Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Spiced Chocolate Chip Muffins



I followed Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe, which is super easy to make! To the mixture I just added a few spices from my ‘Vin Chaud’ spices box! And also the recipe is a bit adapted from hers.
The good and maybe the best part of making muffins, is that that are so super EASY to make, I use a ABC method, which is basically mixing all the dry ingredients and then beating all the wet ingredients together, and then mixing A+B=C becomes the batter in which you can fold in nuts, choco chips, fruits, etc. 


GET

A.
250 g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
4 tbsps cocoa powder
A pinch of salt

B
150 g brown sugar
125 ml buttermilk
125 ml milk
90 ml light olive oil
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla essence

Add-ins
135 chocolate chips / pieces
3 tsps mixed spices

SET
Preheat the oven at 200°C.
A - Pass the dry ingredients – flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda and salt through a sieve to ensure that all the powders are well mixed.

B - Beat the egg, milk, buttermilk, oil, sugar, vanilla essence together until light and fluffy.

C - Incorporate dry ingredients A and the wet ingredients B together. Fold in the spices and the chopped chocolate pieces.

Scoop mixture into muffin cases, bake for 20 minutes.

GO

Just eat them already

M&M Mania– June edition

Days just seem to whiz by! Seriously, I thought it was just a few days by that I hadn’t made anything in my precious little oven, and boom, before you know it, it’s almost a month! Gulp. 


In all fairness, it was my 30th birthday (I know I should be graceful about aging and stuff, but hell no, I am a big 3 zero!), a quick dash to motherland and back and getting ready to go ITALIA! Aaaaooooooo
So as P was going to camp out in some hotel in Milan, I thought I’d be a good wifey, and make him some goodies. Now knowing his penchant for sweets, I thought I’d whip a batch of muffins (and some madeleines)

I just had to try out madeleines, they are so cute, and besides, on a sceptical note, I bought a silicone mould for the madeleines. Now, I read on one of the million sites that I surf everyday, for inspiration of course, that the silicone moulds do not really yield good results. But I wasn’t able to find the good ol’ metal mould. So anywhos, went ahead and bought the mould, and I must say, not heeding to my hesitation, they turned out just fine. Perfectly fine. Fat and fluffy.

So here’s a run down of the Muffin & Madeleine Mania.

Spiced Chocolate Chip Muffins
Speculoos Ginger Madeleines