Double Post Monday! The Cookbook Challenge - Weeks 15 & 16

So, I log in today to post Week 16 (noodles) of the cookbook challenge. Turns out I hadn't posted week 15 despite what my, apparently faulty, memory was telling me.

So today's posts are Week 15 - Muffins - Pumpkin and Cinnamon Muffins - Bill Granger's Feed Me Now, and Week 16 - Noodles - Miso Broth with Somen Noodles, Shiitake and Pumpkin - Marie Claire's Kitchen. 

My muffin choice was based on what was lying around - there was about 200g of pumpkin left over in the fridge, and those little packets of sultanas in the pantry. Everything else, I pretty much always have in stock. 

Given my previous history with baking, here, here and here, I decided that Bill's advice to use muffin papers was definitely something I should follow. 

With the recipe calling for 330g mashed pumpkin, and I only in possession of 200g pumpkin, I made two thirds of the recipe. Your kitchen scales and calculator are your most valuable assets when doing this, otherwise, how do you get two thirds of two eggs? Break two in, weigh them, and then remove one third of the weight. 

These were a little dry. I think it's because, even though I was very accurate with my two thirds measurements for everything, it was everything except the pumpkin, so there wasn't quite enough to make them moist. I think these would be fine if you actually use the proportions specified. 

Pumpkin and Cinnamon Muffins

makes 12

250g plain flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

95g brown sugar

80ml buttermilk (you can substitute 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and enough milk to make up 80ml - which I did)

2 medium eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste)

80g unsalted butter, melted

330g mashed steamed pumpkin (about 360g uncooked weight)

70g sultanas

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and line a 12 hole, 125ml muffin pan with papers.

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl and stir to combine. Bill specifies just adding the brown sugar after sifting the other ingredients, but I find it gets lumpy so I always sift it too.

Combine the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and melted butter in a bowl, then add to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

This will look very, very dry. But don't worry, then add the mashed pumpkin and sultanas. It will add a lot of moisture.

Divide the mixture evenly into the muffin papers and bake for 20 minutes. 

These aren't very pumpkin-y. They are a sweet muffin, so don't go thinking because they're full of vegetables they'll be savoury. Definitely sweet. This is probably the first recipe I've made by Bill Granger that I wouldn't make again.

Anyway, that's something by Kate.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 9 - Berry - Berry and Yoghurt Muffins

It appears that baking is not my forte. While I love it, and the result is always edible, I seem singly unable to bake something that doesn't stick to the pan. Check out my brownies for an example. This occurred again this week, despite greasing the (non-stick my behind) pans as instructed. If anyone has any tips, I'd be eternally grateful! Even tips for getting stuck muffins out of the pans in as large a piece as possible would be well received!

That's as whole as it gets.

I started back at work this week after a wonderful break, and thought a muffin for breakfast would be a nice high energy kick-start to my working day. AWW Bake produced the Berry and Yogurt Muffins recipe, which with rolled oats, berries and yogurt, how much more breakfasty can a muffin get? Also, I still haven't replaced the mixer that I broke at Christmas, so a recipe that I only needed sifting and stirring was welcome. 

Unfortunately, these were so broken that it was far too embarrassing to share them at work, so they were hidden away for private consumption.

 This is what they're supposed to look like

Berry and yogurt muffins

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/3 cup rolled oats

3 eggs

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup yogurt

1/3 cup vegetable

180g fresh/frozen berries 

(I used fresh strawberries as they were STILL on sale at my supermarket - WIN!)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Grease (and grease, and grease) your muffin pan.

Sift flour into a bowl, then add the remaining ingredients. Do not overmix.

Spoon into pan holes.

Bake muffins for about 25 minutes. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack, and turning top side up to cool.

Innocent little pools of muffin batter. They give no indication of the trouble they're about to cause.

Aren't muffins simple? Until you go to turn them out and they just won't budge. GRRRR.... and I tried so hard to make them look pretty, baking them with peach and apple fans, sprinkled with demerara sugar. I should have focused on keeping them whole!

It's still good, it's still good

These are very sweet, and you really can't tell that there's rolled oats in them. Also, strawberries don't seem to bake well. While very nice prior to cooking, they were somewhat bland in the muffins. I don't think I'd make these again, only if they were a specific request, or fit a theme particularly well, because I'm sure AWW Bake can produce much better options than these. It was a bit of a disappointing first outing for the book, but we'll see if we can't make a winner of it yet.

If anyone's getting stuck for what to cook for the challenge, or you just don't have the time to browse for a recipe, check out http://www.mycookbooksonline.com/. I can't remember where I came across this, I think Vicious Ange left a comment on someone else's blog, and I was hooked. Thanks Ange! There's a good sample of my cookbook shelf there, and I expect that as more people join, more books will be available to search.

There you go. That's something by Kate.

The Cookbook Challenge - Week 2 - Indian - Chai Cupcakes

I love Indian food. Tandoori, dhal makhani, jahlfrezi, naan, sweet, sweet naan… love it. I thought I could pull out my Indian cookbooks and whip up a curry, but fate stepped in and while I was looking through 500 Cupcakes for the citrus challenge, I came across these:

Chai cupcakes

There is a variation in the book which is for vanilla and white chocolate chai cupcakes, and since I received my order from USA Foods of Hershey’s white chocolate cinnamon chips last week, I thought they’d go perfectly with the Bondi Chai Club Cinnamon. 

 

 Perfect match?

Ok, so Bondi isn’t terribly Indian. Let’s focus on the chai and cinnamon part.

The Hershey's chips were shipped on what must have been the hottest day of the year and were left at my front door. They were in a semi-solid mass on my arrival home from work.

I needed to do some chopping, bashing it on the bench a few times did most of the work, but it just needed a little more.

I didn’t bother to look for buttermilk in the supermarket, to create 2/3 cup of buttermilk substitute I used 2/3 tablespoon of lemon juice and added enough regular milk to make up 2/3 cup.

That looks a lot more like a dough than a batter, and is almost too much for my monster 320 watt Breville Wizz mixer to handle. It certainly made some noises which indicated it was not overly impressed with what it was being asked to do. Set facial expression to sceptical… now.

The mixture was really thick and sticky, I wasn’t really sure how they’d go. I kept re-checking the recipe to see if I’d misread something or omitted an ingredient, but I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong. From the baked result, looks like I didn’t do anything wrong (which was nice after my recent brownie misadventure).

I thought apple would go really well with the cinnamon, so tried baking a slice of apple on the top of a couple of the cupcakes. Taste wise this was a good idea although I’m not sold on the final presentation. Next time smaller apples, whole circle slices, less full cups.

What I found interesting about these cupcakes is that they only use egg whites, and no yolks. It’s the first cupcake I’ve come across that does that.

Chai cupcakes – 500 Cupcakes

2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon chai tea powder (I used Bondi Chai Club Cinnamon)
1/4 cup sweet butter, softened (I assumed this just meant unsalted)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (I used regular brown sugar – anyone know what ‘light brown sugar’ is?)
2 egg whites
2/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celsius (I preheated mine to 175 with the fan on, and it actually maintained its temperature – I think that’s the secret with my temperamental oven, use the fan).

Place 12 baking cups in a muffin pan. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and chai powder. In a separate bowl beat the butter and sugar until smooth (I found smooth was a flexible term, just beat it until you get bored – that’s what I did). Add egg whites slowly, beating well, then slowly add the dry ingredients, then the buttermilk.

At this point if you want to do the white chocolate and vanilla variation, this is  where you add ½ cup of white chocolate chips and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. I added ½ cup of Hershey’s cinnamon chips, and no vanilla.

Bake for 20 minutes (mine took 20 minutes exactly).

The recipe suggests that it makes 12, and that’s what I produced, but next time I will make them smaller and make 18. And you can re-set your facial expression to hungry now, turns out my pessimism was unjustified.

And just because the book is such a pretty pink....