Orange and Chocolate Chip Muffins with Sprinkles

Do you know what happens when your 6 year old bakes muffins? -  you digress so far from the original recipe that it bears only a slight  resemblance to what you intended to bake. Almonds get turned down (because nuts are good only with chocolate, Amma), chocolate chips get added in (there's so little left in the packet Amma, lets finish it) and finally the muffins miraculously sprout sprinkles on top (Please Amma, can we have sprinkles on top - Please, please pleaaaaaase).

I started with The Cooker's recipe for some delicious Orange, Oats and Almond Muffins - they seemed delicious. K had a compensatory holiday last Friday, after her Sports Day in school and was bouncing off the walls at home. So we decided to bake - and she said she would do "everything".  I helped her measure out the ingredients,  and as she poured and stirred and whipped, she slowly took over the kitchen till the recipe morphed into something else with a life of its own! 

 But she was so thrilled at the fact that she was doing "everything", that I didn't have the heart to turn down her suggestions. After all, what's a few choc chips and sprinkles between friends - am sure the Cooker wouldn't mind the transformation of her recipe! 

And this was also K's gift to Amma and Appa on their 14th anniversary :) - how much sweeter can it get? The muffins rose beautifully and were soft and fluffy. Must be all the love and enthusiasm which went in with those tiny hands.

This also goes out to my best friend S whose anniversary it is today - Happy Anniversary S and A - here's wishing you many more!.

 Orange and Chocolate Chip Muffins with Sprinkles

Ingredients

½ cup Quaker Oats ground coarsely
1 ¼  cup flour

¾  cup whole wheat flour

 ½  cup butter (or oil)

½ cup sugar (I used castor sugar and would probably increase the quantity a tad bit more next time)

2 eggs

1 cup orange juice

½ cup yoghurt

½  tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup yoghurt

½ cup multicoloured sprinkles

½ cup chocolate chips

1 tbsp orange zest, grated

Method
1. Mix the refined flour, whole wheat flour, oats, salt, baking soda, baking powder and orange zest in a bowl.

2. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together till shiny, then add the eggs one by one and beat for 2 minutes each.

3. Add the orange juice, yoghurt and chocolate chips into the egg mixture and mix till combined.

4. Gently fold in the flour mixture, one third at a time into the egg mixture till just combined; do not overmix.

5. Pre heat the oven to 180C (350F). Grease 2 muffin trays (6 muffins each).

6. Spoon the batter into the muffin trays till they just graze the top of the moulds. Decorate with sprinkles on top/

7. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes – a skewer inserted should come clean. Cool completely before unmoulding. 

Eggless Banana Walnut Muffins

MIL is staying with us this month - I had to really persuade her to come this time, since she was quite reluctant to make the trip from Coimbatore. Age related hearing loss has made her a little reluctant to socialize. But she did come finally and its been nice to have her here with us. My daughter especially seems to bloom a litte bit more every time one of her grandparents is around.

We took her out for lunch last weekend (Punjab Grill - very good food and great service - pleasantly surprised) and while walking around the mall, she spotted some cupcakes at a cafe. She asked about them but they had egg in them, so I decided to make some eggless muffins at home. Banana muffins seemed the easiest and she likes nuts, so decided to modify this recipe of mine for white chocolate walnut muffins, to make some banana walnut muffins.

It barely took me about an hour from start to finish. I packed a couple in my daughter's tiffin the next day and she couldn't stop beaming with delight at the chocolate chips. This is a light muffin but nice and flavourful.The sugar can be brought down a notch since it was a little sweet for me.

Eggless Banana Walnut  Muffins

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (I would bring this down by a couple of tablespoons)
1 banana (medium)
3 tbsp milk
3/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
salt - a pinch
1/2 cup walnuts (toasted on a skillet or in an oven, peeled and broken into half) You could use chocolate chips, I did that for half of them because my daughter wanted some.

1. Blend the banana with the milk and vanilla essence with the hand blender into a puree.
2. In a bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar with a hand blender till light and fluffy. Add the banana puree and then blend again.
3. Sift the flour with the salt and the baking powder into thebowl of batter and fold in gently till just combined. Do not overmix
4. Fold in the walnuts (or the chocolate chips) reserving a few to decorate on top. Pre-heat the oven to 180C (350F).
5. Grease a muffin pan or line them with cupcake liners. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes (took 20 minutes for me). A toothpick should come clean when poked into the muffins.
6. Let stand till cool and then unmould from the muffin pan.

Banana, Pineapple and Coconut Muffins

These are delicious muffins full of flavour with a rich fruity flavour - one of those amazing treats you can find on Meeta's blog - What's for Lunch Honey!

She calls them Muffins Exotica - and exotic they are indeed, it has banana, pineapple and coconut and for good measure I added some honey as well! The kids who had come over for a playdate with my daughter wolfed them down in no time . I also replaced 1/2 a cup of flour with wheat flour (atta) and it made a good snack to take to work.

White Chocolate Muffins (Eggless) and a Breakfast Picnic

Yes, you heard that right! A Breakfast picnic is what we did a couple of weekends back - the weather had been absolutely brilliant in the early am that whole week, so four families with 6 kids and a dog set out at 7 30 am to Lodhi Gardens (Delhi).
We have "our" spot, right under a big old tree with some benches nearby, which we use during the winters (we did two last year and one the year before) but since it was so early in the morning, that was taken over by people doing yoga and stuff. Winters we normally reach around 11 30 when the sun is out and there are fewer people at that time.

So we picked another spot a little further away - we were shaded by the big tomb and some trees cool breeze blew all around us - it was perfect! We spread our dhurries, poured out the tea from the thermos and brought out the food. The cheese sandwiches and rava idlis with gun powder came out first along with a whole bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice. So fortified, the kids went adventure hunting looking out for tunnels, ponds and "secret hiding" places along with some of the adults and the dog. The rest of us, lay back and chatted looking at the blue skies and the spring flowers and almost dozing with our eyes half-closed.

The children were back in no time chattering on about all the "treasures" they had unearthed and dived right back into the food - aloo parathas and gobi parathas, bananas and grapes. Games of catch followed and then turned into a quest for finding ladybugs in the bushes and flowers accompanied by squeals of delight when one would land on a tiny hand. It was worth all the "effort" of waking up on a Saturday morning and getting the kids ready in time - and I treasure these times so much because I have never had the chance to do these things in Mumbai or Chennai. Delhi is blessed with these wide, open spaces which are so easily accessible and I'm glad to be making the most of it while we are here.

Besides the rava idlis, I brought along these white chocolate muffins which I had made the previous day. I made them without eggs since MIL is visiting and she doesn't eat eggs. I added the banana to make up for the moisture content and consistency. And to complete my itch for one weird ingredient per recipe I threw in some chopped candied amla (gooseberry) into the batter. The muffins were nice and moist; some of you might want to add a bit more sugar if you prefer your muffins sweeter. You could also chop more walnuts and add them right into the batter. Replacing the white chocolate with dark chocolate is another option.

This goes to Joelen's Tasty Tools event - where this month's tool of choice is Muffin Pans.

White Chocolate Muffins (Eggless)

Wheat Flour (atta) - 1.5 cups
Refined flour - 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 1.5 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Castor Sugar - 1 cup

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 mashed banana
white chocolate - 100gms, chopped into pieces
1/2 - 3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence

Walnuts - 6, broken into halves
Candied amla - 2 tbsp, chopped (optional)

1. Sieve both the flours with the baking powder, soda and the powdered sugar. Keep aside.
2. Melt the white chocolate pieces in a microwave at 30 second intervals till soft. You can also put the chocolate into a steel bowl which goes into another vessel half filled with water and then heat it on the stove, stirring till it melts.
3. When the chocolate cools a bit, add it to the mashed bananas along with butter and vanilla essence.
4. Mix the flour into this mixture and whip with a blender. Add the milk a little at a time till the mixture is thick and creamy, but not too runny.
5. Add the chopped candied amla, mix and drop spoonfuls of the batter into muffin covers or a greased muffin tray, taking care to fill only three fourth of the mould.
6. Place half a walnut into the top of each muffin and then bake for 14 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 180C. Cool completely.

Carrot Coconut Muffins

A special family occasion always calls for something which warms the heart as well as the palate. And when we are talking about celebrating the joy that our little girl brings into our lives, her twinkling eyes and impish smile which make every day a new wonder - then it has to be something which screams "Sunshine"!


These carrot coconut muffins do just that - their warm orange colour seems to be a shade of happiness itself and their moist insides burst with the goodness of carrots and apples. I saw them first quite sometime back on the Joy of Baking website and later on Meeta's wonderful blog "Whats for Lunch, Honey".
These muffins are the easiest thing to bake and use ingredients which we usually have at hand. My daughter loved making it with me and couldn't wait for them to bake and then cool to see how they turned out - very much the way she pestered us that whole morning for mehendi and then as soon as it was on she wanted to take it off and see the colour "NOW"! :)

I didn't make the cream cheese frosting since I didn't think they were needed at all - warm them just a little in the oven and you're good to go. I used homemade unsalted butter instead of the oil in the original recipe and toned down the sugar a wee bit.These muffins are apparently also called "Morning Glory Muffins" - I can see why!

Carrot Coconut Muffins

1 1/2 cups maida
1/2 cup wheat flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs

2 cups grated carrots
1 apple, peeled and grated (should be crisp and not the mushy kind)
1 cup grated coconut (I used fresh coconut)
1/2 cup walnuts, lightly toasted, peeled and chopped
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (For some reason everytime I combine cinnamon and salt, the dish seems to get over salted, so this time I did away with the salt in the original recipe,completely)

Method:
1. Sift the flours and the baking powder,cinnamon powder and soda together.
2. Beat the eggs and keep aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together till creamy.
3. Mix in the eggs and vanilla essence into the butter and sugar and then add the flour, grated carrots, apples, chopped walnuts and coconut mixing just until combined.
4. The key to spongy muffins is not to mix the ingredients too much but just till they come together.
5. Spoon the batter into lightly greased muffin pans or you can line the muffin pans with muffin papers and then spoon the batter into them.
6. Bake in a pre heated oven at 180C (350F) for 22-25 minutes till a skewer inserted comes out clean. Rest for 10 minutes and turn out of the muffin pan and let it cool completely.

Banana Muffins

We had another baking session with the kids during the holidays. This time with three 3 year olds and one six year old. Decided to bake muffins this time, these individual cakes always manage to thrill the little ones! I had a couple of ripe bananas lying around so I decided to make Banana Muffins and also throw in some walnuts.

The bananas, milk, honey, eggs and walnuts make for a power packed treat for the little ones - rich in calcium, iron, Vitamin A, protein, essential fatty acids and potassium. It takes hardly anytime to prepare and my little helpers gave me a hand with mixing the ingredients and pouring out the batter.

The muffins when they were baked were really moist and soft, though they turned out a tad salty....not sure whether it was more salt or the combination of cinnamon and salt. Will cut down on both the next time.

The banana muffins are on their way to the Think Spice...Think Nutmeg event being hosted this month by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen. Think Spice was originally hosted by Sunita's World.

Banana Muffins

1/2 tsp cinnamon (can be replaced with vanilla essence)

1/2 tsp nutmeg (grated)

1 cup whole wheat flour (atta)

1½ cups refined flour (maida)

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

½ cup honey

1 egg

½ tsp salt (would change it to 1/4 tsp next time)

1 cup milk

3 tbsp oil

3 ripe bananas, mashed

Half a cup of chopped walnuts (lightly toasted)

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Mix the wheat flour, refined flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon together in a bowl.

3. In another bowl, mix the honey, egg, milk, oil and add the dry ingredients until just combined. At the end mix in the chopped walnuts.

4. Grease a muffin pan or line cupcake moulds with cupcake papers.

5. Fill the muffin moulds or cupcake liners till the top and bake for 35-45 minutes till they are golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

6. Remove to a rack and cool completely before unmoulding.

For a superb eggless version, take a look at Vaishali's recipe.