Muffins

Fresh blueberry muffins.

Banana & walnut muffins.

The recipe is as follow :

375g self raising flour
75g plain flour
115g soft brown sugar (I use less as I prefer not so sweet)
150g fresh or frozen blueberries
2 eggs
250ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract (I omitted this)
125g unsalted butter, melted
icing sugar, to dust

- Preheat oven to 210 C. Shift the flour into a large mixing bowl, stir in the sugar and blueberries, and    make a well in the centre.
- Whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla together in a jug and add to the well in the dry ingredients. Add the butter and stir with a metal spoon until just combined. Do not overmix. The misture should be lumpy.
- Spoon the mixture into lined muffin tin, filling about three-quarters full. Bake for 30 minutes, or until skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the muffin. Leave the muffins in the tin for 5 minutes before lifting out onto wire rack to cool. Dust generously with sifted icing sugar before serving.

I find that the recipe is simple and easy to follow. I have tried using banana and finely chopped walnut and also strawberries to make the muffins. Its yummy! You can try to substitute with raspberries or blackberries or a combination of these. Gently folding them in to keep them whole. Serve it for breakfast or tea time.

Vietnam Purple Yam Sponge Cake.

I found the purple yam (refer to the first pic) at the market few days ago. I thought its the ubi keledek at first glance but upon checking with the vege seller, the aunty told me its a type of yam from vietnam. Very rare in local. The flesh is very sticky and looks exactly like huai shan (chinese yam, which is good for cooking soup with chinese herbs) and its as sticky too. I love the tinge of purple around the flesh and decided to buy it and see what I can make with it. The market aunty told me that usually, they make it into sweet dessert but I got an idea boiling in my mind. Hee...

Here I use the same recipe for purple sweet potatoes but substitute the sweet potatoes with the purple yam. I used half of the yam (about 600g), shave away the hard skin and cut into smaller cube & steam at high heat till cooks. Its sticky when raw but surprisingly soft and fluffy when its steamed and cooked. Mashed it up and add into the sponge cake mixture lastly. Put to bake at 180C and bake for 1hr and 20mins to cook. I used an 8" tin so that the cake is thicker and moist inside but at the same time, need more time to cook. Cover the top of the cake after 50mins, with aluminium foil to prevent the top from getting burnt.

I always like to experiment with different type of ingredient with one simple recipe. This one is really nice and I hope others can try it out too. It tastes even better on the next day when I take it out from the fridge.

Enjoy!