Muffin Monday - Eggnog Muffins

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken.

~ Henry W. Longfellow

In most countries around the world, today is a public holiday or at the very least, the day after a public holiday. Whether you celebrated Christmas or not, I hope yesterday was good for you (and yours, if you're with them). I am writing this early, so that when this post gets published, I will be on a beach or in a pool somewhere under the hot sun. Hang on.... that sounds very much like everyday at home. Let me rephrase that - I will be going nowhere far but shall be taking a bit of a blogging break this week to ponder about the things I'd like to happen in 2012. In my life, I mean.

As I'm writing this, it's 3 days till Christmas and I'm feeling bad because most of my seasons greeting cards are sitting on my dresser, not yet mailed. Well, they have to be written in first before they can be posted, and I'm stalling on the writing part. Lately, I seem to have acquired a super-clingy new best friend and she goes by the name, Procrastination. I'm still trying to figure out how to give her the slip.

To cheer me up today though, 'P' (my new friend's nick) and I baked some eggnog-flavored muffins for Muffin Monday. Not having any eggnog essence, we stuck with vanilla and it still tasted great. Just for fun, P suggested we pipe some muffin batter into clean, empty eggshells just to go with the 'Egg'nog theme. She's so entertaining, that girl! 

Well, since I had oh...hours to waste, I agreed and we used this technique by SandeeA to attain our egg-shaped muffins. We didn't make them with the suggested topping in the original recipe, instead we sprinkled some crushed peppermint candy cane over the batter. These eggnog muffins had some serious swag, and they tasted delightful to boot!

Note: Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop Anuradha a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week. 

Eggnog Muffins
(recipe from King Arthur Flour)
Makes: 12 muffins

Batter

1/4 cup (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) butter

3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) sugar

2 large eggs

2 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon eggnog flavor or 1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) eggnog or half and half

Topping*

1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) sugar

1/2 cup (2 1/4 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon eggnog flavor, optional

3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) butter, melted

*(I used crushed peppermint candy cane)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper or silicone muffin cups, and grease the cups with non-stick vegetable oil spray; this will ensure that they peel off the muffins nicely.

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar till smooth. Add the eggs, beating for several minutes and scraping the bowl, till the mixture is smooth and light colored. Beat in the baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and eggnog flavor or vanilla.

3. Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the eggnog or half and half, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined. Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups.

4. Stir together all of the topping ingredients JUST till crumbly. Stir gently, and don't overmix; you don't want to turn this crumbly topping into a solid mass. Sprinkle the topping over the muffins.

5. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, or until they're a pale golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and serve warm, or at room temperature.

Muffin Monday - Carrot Spice Muffins

I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

~ Jerry Seinfeld

I've always had a weakness for moist carrot cake, packed to the brim with grated carrots, nuts and dried fruits and topped with the most decadent cream cheese frosting. So you can imagine how much I was looking forward to making this week's Muffin Monday recipe, Carrot Spice Muffins. Our host, Anuradha of Baker Street blog specified that this was to be a healthy muffin, so I reluctantly tossed out the evil frosting idea and ended up with a healthier topping instead.

Of Figs, Mangoes, Pull-Apart Bread and Pudding Cake. A Guest Post Exchange with Evelyne of CEE.

Have I got something special for you today! Well, it's two recipes actually....one here and one over at Evelyne's blog, Cheap Ethnic Eatz, because we have both decided to do a guest post exchange cooking something that inspired us out of the other person's blog. By way of an intro, I first met Evelyne at an online cooking party (IIP). Through her various posts, I got to know that she's one adventurous gal and pretty fearless at trying out exotic and unusual flavors in her recipes. She's plenty of fun, has a big heart and gets really excited whenever she's out at the farmer's market because she tries to buy a little bit of everything.... Wait, am I describing Evelyne here or myself? Definitely Evelyne! But we're so much alike and that's probably why I said yes! when she asked me to do this fun project with her. 

      

I chose to bake her sweet potato pudding cake because I'd been dazzled by her description and photos of it from the word go. You can check the recipe out on my guest post on her blog. In the meantime, please join me in warmly welcoming Evelyne with her sweet-savory version of my pull-apart bread. The flavor combinations here just blew me away, and I know you'll feel the same way!

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Blackberry Bread Pudding with Bamboo Charcoal Bread and Poached Pear, and Giveaway Winner!

Here's a slightly alien-looking bread pudding I made. Alien not in the way of flavors, but in the type of bread used. It's greyish-black and made with bamboo charcoal powder. The bakeries sell these breads here, they come as sliced loaves, burger or hot dog buns. Bamboo charcoal is supposedly good for health, as it helps clean up toxins in our body. If you can get past the psychological hurdle of eating this healthy version of 200-day-old bread, there really isn't any difference in taste to regular bread. It's just like eating Century Egg...easy once you've prepared yourself mentally, that is :-).

Bread Pudding-On-The-Go: Hot Buttered Molasses Bread Pudding Muffins

My contribution for this month's Bread Pudding of the Month Club hosted by Victoria of Mission: Food is something of a take-out version of bread pudding. Wrapped in homemade muffin liners and topped with crunchy, buttery bread flowers, these bread pudding muffins are adorably shabby chic. Yes, not only interior décor, muffins can now enjoy a chic reputation as well....

I flavored this bread pudding with distinct-tasting ingredients - cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg, molasses and vanilla. Coupled with the smell of heated bread and milk, the aromatically-laden muffins gave off the most amazing smell the day I baked them. I felt comforted simply just sniffing them, so can you imagine my joy after tucking into one (or two, or perhaps three) of these?

The paper muffin liners you see here were really easy to shape. I just cut 5 x 5 inch squares out of parchment paper, folded each into wide cones then pressed them down into the bottom of a muffin tray cup using my fingers. To demonstrate how easy this ahem...technique is, below is a super-cute video of two young ladies making cupcake liners using origami papers. You can also purchase them ready-made from Fancy Flours, they even come in a variety of lovely colors.

I really like the size and portability of this bread pudding. You can take it to work, to a picnic or have it in your gym bag to munch on after your workout (hey, why not? You deserve it). Apart from that, I also love the crispy, bread topping made from extra, cubed bread coated in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The crispiness of the toasted topping was a wonderful contrast to the moistness of the bread pudding underneath it. The muffin tastes really, really good when it’s warm and even better when it’s topped with a dollop of cream or a single scoop of ice-cream. I simply sprinkled some icing sugar on top and it was already quite divine!

Hot Buttered Molasses Bread Pudding Muffins
Ingredients:
Pudding
8 cups cubed bread
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 tablespoons molasses (black treacle)

Topping
3 tablespoons melted salted butter
1 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners.

2. Cut bread into approx. 3/4-inch cubes. Set aside two cups of the bread cubes for the topping. Add the rest to a large bowl.

3. In another medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and molasses. Pour the wet mixture over the bread cubes in the large bowl and toss gently. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes so that the bread has time to soak in the liquid.

4. Divide the mixture between the 12 muffin cups. They should take about 1/2 cup each. Pour any remaining custard over the bread pudding/muffins.

5. For the topping, pour the melted butter over the remaining 2 cups of bread cubes (I cut mine into flowers here). Toss gently. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together, then sprinkle over cubes. Toss gently.

6. Divide the topping evenly between each muffin, placing them close to the center of each. You’ll probably have about three or four cubes per muffin.

7. Bake at 325F/170C for 30 minutes, until they’re set and the top is golden and crisp. Dust, while warm, with a little powdered sugar.

8. Cool on a rack for five to 10 minutes, and then enjoy with a little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. If you’re not enjoying them right away, keep them refrigerated – they keep for 3-4 days.

My Banana is Bigger... Oh Yea.

My helper came into the kitchen yesterday lugging a bunch of really BIG bananas from our garden. Wow! I wondered what nutrients we gave to the plants around here that they are able to grow like that? I think they may be plantains, but I'm not quite sure as I'm no banana expert (in the kitchen, anyway). And I'm too lazy to Google.

So here they are, and to give you some perspective on the size, I've placed a regular-sized fork on top.

I had no real ideas what to do with them and it was only breakfast-time. Well, the quickest thing was to grill them in the oven with a pinch of butter and sprinkling of nutmeg on top.

There, my grilled bananas. Drizzled them with some honey and they're gone in an instant!

Another sweet-savoury adaptation is to add cheese on top. I squeezed some cheddar on mine.... vicious!

Btw, if you're wondering what that yellow, plastic contraption is in the pic at the top of this post - it's called a Banana Saver. You know, to save those half-eaten bananas for later and prevent them from oxidising. I bought this novelty item while I was in the US a few months back and while I love the concept part of it, I haven't used it yet to save any bananas (we always finish ours in one go!). Ok, now you now I'm a Chindogu-lover too, but hey, someone's got to be a fan of these useless things...