Tag Archives: Muffin

Strawberry-Mango Muffins!

Posted on by
Reply

$1 for a punnet of strawberries and $12 for 20 mangoes. This is one of the very few things I like about summer in this place down under. Though I’ve been here for almost 20 years, celebrating Christmas in a sizzling hot summer just doesn’t look right. It’s so odd. I’d love to experience a white Christmas again……one day!

Anyway, let’s move on! I made these muffins with strawberries alone a couple of months ago. They tasted great and were so moist as the strawberries had been “preloaded” with sugar which in the end, yielded some strawberry juice. Since I’ve got so many mangoes this time, why not add them in too?

Strawberry-Mango Muffins

Strawberry-Mango Muffins (Recipe adapted from Butteryum)

Ingredients for 12 standard sized muffins:

1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup white sugar (use 2 tbsp for the strawberries)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
11/2 cup diced strawberries and 1 cup diced mangoes (optional)

Method:

Sprinkle 2 tbsp of sugar over the strawberries. Keep aside for 30-60 minutes to allow the juice to be drawn out. (Do not throw away the juice)

Preheat oven to 180C

Use the Dry and Wet method

Mix all the dry ingredients (sugar, flour, baking powder, salt) in a large bowl, and the wet ingredients (eggs, oil, milk, vanilla extract) in another. Make sure the ingredients are fully incorporated. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, folding them with a spatula or spoon. Do not overmix. The mixture should look lumpy and there should be some visible spots of flour. Lastly, gently fold in the strawberries WITH the juice and mangoes. Pour batter into lined muffin tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.

To bake or not to bake?

Posted on by
Reply

Yes, I’ll bake so that the kids get to eat something yummy for breakfast. I’ll bake so that I can use up the bits and pieces of left-over ingredients in the pantry. I’ll bake because it’s about time to de-stress. BUT……I don’t have time to wait for the butter to become “soft”. I don’t want to go through the whole process of creaming, then adding eggs one at a time. And I don’t want too much to wash up. So after weighing out all these, I decided to go with some muffins.

I found the best muffin recipe ever while googling “best muffins” (obviously!) I was told that the secret in making moist muffins lies in the way the batter is mixed. Basically, put all the dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ones in the other. Pour the wet ones into the dry ones, mix them with few strokes only. The key is not to overmix them. I always use this method when baking muffins, even when the recipe asks for a different way of mixing.

Blueberry Lime Muffins

Recipe – Blueberry-Lime Muffins (adapted from My Baking Addiction)

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup sugar – ( I only used 3/4 cup)
zest of two limes – ( I used that of one lime…cos my lime looked big to me)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil – ( I used rice-bran oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream – ( I used my kid’s banana yoghurt)
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees . Spray muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper muffin liners. (I love using my pink silicone pan. No spraying or lining needed!!)
2. In a small bowl, combine sugar and lime zest. Mix with clean fingertips until sugar is moistened and fragrant. Set aside.

Now here’s the important bit:

3.In the SMALLER bowl, put all of your wet ingredients (eggs, oil, vanilla, yoghurt) and mix them with a fork.

4. In the LARGER bowl, put all of your dry ingredients (sugar and lime mixture, flour, baking soda, salt) and mix them with your large spoon. Make sure your ingredients are fully incorporated — that is, you want the baking soda to be completely distributed through the flour. I usually add the fruits (e.g. blueberries) at this stage.

5. Add your wet ingredients to your dry ones — and fold them carefully with a few swift strokes. DON’T OVERMIX! There will even be places where the flour is still dry. The mixture will look lumpy and “not quite” fully mixed together. This is the way they’re supposed to look.

6. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups and if desired, top with a sprinkling of coarse sugar.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 20-22 minutes.