BANANA CRANBERRY CUFFINS

I'm elated. These cuffins made TOP 9 on Foodbuzz to day 23rd February 2011. Happy Buzzday. Thank you Foodbuzz Foodies!

Beat me. Hit me. Flog me. But please don't fog me. 

Don't those foggers annoy the nonsense out of you? I appreciate them coming around but they really should give a warning before they do. I am forever leaping and flying from one end of the house to the other. Shutting our doors and windows the moment I smell the sudden pesticide-y hiss from the fogging truck. Just so we won't get ourselves fogged and drop like the mosquitoes. Or inhale pesticides for a pre-dinner high.

I digress. 

Let me try again.

Beat me. Hit me. Flog me. But wait! I made these cuffins. I hope that makes up for lost time and blogging lapse. I've been bad. But when that squishy parcel landed in my arms I knew I wouldn't be bad any longer.

Dear Sarah-Jane of Silicone Moulds.com has again inspired me. Again. She designs the most amazing moulds and silicone bakeware. She sent me a scrunchy soft big parcel full of things a baker girl could ever wish for. And got.  I. Am. SO. Excited.

First off I couldn't wait to use these Crown American Jumbo Silicone Muffin moulds. Now I can be as Starbucky as the next Starbucks muffin. They made the most beautiful jumbo muffins ever. Only... they aren't muffins. They are CUFFINS.

Because .....they are exquisitely soft, so moist and fluffy inside, like cake, but proud, crusty and high on top like muffins. And I invented it. I invented the cuffin for those of you  who have been aggravated by my blog. For the past month or so all you would have seen was the same old Apple Pie Pizza staring back at you if ever you dropped by. I know. And I apologize.

I've used dried cranberries and some beautiful festive sugar nibs that Sarah-Jane (bless her heart) had given me as well. I have to tell you that cranberries and sugar nibs made the prettiest of friends and are perfect for cuffins. They gave my cuffins a crowning glory. I. Feel. TOTALLY. GLORIFIED.

I was trying to come up with a healthy snack/breakfast/dessert/something to eat ....I mean really healthy without butter or too many eggs with more fruits and not too sweet. So I took the risk of wasting ingredients just in case it turned out a failure. I whipped bananas and sugar, added the one  egg, and then a stream of olive oil, flour and cranberries. I was smitten. I officially declare myself The Inventor of Cuffins. 

The jumbo polka dot cupcake cases were gifted to me by Sarah-Jane as well. Thank you so much Sarah-Jane. I'll be on a baking roll now. :)

The recipe...........

I think it worked well and I achieved the dome of a muffin yet the lightness of cake because beating bananas and sugar was very much like beating butter and sugar. The fat in the bananas made up for the fat in butter.While whipping the oil in a thin stream was very much like making mayonnaise. It gave more volume and made the cuffins light and airy as it emulsified. The egg and flour gave them structure and held them all together and the 2 tablespoons of baking powder and baking soda gave them the dome and golden crust. Of course the cranberries added more flavour and sweetness and the sugar bits made my cuffins look like princesses at a ball. Need I say more?

5 large bananas

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup olive oil or any vegetable oil

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup dried cranberries, plumped up by soaking in orange juice or some weak tea if liked. And then drained 

sugar nibs if you have them (optional)

Pre-heat oven at 200 C. Lightly grease or oil the extra sides of the muffin mould. I found that it did not need flouring.

Beat banana and sugar in a mixer machine until light in pale colour (unless you use frozen bananas). Beat in the egg until light. Pour in olive oil in a thin stream and continue beating on medium until light and fluffy.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl. Take mixer  bowl off the stand and fold in the sifted flour etc and cranberries till flour mix disappears. Spoon into paper cups set in the jumbo muffin pan or regular pan. I filled them full right to the top. Very full in fact. Top with a few more cranberries and sugar nibs.

Bake at 200 C so that the batter rises in a burst from the high heat and after 10 minutes reduce to 180 C and bake for a further 10 minutes if regular size or 20 minutes if jumbo.

You will notice that the cuffins at the back are not jumbo simply because I did not fill the mould with enough batter as per Sarah-Jane's instructions. I had read her email to me only after I had baked the first six cuffins. But the last one was jumbo. 

Because I had empty moulds while I was baking the last cuffin I filled the empty muffin cups with water half way up. Like you would do with the usual muffin pan.

PS : I have lots more silicone moulds yet to use. So watch out for future posts!

APPLE MUFFINS

Muffins are cute. They don't need to be iced or decorated to look good and are SO easy to make and are SO good if made properly and are SO pretty if filled in cute paper cups and are, I believe, a tad healthier than cupcakes. Well tad or not, I just had to make some today because I came across some very cute and adorable paper cupcake cases and they just made me fall apart. If there is anything that will make me do anything they are flower prints. I would die for them. So it looks like I'll be making a whole lot of muffins or cupcakes for the next few weeks because I now have 192 cute and adorable cupcake cases waiting to be used. That was the smallest pack for sale and being me I just had to buy them.

These muffins are very tender, very moist and just nice sweet with bits of apple in every bite. The cinnamon in the streusel topping finishes it off beautifully. Lovely lovely puffin muffins! For breakfast, tea or in between. This recipe makes 8 muffins.



The recipe......

2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup fresh milk
4 oz butter, melted and cooled

1 red or green apple chopped coarsely

Topping mixture :

1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon powder
a handful of walnuts chopped medium fine



Make topping first....

Combine all ingredients for streusel and rub in the butter with finger tips until like breadcrumbs. Keep aside.

Make muffins.....

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl and mix well. put in the chopped apples and mix a little.

In another bowl beat egg and sugar until combine. Pour in milk and mix. Add melted butter and mix again.

Add wet mixture to dry mixture and mix with a fork or a spatula. Stir until just mixed and the texture of the mixture looks like curdled or rancid milk with bit o flour still visible. DO NOT over mix or your muffins will be tough because the gluten in the flour would have been activated.

Scoop mixture into a muffin tin lined with paper cases until almost full. Top with streusel mixture and bake in 200 C oven for 10 minutes and then turn down the temperature to 180C and bake another 10n minutes.

MUFFINS WITH A STREUSEL TOPPING

The most exasperating thing, for me, about making muffins is when they don't dome. It drives me nuts when they don't dome (enough). And nothing could make me feel worse than when I step into a Starbucks and one of the first things that greet me are their ridiculously domed muffins.

Their muffins are so domed that I was discouraged from making muffins for a time. I had became so envious of their domed muffins that all I did when I went there was to drop my jaw, hurry home, check out some muffin recipes, test them out and having achieved less than perfect domes I simply went back there and gawked again.

I scrutinized the edges, inspected them, furrowed my eyebrows and then one day I had the AHA! moment. I realized, finally, that Starbucks have, very, very sneakily, used custom made muffin tins in which they have had 'steps' installed. Ones that rimmed over, above and around the rims of the normal muffin moulds which elevated the edges of all their muffins one step higher, tricking us into seeing and believing that their little/huge muffins were oh so very, very domed. Smart little alecs! I thought.

Just to be certain that I wasn't just imagining this, out of the envy that was burning a hole in my heart, I went back there yet again, goggled stupidly at them muffins and trotted back home completely satisfied. Yup! it was the mould all right! I drew a cross-section of a Starbucks muffin in my little notebook, showed it to my children and I convinced them vehemently that it was the mould, all in the mould and nothing but the mould. I rested my case. Now just in case you were thinking that this is all a made up story for the sake of being silly let me tell you that it isn't. Baking activates the nutty in me and I let nothing surpass me. Not even an unbelievably domed Starbucks muffin.

So this is a pretty good if not a very good muffin recipe extracted from about.com. Its plain vanilla but with a very lovely streusel topping that adds a just right sweet edge to every bite. Very YUM!

But I can't stress enough how important it is to never overmix the muffin mixture. It does make a lot of difference to its tenderness after its baked. The mixture that I mixed looked like curdled/rancid milk with some lumps of not quite mixed in flour. But that was good, I was told, ugly but good. And so it was. And the muffins turned out beautifully domed. As domed as a dome that a common muffin tin could produce. Makes 8 muffins.


The recipe....

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt1 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 large egg
4 oz butter, melted and cooled

Sift and mix dry ingredients. Beat eggs and sugar in another bowl. Add vanilla. Add cooled, melted butter to the egg-milk mixture bit by bit until incorporated.

Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients using a fork or spatula until just incorporated but not smooth. Let it be lumpy with some bits of flour still visible. That's is perfectly ok. Spoon immediately into muffin tins almost filling the paper cases or muffin tins. You'll get about 8 muffins. Sprinkle the tops of each muffin with the streusel mixture and bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 C for the first 10 minutes and 180 C last 10 minutes.



PS : Filling the tins almost full (more than 3/4 full) and baking them at a high temperature for the first ten minutes helps in getting them nice and domed. Don't forget to turn the temperature down after that otherwise your muffins will be dry and overbaked!

Streusel mixture :

1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 oz butter
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix all ingredients together until like breadcrumbs. Sprinkle on top of muffins just before baking them.

Sour Cream Choc Chip Muffins

Muffins. Extremely easy, quick and very yummy. I've had a fairly large packet of choc chips sitting in my fridge for the past month just waiting to be used. But I've been postponing using it up. I wasn't in the mood for cakes, muffins or the like. But my blog was beckoning. So here is a recipe that I've had for a pretty long time

A favourite with everyone. Sour cream gave it moistness and the generous amount of choc chips added to the moistness too. You could add more but that was the limit for me. Coarsely chopped walnuts would have been a good addition but I didn't have any. Keeps well and it was just as moist the morning after. I made this last night at about ten.

I took the top picture in the dark again. I just can't quite get the shots that I want. But it will have to satisfy for the time being. I must get that macro lens.

230 gm plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
120 gm granulated sugar

2 eggs
210 gm sour cream
110 gm butter, melted

300 gm semi sweet choc chips

Sift flour, baking powder. Add salt and sugar. Mix.
Melt butter. Cool. Add eggs and sour cream to melted butter. Mix.
Add wet ingredients to dry. Mix with a fork until just mixed. Do not over mix.
Fill paper cases in a muffin pan to the top.
Bake in preheated oven at 200 C for 6 to 8 minutes then reduce heat to 180 and bake for about another 15 minutes till done and golden on top.
Remove from muffin pan and let cool a little . Enjoy.

TIPS : Here's a link to the secrets of high domed muffins. http://www.preparedpantry.com/DomeSecrets.htm