Kenny Rogers Corn Muffins

Ingredients:
½ cup butter
²⁄₃ cup sugar
¼ cup honey
2 eggs
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
¾ cup cornmeal
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup milk
¾ cup frozen corn (I used one can sweetcorn kernels)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.
2. Mix buter, sugar honey, eggs and salt into a large bowl.
3. Add flour, cornmeal and baking powder, blend throughly.
4. Add milk while mixing.
5. Add corn and mix in.
6. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.
7. Bake 20-25 mins until light golden brown.

Notes:
Quick, yummy, easy to make.

Basic Vanilla Cupcakes

Ok, so I've once again been neglecting my poor blog. Assignment and exam season is upon me.

This recipe for cupcakes can’t get any easier. Feel free to play around with the flavours, substitute the vanilla pod and vanilla extract with coffee, chocolate, chocolate chunks, orange and lemon zest, different toppings, the list is endless! I know I’ve come up with some gems through throwing in different things.

Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
125g self-raising flour

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Line cupcake tray with cupcake papers.
2. Beat butter, sugar, vanilla and vanilla extract till light and fluffy.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix till smooth and creamy.
4. Fill cupcake papers till two-thirds full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or till tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched.

Decorate cupcakes however you like they pretty much go with anything, though they’re also really delicious on their own.

Btw, I really like my pink cupcake papers.
So bright and cheerful =D

Easter Snow Sunday.

Happy Easter Everyone!

I know I'm pretty late but I have a good excuse. Will elaborate further down the post.

Anyway here's my Easter contribution.

Orange Dark Choc Chunk Cupcakes with

Chocolate Buttercream topped with

overly sweet sugar eggs.

Jia En loves the Orange Dark Choc Chunk Cupcakes.
I do too.

My decorating still needs work.

And I still adore this straw bunny.

Anyway, the reason why I'm writing my Easter post so late.

Meet the new man in my life.

Hmm well maybe not man.
Snow man/woman/person? Hmm...

Labour of love.

Ahhh. Snow. Bliss.


A happy Easter indeed.

Cappuccino Cupcakes

Can't keep a girl with a dead laptop away from her blog for too long.

But you can really slow her down with a super-cranky old borrowed laptop. However it's definitely better than nothing at all, so I'll take what I can get. (Please, please, please don't die on me dear borrowed laptop I mean no offence =S.) Also many thanks to the laptop contribitor, it's not the first time this laptop's been borrowed.

On another note, I feel like giving myself a good kick for not transferring a whole lot of photos that were taken during the past few weeks into my exteral memory. Here's to hoping they'll be recoverable when I finally get around to getting my own precious laptop fixed.

Enough about me, lets move on to happier things, like Cappuccino Cupcakes.

Chocolate-coffee sponge, coffee cream, chocolate coated coffee beans.

Yummy.

I do need to mention though that the coffee taste is pretty strong I didn't use much sugar so it might be a bit coffee-bitter for some but great for a coffee lover like myself.

Wouldn't reccomend it for kids though, might keep them awake.

Cappuccino Cupcake Recipe

Sponge ingredients:

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee powder

110g all purpose flour

90g golden caster sugar

110g butter, cut into small cubes

2 medium eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

Coffee cream ingredients:

100 ml double cream

1 tablespoon boiling water

1 tablespoon instant coffee powder

30g icing sugar

Also, chocolate powder and chocolated coated coffee beans, to decorate.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan oven. Line cupcake tins with about 14 cupcake liners.
2. Start with the sponge. Mix 2 tablespoons hot water with the coffee and cocoa powder and instant coffee to create a paste. Leave to cool to room temperature.
3. Place all the ingredients, including cooled paste into a large mixing bowl and mix until creamy.
4. Fill cupcake liners about two thirds full and bake for about 18 minutes or until well risen and tops and springy to touch.leave to cool completely before making cofee cream.
5. To make coffee cream, start by mixing one tablespoon water with coffee powder to create a paste and leave to cool. Whisk cooled coffee, icing sugar and double cream until stiff.
6. Drop a teaspoon of coffee cream over each cupcake and dust with chocolate powder. Top with chocolate coated coffee beans.

Coffee-lovers unite!
Okay it might be carrying it a bit too far to call myself a coffee lover.
But I do like coffee ocassionally.

Raspberry Fairy Cakes With Orange Sugar Drizzle

Impress your friends with your baking prowess.

A seriously easy-peasy recipe for dainty, pretty cupcakes. And they taste impressive too. Like much more effort was put into them than what is really needed. Read on for the recipe, which I found in one of my BBC GoodFood magazines.

Raspberry Fairy Cakes With Orange Sugar Drizzle

Whew, that's a mouthfull of a name.

But I kind of think super long names make food sound more impressive.

Or hard to make.

Raspberry Fairy Cakes With Orange Sugar Drizzle Recipe (and now that sounds like some sort of tongue twister. Don't mind me I'm just rambing on. I do that sometimes.)

Ingredients:

200g self-raising flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

200g unsalted butter, softened

4 eggs, lightly beaten

200g golden caster sugar

3 tablespoons milk

50g ground almonds

zest of one medium orange (I used a large one I love the tangy citrus taste)

150g raspberries, lightly crushed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160 fan. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

2. I love this part. Simply toss the first 8 ingredients (yes, everything but the raspberries) into a large bowl. Mix with an electrix mixer till smooth.

3. Gently fold in the raspberries till evenly distributed throughout the batter. Half-fill the cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes till golden and just firm. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.

For the Orange Sugar Drizzle

Stir 4 tablespoons of caster sugar into the juice of one medium orange until well blended. Using a pastry brush, liberally brush the orange sugar mix over the lightly cooled cupcakes. Leave to cool completely before serving.

Red raspberries.

Chocolate Chocolate-chunk Cupcakes

More chocolate. Chocolate makes me happy.

Okay, so maybe you can't see any chocolate-chunks.

But they're there.

Under the surface.

In all their gooey chocolate glory.

These were the cupcakes I used for Anne's Cupcake Basket.


Chocolate Chocolate-chunk Cupcake recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour+1 heaped tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted
1 cup/230g butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
200g milk chocolate cut into chunks

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line cupcake tins with paper liners.
2. Beat butter and sugars till light and fluffy. Add in vanilla, and eggs one at a time, mix well.
3. Add in milk and flour in two parts, mixing until just combined, do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chunks with a spatula.
4. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full with batter. Bake for about 20-25 mins or till inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Happy Birthday Wan.

Anddd I'm back to cupcakes, told you it'd be a short break.

For the first time ever, I shall make a birthday post on my blog which is on time. On the ACTUAL DAY ITSELF. I'm so proud of myself.

Enough about me for now. Meet Wan. Wan turns 21 today. Sooo...
Happy birthday Wan!

The red-eyed one on the left is Wan.

In case you're wondering.

And here are Wan's birthday cupcakes.
I think maybe my decorating is getting a wee bit better.
Oh btw, those are Nutella cupcakes i posted about them here not too long ago.
Everyone loves Nutella.

And for those people that commented there was only one 'P',
it's a P-squared.
So there.

Childish people.
My cupcakes are not bad at all, wei.
They're very tasty cupcakes.
*Glares*

As you may have guessed by now, I'm pretty pleased with these last-minute *cough* painstakingly time-consuming cupcakes.
I think I deserve a dinner.

Don't you think so Wan?

Nutella Cupcakes

Nutella Cupcakes

Rejoice! I have now settled down enough in my new kitchen to start baking!!!

Started off with a failproof classic, Nutella Cupcakes. Get the recipe here, it's perfect wouldn't change a thing.

These cupcakes smell amazing while baking, it makes people walk out of their rooms to stare into the oven.

Mmmm, chocolate-hazelnutty goodness.

Stay tuned for more kitchen adventures I have been baking quite a bit. Just too lazy to blog. Heh.

Hmm I just realized that this seems to be turning into a cupcake blog.

But who can resist cupcakes?

Missing Malaysian Food Already...

... and I've only been back in the UK for like 2 weeks.

Still busy getting organized got tons of photos of all the yummy food I had while I was back home. Being the lazy person I am though, I still need to get them all sorted out. I will eventually...

Meanwhile thanks to those few faithful readers that have stuck around. I shall reward you with photos of my first cupcake basket! Specially made for my dear friend Anne's birthday last month. Gosh... I am really backlogged on my posts. Sigh.

Chocolate Chocolate-chunk cupcakes decorated with coloured icing. I need to work on my cupcake decorating, I'm terrible at it.

So pretty! Was really happy with the end result.

Will post the recipe another time. Please please please don't stop reading. I'll update soon. =D

Merdeka Cupcakes: Exhibit B and Exhibit C

The second part of my Merdeka Cupcake quest.

By tweaking my favourtie Nuttella Cupcake Recipe and with inspiration from boo_licious, I managed to come up with another two cupcake flavours with a Malaysian twist.

Introducing Vanilla-Kaya Cupcakes and Pandan-Kaya Cupcakes!

I didn't make many changes with what I already consider to be a wonderful recipe. I just didn't put in essence while making the batter and when done, halved the completed batter, mixed in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence in one half and 1/2 teaspoon pandan essence in the other. Filled cupcake liners with batter, topped it up with about 1/2 teaspoon of kaya and swirled the kaya in with a toothpick.




I didn't manage to get my swirls as pretty as boo's but the end taste was pretty good, I felt that the eggy cupcakes were well complemented by the egg-based kaya. The pandan essence went well with the cupcakes too, very fragrant =)

Happy Merdeka to all Malaysians!

Merdeka Cupcakes: Exhibit A

Happy 5 days till Merdeka.

5 more days till the nation celebrates it's 50th year of independance.

Thought I'd experiment and come up with a few 'Malaysia inspired' cupcake recipes. Here's the first one.

Milo, according to Wikipedia originated from Australia. However I feel that its something that has now become firmly ingrained into the life of Malaysians. I remember drinking loads of Milo when I was a kid. I rember making chocolate sandwiches by spreading Milo powder over slices of bread. Remember those huge Milo trucks that would come around to primary schools distributing free cups of Milo? Even today you find huge billboards all around town prmoting the 'Malaysia boleh, Milo boleh' campaign which has been going on for years. Everyone I know seems to have grown up on Milo.

Yes, Milo may have originated from Australia but I feel that I can quite safely say that it can be called one of Malaysia's official drinks.

Thus my inspiration to come up with a Milo themed cupcake recipe, which I shall call "Milo Milo-nuggets Cupcakes". Now that's a lot of Milo.

Milo Milo-Nuggets Cupcake recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted

1 cup milo powder

1 cup/230g butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup milk

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 packet/about 125 g milo nuggets, break apart the lager pieces into halves

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line cupcake tins with paper liners.

2. In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar till light and fluffy. In a seperate bowl, mix together flour, salt and Milo powder.

3. Mix eggs, one by one, into the butter-sugar mixture. Add in milk and flour mixture in 2 parts, mixing until just combined after each addition. Do not overmix.

4. Gently stir in Milo nuggets until evenly distributed throughout the batter. Spoon batter into paper liners till about 3/4 full. Pop a Milo nugget in the centre of each cupcake (optional, I found that this doesn't make much difference since the nuggets in my cupcakes seemed to have risen while baking).

5. Pop cupcakes into oven, and bake for around 20 mins, or until toohpick inserted comes out clean.

Before going into the oven.

Ta dah!

Look at the nuggets peeking out of the cupcakes like yummy uh, nuggets of chocolatey goodness.