Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Do you ever have some apples sitting in the refrigerator for weeks that no one wants to eat? I always have a few sitting there. One day, I was out of bread so I decided to make some apple muffins for breakfast; one, I could get rid of the apple; two, we could have muffins for breakfast. I wanted this muffin to be healthier too so I used some whole wheat flour, canola oil and lots of apple. I always love muffin with crumbs topping but that would means added fat as normally it is made with butter, flour and brown sugar. So, my healthier alternative would be cornflakes cereal for the extra crunch. It is really crunchy and delicious when eaten on the same day. But the cereal will turn soft the next day when kept in an air-tight container, but not to worry, just toast it for 4-5 minutes in the toaster oven to crisp it up and warm the muffin before consuming. Enjoy! It also makes an healthier snack compared to cupcakes packed with frosting.





Yield about 12 big muffins (shown above) or 18 small cupcake size muffins.

Ingredients:

(A)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (use all-purpose flour if you don't have this at home)
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon powder
(B)
1 egg
1 cup milk (2% or skim)
1/4 cup canola oil
(C)
1 1/2 cup chopped apple (from one large apple, cored, peeled and chopped)

Crunchy Topping: Cornflakes cereal (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400'F. Line the muffin pan with paper muffin cups.

2. In a large bowl, add in (A). Whisk to combine.

3. Make a hole in the center, add in (B). Whisk to blend well. And whisk or stir everything into a batter (with a whisk or a spatula).

4. Add in (C). Stir with a spatula to combine.

5. Scoop into paper muffin cups less than 3/4 cup full (as it will rise up when baking). Sprinkle the top with cornflakes cereal for extra healthy crunchy topping.

6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Place on wire rack to cool completely before storage.

Green Tea Muffin with Red Bean Paste

Received this as a suggestion from a reader. And since I have some canned red bean and water chestnut paste in my pantry, I decided to give it a go. I used my green tea yogurt muffin recipe and added a dollop of red bean and chestnut paste in the middle before baking. I thought red bean paste pair better with green tea flavor, so I tried it with green tea muffin. It yields 18 muffins for me, so again I have to give some away and freeze some for later consumption. I will take it out a night before and let it defroze and be ready for breakfast the next day.

Steamed Banana Muffins

The main purpose of this post is I want to share this tips with you. See the picture above? For those that own the oval shape silicon cups, you can actually use the round paper cups in your oval silicon cups. When you pour in the batter, it actually spread into the oval shape like mine above. I love to use paper cups because I am too lazy to clean the silicon cups, if you are like me, you will love this tips.


For some reason my steamed banana muffins actually smiling at me. It's probably because I poured in more batter and steamed at rapidly boiling water. ;)


I just love this steamed banana muffins! Hmmm...should I called this a muffin or cupcake? I like to call all my cake baked or steamed in paper cups cupcakes because they are basically cake in a cup right or cup size cake? But I read that the frosted cupcake is called a cupcake and all the unfrosted cupcake is supposed to be called a muffin? Don't know why I always associate muffin to have denser texture compared to cupcake. :P

Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins

I wanted to create a healthier version of muffins. What makes a normal muffins healthier? I was playing with the combination in my head. One that has carrots, walnuts and raisins, without any butter, with a little heart healthy canola oil and makes with whole wheat flour! Sounds great right? I didn't want to experiment with 100% whole wheat flour because I was afraid that the muffins would be dense and I like my muffins soft. So, I used a combination of whole wheat flour and cake flour. I love it, the whole wheat carrot muffins turned out great, soft and delicious. What's best is it's less guilty!


Sharing with you my recipe:



Ingredients:

(A)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup cake flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar

(B)
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded carrot (about 2 small carrots)
1/4 cup canola oil

(C)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins (coated with a little flour)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400'F. Lined the muffin pan with paper cups.

2. Add (A) in a big bowl. Whisk to combined. Make a hole in the middle and add (B), mix until blended. Add (C) and stir with a spatula until just combined. Scoop the batter into the muffin pan.

3. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

~Yield 18 muffins

Strawberry Muffins

How pretty is that color isn't it? I loved it! Strawberry is pretty cheap these days. I just bought 4lb. of strawberries for $4.99, pretty cheap right? Furthermore, it's really sweet and fragrant. I'm not someone who likes sour fruit like strawberry, kiwi, orange, etc. I prefer my fruit sweet. So, I'm really glad that this batch of strawberries are sweet. I decided to experiment again and made this strawberries muffins using this recipe from allrecipes.com but with slight modification.



I'm really low on baking powder, only about 1 tsp. left so I won't be able to follow the recipe. I used 2 cup of self-raising flour and omitted the baking powder. Added 1 tsp. of strawberry extract and 1 1/2 cup of chopped strawberries. Save some of the strawberries to put on top of the muffins before baking. The muffins turned out to be soft, moist, not very sweet and nice with slight strawberry fragrant. These muffins are sure an healthier alternative to cupcakes as no butter was used and only a little oil, one egg were used in making this. Good for my breakfast and tea time snack! Furthermore, my hubby loved it too!



For easy reference, I used: (Yield about 16-18 muffins)

(A)
2 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup sugar

(B)
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. imitation strawberry extract
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1 cup diced strawberries

(C)
1/2 cup diced strawberries to sprinkle on top

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400'F. Lined the muffin pan with paper cups.

2. Add (A) in a big bowl. Whisk to combined. Make a hole in the middle and add (B). Stir with a spatula until just combined. Scoop batter into the muffin pan and sprinkle the top with some diced strawberries.

3. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until golden.

I am also submitting my first photo to SnackShots # 3 : Muffin. My first entry and wish me luck! :)