Clearing out the old stuff

I am clearing out all the bits and pieces of stuff in my treasure trove of ingredients. Leftover handful of chocolate chips, a quarter pack of cranberries… you get the idea. Since I also have a bunch of very ripe bananas sitting around, I made some cupcakes with all the ingredients. I used quite abit of sour cream in it, and the cupcakes turned out super soft and fluffy. Nice! Will be bringing them to office tomorrow. Hope my colleagues like them as much as I do

Update! My colleagues loved them very much! Here is the recipe as requested!

Kitchen sink banana cupcakes

 

1 ½ cups sour cream

¾ butter

3 cups flour

1 ¼ cups sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup mashed bananas

1/3 cup cranberries

Handful of chocolate chips (or as much as you like!)

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

Flavourless oil (eg. vegetable oil, or canola oil)  

 

1.       Preheat the oven to 175C (350F), with rack at center position. Grease your 12-cup muffin tray or line with paper liners.

 

2.       Whisk flour, baking soda and salt together. Working with a mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the butter to break it up. Gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, making sure it combines before adding the next one. Scrap the sides if needed.

 

3.       Lowering your mixer speed, mix in the bananas. Lastly, mix in half the flour mixture, all the sour cream, then the rest of the flour mixture. If the mixture seems abit dry, add in some flavourless oil (eg vegetable oil), 1 tablespoon at a time. I added about 2 tablespoons in mine, but see for yourself before adding. Stir in the cranberries and chocolate chips quickly.

 

4.       Fill the cups up to ¾ full and bake for about 20 – 25 minutes, or until the stick inserted into the centre of the cupcake comes out clean. Makes about 18 cupcakes.   

Unconvinced

I have never had a pumpkin related baked item before. Be it a cake, a tart or cookie. Hang on, I may have had a bun with pumpkin and sweet potato filling. Not that I have anything against pumpkin, just that for us asians we normally eat pumpkin either in a soup or steamed. Our version of a pumpkin cake would be in a savoury form, steamed and filled with ingredients such as meat and mushrooms. My mom makes a mean pumpkin cake.

A couple of months ago, I bought a can of pumpkin, thinking of making either a pie or a cake after seeing so many pumpkin related recipes on Tastespottin and Food Gawker. I notice that these pumpkin baked goods mostly contain lots of spices, most of which I am not really interested in. I could roughly imagine how they would taste. Therefore, when I tasted my cupcake, I wasn’t quite surprised. Perhaps that is where the disappointment came in. Because tasting the actual thing did not change my mind about not liking spiced pumpkin cake. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t taste very bad. Just that I don’t like this type of taste. At least I tried. I won’t be including the recipe this time. After all, there are loads on Tastepotting and Food Gawker.  Meanwhile, I will go ask mom for her steamed pumpkin cake recipe.

Breakfast Cereal Muffins

Muffins must be one of the easiest stuff to bake. Most of them can be down in one or two bowls, meaning less washing up to do. Gives your mixer a rest as well! I bought a 12-cup muffin pan from KL last week and I was dying to use it. Decided to break into the pan by doing this ultra simple breakfast cereal muffin. I opted to use Kellog’s raisin bran cornflakes as (I hope) they are healthier. They provided a wholesome taste to the muffin with a hint of honey in the background. Great for breakfast, or a tea time snack. I only managed to get 11 muffins out of the mix. Will probably double the recipe in future to get fatter and taller muffins. Bon appetit!

Breakfast Cereal Muffins 

(from Recipezaar)

1 egg

1/4 cup salad oil or vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup honey

1 cup flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups breakfast cereal (like Raisin Bran, All Bran, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, etc.)

1. Preheat oven to 175C.

2. Grease 12 medium sized (2 3/4″ diameter) muffin cups.

3.  In a mixing bowl, beat egg and whisk together with oil, milk and honey.

4. In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients; mixed well.

5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until flour is moist (batter should be lumpy).

6. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with the batter, and bake for 20-25 minutes (until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted).

7. Remove from pan immediately.