Spiced Carrot Muffins

Quote from the book Muffin Galore-These muffin are really mini carrot cakes-perfect for lunchboxes and afternoon tea.

Made a batch of these muffins for office breakfast party on xmas eve, was dwelling on whether to put topping on the muffins as I thought some colleagues may not like to have cheese topping, finally decided not to add any toppings.

(Makes 12)
Ingredients:

300g plain flour
225g caster sugar (I reduce to 200g)
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp gound cinnamon
1 tsp salt
175ml vegetable oil (I use melted butter)
175ml milk
3eggs, lightly beaten
100g peeled carrot, grated
120g walnut, chopped
150g raisins

For topping (I didn't do)
85g cream cheese or full fat soft cheese, softened
40g butter, softened
125g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180deg C/350deg F/ Gas mark 4. Grease a 12cup muffin tin or line the cups with paper muffin cases.

2. For the muffins, mix the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the vegetable oil, milk and eggs. Add in the grated carrot, walnut and raisins to the dry ingredients, mix till combined. Add the well ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Mix briefly until just combined.

3. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, dividing it evenly. Bake in the oven for 20-25min. or until risen and golden. Cool in the tin for 10min, then turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

4. For the topping, beat together the cream cheese or soft cheese and butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the icing sugar and vanilla extract until the topping is thick and speadable. Spread a large tablespoonful of the topping mixture on top of each muffin before serving.

Roast Turkey and Logcake

My sisters and their families came to my place for gathering during Christmas day. Each brought some food, which includes honey baked ham, roast pork, macaroni cheese, I did a roast turkey and some other simple dishes. Try my luck on a logcake too but my skill of doing the swiss roll sucks, end up the cake looks alittle collapse.
Thanks fellow blogger friend C for the beautiful Christmas card, all say the card it's a nice gift for the festival.

Valerie's Fruitcake

Learn this cake at Ms Valarie's class last year. This is the second time that I made the cake, thought that fruit cake will be nice addition for the office's Christmas party besides the usual turkey and logcakes. This time I replace the brown sugar with molasses, those who taste it said its nice as its not so sweet, also its not as hard as those selling outside.

Orange Poppy Seed Muffin

My friend Y(thanks Y!) gave me some poppy seeds many months ago, almost forgot about it till recently that this ingredient pop up in my mind, thought that muffin was the easiest recipe to use up this ingredient.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup (310g/10oz) self raising flour
1/4 cup (40g/ 1 1/4 oz) poppy seed
1/3 cup (90g/3oz) caster sugar
125g (4oz) unsalted butter
1 cup (315g/10oz) orange marmalade
1 cup (250ml/8 fl oz) milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp finely grated orange rind


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to moderately hot 200deg C (400deg F/Gas 6). Sift the flour into a bowl,. Stir in the poppy seed and sugar, make a well in the centre. Put butter and 2/3 cup (210g/7oz) ot the orange marmalade in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until butter has melted and the mixture is combined. Cool slightly.

2. Whisk together the milk, eggs and rind in a jug and pour into the well. Add the butter and marmalade. Fold gently with a metal spoon until just combined. Do not over mix- the batter should still be lumpy. Overmixing will make them tough.

3. Fill each muffin paper cup or muffin tin hole about three quarter full and bake for 20-25min, or until muffin are risen, golden and come away slightly from the tin. If use cup, skewer should come out clean when poke into the centre of the muffin.

4. Heat the remaining marmalade and push it through a fine sieve. Brush generously over the top of the warm muffin Leave them to cool on wire rack. Serve warm or at room temp.

New York Cheesecake

Thought of doing a cheesecake to use up the sour cream before it expires, try this recipe as its quite small portion compare to other cheesecake recipes, this portion is just nice for my family. Although this is a rich cake but all like it. Recipe from 孟老师的下午茶...

(I use a 7" cake ring althought the book recommended 6" springform pan)
Ingredient:
A. Base : 120g digestive biscuit  30g unsalted butter - melted
B. Cheese filling: 400g cream cheese- thaw at room temp for about half hour
                          75g caster sugar
                          2 eggs
                          130g sour cream
                          10g cake flour
                          grated lemon peel from 1 lemon
                          2 tbsp lemon juice
                          1/2 tsp vanilla essence


Method:

1. Base: Break biscuit into small piece, put into a plastic bag, use a rolling pin and pound the biscuit into fine crumbs. Add melted butter into biscuit crumb and mix till well combined, press the biscuit crumb into 7" spring form tin or lined cake ring. Chilled for about 15min.
2. Beat cream cheese and sugar using low speed in mixing bowl till cheese is soft, add in egg one at time, mix till well combined then add the next egg. Add sour cream and flour and mix till well combined, lastly add in lemon peel, lemon juice and vanilla essence, mix well.
3. Pour cheese batter onto biscuit base, place cake tin in a tray, place the tray in oven, pour in a cup of hot water in the tray, bake cake over double boil at 180 deg for 20min, then lower 10 deg and bake for further 40min.
4. Turn off oven, open a little gap of the oven door to let cake cool for about 15min, remove cake ring/tin,let cake cool completely place cake in fridge and chill for 5 hours before serve.

Madeleine

Wanted to bake something since I haven't been baking for a while, browsing thru the book 孟老師的下午茶, thought this recipe was quite fast to do and portion was small, this recipe taste nice and not very sweet.

(per recipe yield 15 pcs)
Ingredients:
100g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
100g egg

1/2 tsp vanilla essence
100g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
orange zest from 1 orange
1tsp orange liqur


Method:
1. Mix butter, sugar and salt over doble boiler till well combine. Remove from double boiler, leave to cool, add in egg, vanilla essence and mix till well combined.

2. Add in orange liquor and orange zest and mix till well combined.

3. Fold in sifted cake flour and baking powder till well combined.

4. Spoon batter into madeleine mould, bake at 180 deg C for 20min or till golden color.

Stir fry vegetarian kidney

Recently have been too busy with some family matters that I was just not in the mood to do any baking and any posting here.

My colleague always like to order this dish if they were to cater food from the old factory canteen, the canteen aunty is kind and generous to share with us the dishes whenever we ask her about dishes she did. This dish was very easy to do.

Frozen vegetarian kidney is available at some wet or dry market stall that sells beansprouts and tofu.

Thaw the vegetarian kidney (1 pkt), rinse and slice it thin--though the kidney is already cut into pieces in its original package but I prefer it to be thinner.
Shredded a few slice of ginger thinly.
Sauce : Oyster sauce, water, a little sugar.

Method:
- Heat wok, fried ginger with some sesame oil till fragrant. Remove and set aside.
- Add kidney into wok, add in a teaspoon of oyster sauce, litter sugar and some water, bring the sauce to boil, let it simmer till the sauce is reduce to slightly thicken. Do taste test, if not salty enough can add some oyster sauce.
-Add in ginger and stir awhile, remove from wok and serve.