baby blueberry cakes

 Baby Blueberry Cakes

This weekend I met up with an old friend who was passing through San Jose. She asked me how my food blogging was going. All I could do was try and think how long ago it was since I had baked and blogged... shame on me, it was ages ago!

So here goes a Monday morning special, baby blueberry cakes, just for you Amy - too bad you're not here to share them with us!


*Ingredients*
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
60 g. butter, melted
1 egg
1/4 soft brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup blueberries (dried ones soaked in boiling water)

1.Preaheat the oven to 200°C.

2.In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar. In another bowl mix the vanilla essence, butter, eggs and milk and whisk until smooth.

3.Pour the liquid micture over the dry ingredients and combine well. Fold in the blueberries and divide the batter between two baby bake tins. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a cake comes out clean. 

leftover cranberry sauce muffins

Thanksgiving I love you! I love you and your  sweet potatoes, your homemade stuffing, your juicy turkey, green beans, walnut and pomegranate salad, and most of all, your cranberry sauce! Especially when it's sugary homemade filled with chunky tart cranberries ^.^

This thanksgiving, the first thanksgiving ever partially organised and cooked by myself, we had cranberry sauce leftovers the next day (amongst other things). So what more natural to do than to make leftover cranberry sauce muffins? Nothing, I say!

They were delicious I tell you, and wholesome too.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (I used half wholewheat)
• 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon rolled oats (reserve the 1 tablespoon for the tops)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 cups leftover cranberry sauce
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/6 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 205 degrees celsius.
2. Grease a 12-cup standard-size muffin tin (or add liners).
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, 1/2 cup oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cranberry sauce, milk, vegetable oil and egg.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.
6. Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups – about 3/4 to all the way full.
7. Sprinkle with the three tablespoons oats.
8. Bake for 20 minutes or until tops spring back when you touch them and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out dry.
9. Let cool for about five minutes, then enjoy!

banana date muffins

A foggy Thursday with nothing to do. This calls for banana date muffins, definitely.

Ingredients
1 cup self raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice
1/4 cup firm packed brown sugar
1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/2 cup seeded chopped dates
1 egg lightly beaten
1/6 cup veggie oil
1/6 cup milk

Directions
Grease 9 hole muffin pan
Sift dry ingredients into large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. 
Spoon mix into prepared pan, bake in moderately hot oven about 20 mins 200 - 210 celsius.


Nutritional Info
161 calories per muffin

pumpkin muffins

I made these muffins for Dalila's going away party, and they were such a hit that I decided to make them again last week and post them to Robbie in Barcelona! Surprisingly he said they were still delicious after spending 5 days in the post, and were mostly crumbs by the time he got them :)

I tried for the first time to make some decent photos of the cooking process, and realised how hard this actually is. I'll be definitely be working on my food photography skills... Anyway this recipe is fantastic, so I thought I would post it, bad photos and all. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins
(This is half of the original recipe, it made about 10 small muffins)


Ingredients
3/4 cups all-purpose flour (half of which is whole wheat if desired)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/6 cup vegetable oil

1 large egg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
½ cup sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts plus some for decoration

Directions
Preheat oven to 185 c. Grease your muffin tins with butter.
In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices.

In a larger bowl, whisk pumpkin puree, oil, eggs and sugar until smooth.
Using a spatula, fold in the flour mixture until just combined, making sure to not over-mix the batter. Fold in walnuts.
Add the batter to the greased/floured muffin tins, decorate each one with a walnut, and place in oven. Bake for 15 minutes or until tops are brown, they smell good, and a stick inserted in the middle comes out clean.