1st bake of the year: Black Grape Muffins

Recipe adapted from muffingirl

Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 3/8 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter, cubed and soften to room temperature
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 egg
- Handful of black seedless grapes

Steps
1. Preheat the oven at 180 degree celsius
2. Beat the butter till light and fluffy, add in sugar, egg and vanilla and beat well
3. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt
4. Add the flour to butter mixture in 2 batches, alternating with milk. Stir lightly to mix.
5. Fold in the grapes
6. Line muffin tin and spoon the mixture equally into 6 muffin cups
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes till it's golden brown on top and a skewer into its middle comes out ckean

Superb banana muffins

Oh my! These are to die for! Thanks to Elise from Simply Recipes!

Ingredients

• 3 large ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• Handful of dark mini chocolate chips

Method

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Mix the baking soda, salt, chocolate chips and flour. Add the flour mixture into the banana mixture and mix until just incorporated. Pour mixture into muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool on a rack or serve warm.

** Makes 6 muffins

fuck u. and fyi, school did not teach me how to speak nicely to bastards who do not know how to respond to others.

Finally, crunchy chocolate cookies!

Adapted from the same Vivian Pang recipe which I used for the chocolate chip cookies. This is definitely my go-to recipe for crunchy cookies in future!

Ingredients

• 125g salted butter
• 120g brown sugar
• 1 egg + 1 tsp vanilla essence (lightly beaten)
• 210g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 120g semi-sweet chocolate chips
• handful of coarsely chopped walnuts

Steps

1. Whisk the plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder together to remove lumps and ensure that it's well mixed
2. Add in the chocolate chips and walnuts into the flour mixture and mix well
3. Cream butter + sugar till light and fluffy
4. Add in the egg/vanilla mixture and beat till well mixed
5. Add in 3/4 of the flour mixture into the butter mixture and beat at low speed till well incorporated
6. Add in the remaining of the flour mixture and beat till low speed till well incorporated
7. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degree celsius
8. Line the baking tray with grease paper
9. Using 2 spoons, drop spoonfuls of the cookie doughs onto the baking tray, leaving about 1.5 cm distance between each cookie
10. Bake for 25 minutes
11. Transfer to cooling rack and let it cool completely before storing into airtight container

Makes about 40 cookies.

Crunchy, buttery chocolate chip cookies

Recipe courtesy of here, but I halved it for about 70 cookies and used all brown sugar instead. I'm gonna stick to this recipe in future :)

i think i've lost a friendship which was very close to my heart....and it hurts....

cny almond cookies *LOVE*

An attempt to replicate that salty, almondy, crunchy melt-in-mouth almond cookies which I've always loved to devour during CNY and yes, i can make my own in future liao! It is really that same taste! *LOVE*

Recipe taken from Jess Kitchen

Ingredients
150g self raising flour
80g icing sugar (reduced to 60g)
80g ground almond
80g diced almonds
100g corn oil (replaced with canola oil)
1/2 tsp almond essence (omitted)
Egg yolk for brushing (omitted)

Method

1. Sift together flour and icing sugar, add in ground almond and diced almonds, mix well.
2. Mix (1) and corn oil together to form a soft dough. (the dough will come together when you roll them so don't worry about it being crumbly)
3. Shape into small round balls and place into small paper casing and press it slightly.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 170°C for 15-20mins or until slightly brown.
5. Cool completely on wire rack before storing into airtight containers.

scrumplicious orange cranberry muffins

Adapted my own version from here and I simply love these muffins with the burst of orange and cranberry flavors with every bite!

• 60 grams of salted butter
  
• 50 grams of caster sugar
  
• 1 egg
  
• 80 grams of flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 5 tablespoons of unsweetened 100% all natural orange juice
• suitable amount of dried cranberries

1. heat the orange juice and dried cranberries over the stove till warm and remove from fire
   
2. cream the butter & sugar until pale and fluffy
3. add the egg to butter-sugar mixture and beat till creamy
4. sift in the flour & baking powder into the butter mixture and mix until just combined
5. add in the cranberry mixture and mix lightly
6. spoon into muffin pan and bake at 170C until golden brown

Makes 12 mini muffins

mini chocolate lava cakes!

A 200% keeper from Paula Deen (below is the actual ingredients i used)

• 120g of mini chocolate chips
• 120g of salted butter
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 3/4 cup icing sugar
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200C
   
2. Melt chocolates and butter in the microwave or in a double boiler. Add flour and sugar to chocolate mixture. Stir in eggs until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Divide batter evenly among a muffin pan
   
3. Bake for 8 minutes. Edges should be firm but the center will be runny. Run a knife around the edge to loosen and invert onto dessert plate.
4. Top with vanilla ice cream or raspberry sauce. (Topping optional).

Makes 17 mini muffins

mini banana walnut cakes

I love the bite-size and this is amazingly moist and flavorful! Thanks to food network

• 1 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature (i omitted this)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (i used 3/4 tablespoon)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for preparing the pan (i used canola oil)
• 1 cup sugar (i reduced it to 1/4 cup white sugar + 1/4 cup brown sugar)
• 3 very ripe bananas, peeled, and mashed with a fork (about 1 cup) (i used 2 large bananas)
  
• 1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces

Makes 16 mini muffins