Chocolate chip crumble muffins

Not quite a fan of muffins.. but when you are dying to bake something but have too little time on your hands, muffins are a great choice.


Used the recipe from Happy Home Baker, but substituted with mini chocolate and butterscotch chips that I have in the refrigerator.

The result is rather delightful, thanks to abundance of chocolate and butterscotch chips. The muffin itself was a little dry. As for the 'crumble', I must have put in too much butter because its not crisp as I thought it should be. But it does make the muffin look more asthetically pleasing.

Here's the recipe :

Chocolate/Butterscotch Chips Crumble Muffins

Ingredients(makes 12)

250g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
50g butter
100g soft light brown sugar
150g chocolate chips
2 eggs, lightly beaten
225ml milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

for the Chocolate Crumble Topping:
50g plain flour
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
40g butter
2 tablespoons caster sugar

Method
For the chocolate crumble topping, sift flour and cocoa powder into a bowl. Mix in the sugar and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Set aside.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and the peanut butter chips.

In another bowl, mix eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Pour the liquid mixture all at once into the dry ingredients. With a wooden spoon or spatula, mix until just combined. Do Not Over Mix. The batter should remain lumpy.

Fill paper muffin cups with batter sprinkle with the crumble toppings. Bake in a preheated oven at 200degC for 18-20mins, or until well risen and firm to the touch. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. Let cool completely.

Recipe source: adapted from Muffins Galore, Catherine Atkinson

Garden Themed Cake

It was a friend's birthday, a very nice lady. But alas, in the middle of a work week... so really need to plan to squeeze out time to bake her a nice cake.



Was told she love my mango cake, but unfortunately, mango's not in season now.. have to make do with a blueberry cake.

Did a simple garden themed cake with lots of flowers and crawling with snails and ladybugs.




Complete with a birthday blessing taken from the bible.

Hands-on cookie baking for kids

I did not send my children for any enrichment classes during the holidays at all, felt a little guilty. So when I read in the papers about many parents sending their children for cookie baking and decoration workshops, I decided to try that at home.

Chose a simple recipe from Wilton's year book and let my kids help scoop flour, sugar, etc. They had fun, but they also made a huge mess, with my daughter trying to pick up every grain of sugar she dropped on the table to put into her mouth.

Here is my 'almost three' year old daughter working hard to roll the dough. Notice the beads of perspiration and smudges of flour on her forehead.

And my 'almost 5' year old boy hard at work too...

The results (a sample of them.. forgot to take pictures of the baked cookies) :

Conclusion:

- Its fun and cheap to do this at home, but messy

- Needs patient on part of the parent, no wonder some parents pay others to do this

- The wilton recipe is far too sweet

- Not sure if its over-handling of the dough, the cookie is hard like stone

- Girls seems naturally better than boys on this, my girl proved it

Mermaid cake

Baked this mermaid cake for my niece for her 9th birthday. I think this is probably the most colourful cake I have ever made. Its fresh cream cake with blueberry filling. Mermaid, flowers, crab and starfishes are fondant.

Here's a closer look at the mermaid. Heee.. a fat mermaid, not quite like my skinny weeny niece.

Back view. Looks a little plain...

Happy Fathers' Day

On 15 June, I had my family over to celebrate fathers' day.

My hubby and MIL made delicious laksa and chicken rice and I baked a little cake.

Unfortunately, my oven was cranky. I believe the thermostat is not functional. For a 30 minute program, it keep stopping at every 5 minutes or less and my cake got burnt. The sides of the cake were black, so were the to and bottom. Fortunately, the inside was still good, so I managed to salvage the cake, albiet a very little one after shaving all the burnt parts away.

So here's the mango cake we had for fathers' day. Too dismayed to make an elaborate design, so just some simple piping with fresh cream.

Happy Father's day to all fathers. God bless.

Yummy-licious Carrot Cake

My husband is a fan of carrot cakes and can't stop raving about the carrot cakes from Cedele. Rightfully so.. Cedele carrot cakes are moist and oh-so-generous with their carrots and walnuts. As for me, I am no fan of 'sweets'. I rarely ever finish a piece of cake by myself, usually just pinch a few small bites from hubby.

The last time I baked a carrot cake was for his birthday last year. I remembered it as laborious and extremely sweet, definitely not trying that recipe again. Searched the internet and decided to use the one from Allrecipes.

The result was extra-ordinary!! I had many rave reviews. My hubby said it was better than Cedele's and not overly sweet. Maybe he said that to please me (considering I am heavily pregnant now....). Either way, I am grateful for the compliment. Here's a pic of the cake. The fork in the foreground was my son eagerly waiting to dig-in.

My FIL and MIL enjoyed the cake too. A family friend also commented that its as good as Cedele's. Ha ha.. think I'm surrounded by very kind people who tries to please a heavily pregnant woman!

As for me.. well.. I did manage to polish off a single slice of the cake. Here's the recipe if you are keen to try.

INGREDIENTS
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar (I used 1 cup brown, 1 cup white)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts instead)

1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.

Note : I recommend to line the cake pan with baking paper. I only greased my cake pan and the cake got stuck. When I tried to force it out of the pan, it broke into many pieces.

Hope you and your family enjoyed it too!

Ballerina Cakes

Wow, have not updated my blog for more than three months already!

Am expecting my third child and the first trimester wasn't fun. So was certainly in no mood to bake nor decorate cakes. Now that the 'toilet bowl is my best friend' period is over, I can pick up my whisk again!

Apologies to my family for not baking them their special birthday cakes! I will now be able to bake and decorate for birthdays between June and September.

No new pictures to post yet, but here are two cakes that I baked for a friend's daughter. The 3-D cake was a trial cake, the 2-D one is the actual birthday cake.



This cake was inspired by Debbie Brown's ballerina cake. The ballerina figurine is fondant. The dress is a small 7 inch cake. I cut the top of the cake to resemble the folds of the dress. The ruffles underneath are just piped whipped cream. The bottom is just a 10 inch sponge cake, with rosettes and garlands.


This trial cake was shown to my family and drew lots of criticism, hence I dropped the idea of making this cake for the birthday girl.

This is the second cake.

I adore this cake. I thought it looked lovely with two toned stage curtains and a wooden stage. The ballerina looked much more adoable too. I even managed to put some sparkles on the dress.

Phoon Huat stores had been out of Wilton fondant for the longest time. I certainly miss fiddling with fondant. Anyone tried the house brand fondant before? Any comments?