20 Feb 11 (Sun) - Vanilla and Chocolate Muffins

Copied a basic vanilla cupcake recipe, a chocolate buttercream frosting recipe and a glace frosting recipe intending to try out today. So borrowed the ingredients and equipment from my sis's SIL and started baking at 10am.

Measured the flour, sugar, butter, vanilla essence and added one egg before using the electric mixer to beat the mixture for two minutes till light and creamy. While I was filling the cake cases with the mixture, my nephew came along and said he also want to make the cupcakes himself.

So after I had put the filled cupcakes lined with the silicon muffin cases into the oven and set it to bake at 180 degree celsius for 18 minutes, I washed the equipment and help Ry do the second round. He wanted to do two eggs and so had to double the amount that I used during the first round. Also suggested to him that he could try making chocolate flavour instead so after adding all the ingredients in the mixing bowl, handed it to Ry to mix using the electric mixer.

While he was at it, I checked my four cupcakes and they didn't look like cupcakes, they looked like muffins instead. When the 18 minutes were up, used a satay stick to check them and it didn't come out clean. So set them to bake for another two more minutes and then they were done. Took them out and helped Ry with his eight other cupcakes.

Ry wanted to try making one very large one and so filled that cake case to the brim with mixture. Put them into the oven and did the same setting. He was very anxious about the result and so was practically sitting near to the oven to see the cake rose up. When the time was up, took them out to cool. His batch of cupcakes also look like muffins instead. So in the end, I decided not to do any frosting and treated them as muffins instead of cupcakes.

Thought about the process, the taste and the inside texture were just nice but the top was a bit hard and they cracked up. So was thinking maybe for the next attempt, I can reduce the temperature to about 160 degree celsius and cook slightly longer.

Vanilla and Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients (Makes 12):

150g butter - soften

150g castor sugar

175g self-rising flour

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp cocoa power (if making chocolate flavour)

Method:

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree celsius

2.  Line a 12 cupcake pan with cupcake cases or line 12 silicon muffin cases with cupcake cases

3.  Place all the ingredients in a large bowl

4.  Beat with an electric mixer for 2 mins till light and creamy

5.  Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases

6.  Bake for 18-20mins until risen and firm to touch

7.  Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool