Chocolate Chip Muffins

I wrote this long post about these muffins and then I found out blogger crashed. I don't feel like repeating everything I said, so I'll just give a basic review. The muffins were good, but they weren't what I was looking for. I really like this mini chocolate chip muffins that are super moist, with the chocolate chips just melting in your mouth. This type of muffin is the one found in Costco. So when I saw this recipe, I was really hoping that the muffins would turn out like Costco's mini cc muffins. However, these are still good muffins. They're very good for beginners, because all you have to do is gather the ingredients and mix.

Chocolate Chip Muffins
Recipe from Cooking During Stolen Moments

Chocolate Chip Chocolate Muffins

I made these on the same day I made the lemon matcha marble cake. My brother brought them to church as a snack for his Bible drill the next day.

Here's what I think... Next time, I will increase the amount of chocolate chips. Other than that, I was happy with how the muffins turned out. I wasn't able to get the pretty cracked tops that most muffins have though.

I was able to make 14 muffins. Make sure not to over bake them, otherwise they will be a bit dry. I wasn't able to get the pretty cracked tops that most muffins have though. I also decreased the sugar by one to two tablespoons, so maybe that's why?

I got the recipe from Brown Eyed Baker, who got it from Dorie Greenspan.


Chocolate Chip Chocolate Muffins

Chocolate Glazed Baked Doughnut Muffins

After going through several recipes, trying to use up my sour cream, I finished up the last of my sour cream with this recipe. Originally, I planned to make one batch of these donut muffins, but after realizing I would have a few tbsps of sour cream left, I decided to use up all the sour cream and adjust the amount of ingredients accordingly.

The method used to make these muffins involves reverse creaming. Reverse creaming is when you add butter to the dry ingredients and work it in, instead of creaming butter and sugar first. This makes the texture of the treat more tender and results in a tighter crumb. This method is also used when making scones and biscuits.

These donut muffins really did resemble donuts. They're the healthier version of donuts. I thought it tasted pretty good, not too sweet and nice texture. My brother didn't like these as much because he suspected me of putting whole wheat inside. (Shh, he doesn't know yet ;) My friend said that it was a bit dry, but I think that might be because it was a day old. I also gave one to my teacher because she loves cupcakes and this is classified as a cupcake imposter, she liked it enough to ask me for the recipe. With that said, I think these are best eaten the day of baking.

Chocolate Glazed Baked Doughnut Muffins
Recipe from Joy the Baker who adapted it slightly from Doughnuts
Recipe adjusted by me to make 12 doughnut muffins
makes 12 doughnut muffins




Please note: Because of my wacky adjustments, I used a scale to measure everything out and some ingredients were not measured out exactly as required... I bet you'll be laughing after you see how I adjusted the ingredients. :D

Sour Cream Chocolate Muffin

When I first saw these on Dodol&Mochi, I was intrigued. Her muffins looked moist and chocolaty; they also used sour cream! I think the sour cream was main reason why I made these muffins. Whenever I get sour cream, I always end up with a tiny bit left over that I don't know how to use up. So this post came out at the right time.

I would say the muffin is good. I thought that it was a bit oily though. The texture was nice and it reminded me of the chocolate muffins I made previously with the recipe from Cookie Madness. I just didn't like how oily it was because when I held the muffin and took my fingers away, I could see my fingers glistening with oil. What a contradiction right? I like to bake, but I don't like oily things. I have nothing against this recipe though. Something to take note of, my muffins look very different from Pei-Lin's muffins, so maybe it's something that I did?

Sour Cream Chocolate Muffin
Recipe from Dodol & Mochi
I made 8 muffins.


This one has a nicer dome. I don't know why, but my muffins don't look as moist as Pei-Lin's? :(

Chocolate Muffins

First time I made chocolate muffins! They were really easy just like how Anna from Cookie Madness described them as.


Click here for recipe.

I had to substitute the self rising flour with flour and baking powder instead. I posted the ingredients below as a note, please refer to Cookie Madness for the directions. With this recipe I was able to make 7 even to it's supposed to make 6.

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons self rising flour (I used 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour with 1 1/3 tsp of baking powder, you should add a pinch of salt if your butter is unsalted)
3 tablespoons unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar (generous or slightly heaping ¼ cup)* I just used 1/4 cup and it was fine*
5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg (I used an extra large egg, even though it didn't look extra large to me)
3 oz evaporated milk (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons)*I used a bit less because I ran out*
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used a 1/4 cup b/c my family doesn't like eating a lot of chocolate chips)

All the liquids mixed together.


All the dry ingredients.


Batter with chips.


In their separate cups.


Done!

My mom said that they tasted better than Costco's muffins! Well, her reason was that Costco's muffins were way to oily. But still, I thought the muffins tasted pretty good. They didn't take much effort and it was really easy to clean up the mess (wash dishes and such). So if you ever have any guests over for breakfast, make a batch of these muffins and they'll love it!

Baking 3 Things in 1 Day

Several days of summer has passed already. Tomorrow is summer school! I'm so sad about that. The days before, I went on vacation with my family, where I spent the majority of the trip sleeping on the car b/c my dad and uncle were driving a lot. I was practically sleeping whenever I had the chance to. During school, I was progressively getting less and less sleep. This happened after the first semester of school where I had to cram for my finals and I discovered that I could actually make it through the day without that much sleep. So I was basically catching up on my sleep. I will also try to change my bad habits of sleeping really late.

Now back to the point of my post. The day before school ended, I baked up a storm. I baked 3 different items so I could give goodie boxes to my teachers as a thank you. Whewf...It was soo tiring. I spent, like, 5 hours in the kitchen and my feet hurt afterward. It was fun, but tiring. So much things to clean up though.



I baked spritz cookies, pecan cookies and muffins.
I made the pecan cookies from a book I have.



Cute cupcake liners!! I just had to show you them.




Please bear with me, I took many, many pictures because I rationalized that since I spent so much time baking, I might as well take a lot of pictures.












All packaged and ready to go.


Pecan Cookies

These cookies required toasted pecans, a relatively easy thing to do. Just measure out the pecans and bake them at 350 degrees F until they are slightly browned.

The dough was rolled into logs.


Refrigerated for 2+ hours, then sliced.


Press pecan halves onto the slices and bake.

Tada...

My dad loved these cookies. I felt kind of bad though because I was worried he would eat too much. The cookies had so much butter (1 cup?) that I was worried about my dad's health. Do you ever feel like that after baking things and people keep on eating them? Well, that's why I try to bake healthy things.

My spritz cookies review:
These cookies tasted really good. The recipe asked for one egg yolk, but because I increased the amount of flour by around 1/4-1/2 cup, I found that the dough wouldn't stick together. The main reason for the increase in flour was that I wanted the butter to flour ratio to be lower. As a result, I included the egg white too as an after thought. Because the flour was sifted, the cookie turned out very crispy. This was because of the butter too, but the sifting helped. It tasted good after a few days. It's a really good cookie. I also sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on top of some cookies and left others as plain. I found that if you baked the cinnamon sugar mixture too long and some was on the baking sheets, then the sugar would start caramelizing (or something very close to that). So don't bake it too long.

I forgot if I mentioned this before, but I use to baking sheets when I bake these spritz cookies to prevent the bottom of the cookies from being burnt easily. I just place a sheet on the lower rack and a baking sheet with the cookies on the higher rack. The sheet on the lower rack absorbs some of the heat preventing the cookies' bottoms from being burnt quickly.

Blueberry Muffins

I made these muffins using Pioneer Woman's recipe. She actually got the recipe from someone else. The steps are very simple, you can make finish mixing the batter in less than 15 minutes and there aren't that many bowls you need to wash afterward! These muffins turn out to be light and delicate. The first time I made them I did not add that much yogurt, resulting in a sturdier muffin that was easily taken out of the cupcake pan. Today, I made the muffins a second time, adding more yogurt, leading to a softer muffin that I enjoyed much more. The only problem was I had to use a toothpick to loosen the muffins from the pan first.

Here are some pictures.


The texture of the batter should look something like this, but it may vary due to the amount of yogurt you use.


I coated my frozen blueberries with flour so that they wouldn't sink to the bottom. Just in case. :) I learned this from the America's Test Kitchen Baking book.


Personally, I don't mix the blueberries with the batter because it just makes the batter blue. So what I do is fill the cupcake pan half full and sprinkle some blueberries, fill it to the top, then sprinkle the last bit of blueberries. Use as much blueberries as you want.







Haha, there are so many pictures of them. :) Have fun baking.