banana Muffins March 6, 2006

Yesssss….. I finally baked after a long break… its so fulfilling! (haha… if only i can have as much interest and heart in my studies…! I could top the cohort!)

As said in the previous post, my bro has a home economics project and he has to create a muffin with a budget of $4. And since bananas are cheap and makes muffins super flavourful, I thought, why not?

And so, I got the recipe off my trusty forum, Kitchencapers.net and taught my rascal brother how to bake the muffins.

Results?

I’m sure he’ll get an A! (Thats if he doesn’t ‘kill’ his muffin by over mixing!)

The muffin was moist and smelled great. It wasn’t too sweet which would definately please all those healthy pple out there… =)

Taste wise, I could taste the banana bits because I purposely left chunks of banana in the muffin batter and did not mash all the banana in.

Well, it wasn’t as fluffy as I would have expected it to be, it was a little like a cross between kueh* and cake, but yes, definately leaning towards the cake consistancy.

Well, overall, I feel that this recipe is a keeper… so go ahead, give it a try too… =)

kueh: a malay/peranakan type of cake which is normally very dense and moist.
 

Banana Muffins 

What you need:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar (original recipe yields for 1 cup)
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
1/2 cup melted butter 
2 eggs
6 tablespoons UHT milk
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions
1 In a bowl mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda,
salt, and cinnamon and set aside.
2 In a separate bowl, mix melted butter and eggs.  Stir in milk and mashed banana and
mix well.
3 Fold in flour mixture into the liquid ingredients until combined.
4 Fill greased muffin tins two-thirds of the way full.
5 Bake in a preheated 170 degrees C oven for 25mins

Notes:

1. I used ‘Ang Ba Jeo’ bananas, apparently, its one of the better ones used for baking purposes.
2. You can substitute butter with margarine or corn oil…
(Recipe adapted from wink of Kitchencapers.net)    

White Choc Cappuccino Muffin with Cream cheese topping March 5, 2006

Sorry I have not been posting… I’ve been sooooo busy with sch(its literally drowning me!), that I have not had enough time to step into the kitchen for some serious baking. 

And as such, I’m think I’m suffering from Baking Withdrawal…

But but but… I see a free day coming up next week! So, I’ll probably whip up some yummy banana muffins. I promised my younger brother to help him with his Home Economic’s project, so I’ll be teaching him how to impress girls his teacher with yummilious muffins!

And so, for now, I’ll share with you a recipe I adapted and recreated on my own. I made this some time back but didn’t have time to transfer the recipe from my prev blog to here… 

The original recipe was a cupcake and it didn’t have chocolate chips… But being the lazychef, I didn’t want to use my mixer to cream the butter for the cupcakes, so I modified the recipe into a muffin!

And yes, I have to rave about it, but coffee+Baileys+cream cheese is a powerful combination! Yum!

White Choc Cappuccino Muffin with Cream cheese topping

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 tbsp Baileys/Kahlua/Orange Juice
2 tsp instant coffee dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water
1/3 cup milk

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, salt, baking powder and white chocolate chips.
Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg, coffee, Baileys and enough milk to fill the cup.
Mix this with flour mixture. Do NOT overmix. Batter should be lumpy!

Cream Cheese Topping
125g cream cheese (room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla essence
60g icing sugar
1 medium egg

DIRECTIONS:
1) Preheat oven to 190 degree C
2) Create muffin batter as instructed above.
3) Spoon batter to fill half the muffin/cupcake cases.
4) Bake for 10 minutes.
5) Meantime, beat ingredients B till fluffy and well combined.
6) Remove cupcakes from oven and carefully spoon the creamcheese over.
7) Return to the oven and bake for another 15 minutes

Dust with cocoa powder and icing sugar if desired.

Notes:
You may substitute white chocolate chips with normal chocolate chips.
Add another tbsp of Baileys if you wish!
Add additional splash of milk if your muffin batter is too sticky.
Trust me, muffin taste much better than it looks in the pic! Its very fragrant cos of the coffee and Baileys.

(Recipe adapted from Rusti from Kitchencapers.net)