Chocolate Chips Brownie Muffins

Woke up early this morning to make these brownie muffins for breakfast.

This is the second time I have made these rich muffins...they are brownies actually. I adapted the recipe...Pecan and Chocolate Brownies, from one of the Australia Woman's Weekly Cookbook series. I didn't regret getting up slightly earlier than my usual Saturday mornings. I am quite happy with the result of the above photo. This is one of the better photos I have taken so far. The early morning sun gives enough lighting for this shot, which I took in our study room. Most of my photos are too dark because of the poor lighting condition in my kitchen.

These brownie muffins or muffin brownies, were neither brownie-like or muffin-like!

They were less fudgy that brownies...slightly more cake-like. They didn't taste exactly like muffins either, as they were kind of dense as compared to the fluffy texture of the usual muffins I made. I would say they were a "cross" between the two. In terms of taste, they were really good! "Yummy! Very good but not very sweet." my younger boy was nodding his head off with approval. I have cut down on the sugar this time as they were too sweet when I first made them. If you have a sweet tooth, do feel free to add in extra sugar ;)

Ingredients:
(makes 6 muffins, with diameter 2.5" by height 1.5" muffin cups)

80g butter, chopped into chunks
150g dark eating chocolate, chopped
100g sugar (the original recipe calls for 165g brown sugar)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g plain flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
A handful of chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degC. Line muffin pan with paper liners.
2. Sift together flour and cocoa powder, set aside.
3. Place butter in a saucepan, melt over low heat. Once the butter starts to melt, add in the sugar. Stir to prevent sugar from getting burnt. Add in the chocolate and stir still smooth.
4. Transfer chocolate mixture to a mixing bowl. Stir in the eggs gradually, followed by the vanilla extract, then the sifted flour & cocoa powder mixture. Stir till just incorporated.
5. Divide batter into muffin cups. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and bake for 20 mins or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Do not over bake as the muffins may get dry.

Japanese Curry Rice

One of the first few simple dishes which I have learnt after I picked up cooking, is the Japanese Curry Rice. My son fell in love with this dish after having tasted it at a foodcourt. I was very glad when I came across this ready mix sauce at the Cold Storage. It is one of the few Japanese products that have instructions printed in English. I followed the recipe and was able to get it right the first time. There are 3 different types of flavours available, Mild, Medium and Hot. I use the mild one as my younger boy still can't take spicy food. This sauce is in a curry block form, there is another type which is in liquid form, which I have not tried.

It's really a very simple dish where you just stir fry some onions, meat (be it chicken, seafood or beef) with some carrots and potato chunks. Add water to simmer till the vegetables are done (about 10~15 mins) then add in the curry blocks. Continue to simmer for another few more mins till the sauce is thicken. I cook this with only a saucepan, so cleaning up is especially easy. Serve the curry with Japanese rice...long-grain rice is just fine as well.

One thing to note though...your kitchen will be filled with this thick curry aroma (almost like authentic Indian curry)...and it lingers for a long while before the smell diffuses.

Heng Hwa Noodles

I cooked this noodles or mee sua for dinner last night. It's my own "lazy" version of our traditional dish.

When he was still a child, my dad sailed from Putian City in Fujian province in the Southern China to Singapore. Our dialect is Putian Hwa, or more commonly known as Heng Hwa here in Singapore. It has been a tradition that we eat this mee sua dish early in the morning on the first day of lunar new year, every year. It's meant for longevity, the noodles are really very long! These noodles are much thicker than the usual mee sua. It's kind of difficult to get this type of noodles here. My dad usually bought them through his Heng Hwa contacts. As such, we would only be able to cook this dish during the lunar new year period. This dish is very well-liked by the adults and children in my extended family, including my husband and brothers/sisters-in-laws who are from different dialect groups. They look forward to it every lunar new year and all of them asked for 2nd servings without fail.

The other type of Heng Hwa noodles, which we call "pah mee" in our dialect, or the Chinese translation (打面) is commonly available at the wet markets here. Some locals here who have tried Heng Hwa cuisines will know that the dish is also called Heng Hwa Lor Mee. I will probably feature that dish in my later post.

Coming back to this mee sua...it consists of 3 parts...the soup, the noodles and the toppings. The soup is usually clear chicken soup, but for a change, I made pork rib soup instead. The noodles are boiled and drained and mixed in a bowl with some oil and chicken soup, almost like preparing pasta. The noodles will become very sticky if they are not mixed with some oil. The toppings are usually stir-fried assorted mushrooms with green beans. Besides that, deep-fried seaweeds and peanuts are a must to top off the dish. As I was too lazy to stir-fry the mushrooms, I cooked them in the pork rib soup, and simply blanch the green beans. Mine came out to be a less oily version, but the taste was still as good :))

Just a loaf of bread

It's been quite a while since I last made a bread. I've wanted to try making one last week, but due to the rainy weather, I didn't attempt. I doubt the dough would rise properly when the weather was so cooling. My friend has told me that I could leave the dough in the oven (turn to a low temperature) to proof, but I was afraid that I might "kill" the yeast. Not that I am afraid of failure, but I didn't want my energy spent on 25mins of continuous kneading gone to waste ;p

I bought a loaf pan last week just so that I could make a loaf of bread. So far this is my 3rd attempt in bread-making. I made buns previously. This is my first try on loaf making. I was very happy with the result. The loaf looks so "traditional", like those bread made by traditional bakery shops.

I saw a toast bread recipe from this site and thought what a wonderful idea to have wolf berries (枸杞子) in the bread as they are supposed to be good for vision. I didn't follow the bread recipe as it didn't state how the texture of the bread will be like. I used the sweet buns dough instead, as my kids prefer breads that are soft and fluffy.

The effort spent on kneading the dough was really worth it. After popping the loaf into the oven, in no time, my kitchen was filled with a familiar aroma of fresh bread baking...just like the alluring aroma coming from a bakery. The bread is soft and fluffy, but somehow, I couldn't achieve the same kind of "swirl" inside the loaf as shown by this photo. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire bread-making session this morning. This little success really gives me the boost to try more challenging bread next time.

Marsha Marsha Monkey

This is meant to be a valentine's day cake. I know, it's way too belated. But both my boys were down with 40degC fever on valentine's day...so I didn't have the energy to bake this. It's no joke having to wake up every other hour in the middle of the night to check both their temperatures, and it was like that for a few nights in a row! Then, my better half was away for overseas work and didn't return until last night. Anyway, since today is the 15th day of the Chinese New Year, it's also the Chinese version of the valentine's day. So I merrily set off to bake this Chocolate Banana Cake with marshmallow toppings.

I really have to brush up on my cake frosting/decorating skills. As you can see, in terms of how it looks, this cake "really cannot make it!" :'(


Since I can't really make any piped decorations, I used heart-shaped marshmallows to dress-up the cake a little. In fact, it was my elder boy who helpped me with the decoration.


The only thing that I was satisfied with was how the sponge cake turned out. This time round, I sifted the cocoa with flour three times...as demonstrated in Alice Medrich's video clip. (The video clip shows her making a Chocolate Genoise Cake with Julia Child.) There were tiny undissolved cocoa lumps in my previous chocolate sponge. This didn't happen this time round. I was also delighted that I could cut the cake into 3 layers. Again, thanks to the video clip by Alice Medrich.

I used a chocolate ganache made with just pouring cream and dark chocolate. As for the filling, I didn't like the idea of buttercream (too much fat), so I used the same chocolate ganache, but added in a 2 teaspoon of instant coffee and 2 teaspoon of sugar as I thought it would be a little bitter for my boys.

Despite its look, the cake is really yummy. It's rich, but not too rich (hope you understand what I mean), and the banana really goes very well with the chocolate filling. As for the recipe, I borrowed ideas here and there, and came up with the following version.

Ingredients:
(make one 20cm round cake)

for sponge cake:
4 eggs, bring to room temperature
100g sugar
100g cake flour
20g cocoa powder
60g butter, melted

for chocolate frosting:
4 fl oz pouring cream (I used nestle's)
4 oz dark chocolate

for filling:
4 fl oz pouring cream
4 oz dark chocolate
2 tsp instant coffee
2 tsp sugar
3 ~ 4 bananas, cut into slices

Method:

For sponge cake:
1. Triple sift the cocoa powder and cake flour, set aside. Grease and line a 20cm round pan, set aside. Melt butter and set aside. Pre-heat oven to 180degC.

2. With an electric mixer, whisk eggs and sugar on HIGH speed for about 5 to 7mins, until the batter double in volume and is ribbon-like (the beater should leave a ribbon-like texture when the batter is lifted up). Turn to LOW speed and whisk for another 1 to 2 mins. Whisking at low speed helps to stablise the air bubbles in the batter.

3. Sift over the cocoa and cake flour mixture into the batter. With a spatula, gently fold in the flour mixture until well blended.

4. With a spatula, mix about 1/3 of the batter with the melted butter in a bowl. Fold in this mixture into the remaining batter. This method will help to ensure the butter will be fully blended and at the same time will not deflate the batter.

5. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 20 to 25mins, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool completely.

For the frosting:
Place pouring cream and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until melted and smooth. Set aside for 10mins before frosting the cake.

For the filling:
Slice bananas into pieces and squeeze some lemon juice over them. This helps to prevent the bananas from turning brown.

Place pouring cream, instant coffee, sugar and dark chocolate in a saucepan over low heat. Stir until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool before filling the cake.

Assemble the cake
Cut the cake into 3 layers. Place one of the cake layers cut-side down on a cake plate. Spread the coffee chocolate filling over the layer. Arrange rings of banana slices to cover the whole layer. Top with another cake layer. Repeat the same for the second layer. Top with the 3rd layer, cut-side up. Spread the chocolate ganache over the top and side of the cake. Decorate as desired.