Muffins!

Today I baked muffins! First time I believe.... I am not too fond of baking as it is troublesome, messy and hard to make adjustments in the middle of the process... It will either turn out well or be a total flop because it is sensitive to ingredient measurements...


I have to confess though, I cheated ^.^ I used pre-combined flour mixture that can be found in most bakery shops.... just have to combine the mixture with eggs, milk and butter or oil. A simple whisk will do, no need to drag out the electric mixer which is hard to clean....

Steps:

1) Combine ingredients:

2) Fill the cups with the mixture:

3) And bake! (15 minutes, 190 degree Celcius)

Voila! Chocolate Chip Cupcakes as simple as 1, 2, 3!

It tasted quite good. It had a chrispy outer layer, but inside is all soft. My cousin was looking at the muffins weirdly but his mother asked him to try... he took one bite then devoured the whole thing.... =D

Although the pre-mixed flour may look expensive at RM11.50 for 1 kg, after adding all the cost and getting cost per muffin, it is only about 50 cents each (1 kg can make about 35 muffins).

Tips:

1) Oven heat may vary so test the muffin poking it with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, the muffin is ready.

2) If oven heat is uneven, rotate the trays

3) If you want to add chocolate chips, add it a few minutes before the muffin is ready (to prevent the chocolates from melting completely and retain its shape)

4) To make muffin gifts, use vanila flavour and coloured icing sugar for decoration. You can also use those small silver sugar balls or other decorative sugar items found in bakery stores. I think the muffins have to be cooled before decorating or it will all melt.

5) Use a digital weighing machine to make life much easier... tare it after addition of each ingredient so it is not neccessary to have many seperate bowls for measuring...

Analysis:

1) Mixture should be put into a piping bag so that the mixture is more even and less messy (some of the muffins over flowed on one side of the cup and I had to wash my hands countless times becuase the batter kept spiling on my hand when I filled the cup using a spoon)

2) Mixture before baking should be slightly less than the height of the cup. Too much will cause the mixture to overflow and it won't be so pretty. If planning to do icing, put less mixture so icing would still be within the cup.

3) Taste can be improved by using full cream milk (I used low fat milk) and butter (I used sunflower oil).... though with my choice of ingredients it would be slightly healthier (can muffins actually be healthy?) It still had a very rich chocolate taste though.....

It is a good and simple gift idea. It took me less than an hour to complete the whole process, (but if decorating it would take longer obviously) the mess was minimalm, (no seiving which flour usually ends up all over the place, only one mixing bowl instead of many measuring bowls, trays are relatively clean because everything is in paper cups) and everyone loved it!

Dreaming of durians.....