Happy Valentine's Day - Honey Love Muffin

What happens when you mix everything you love and bake it into a melting cup of delicacy? Well, that's love and the theme for my muffin recipe, fusion of food that I love to indulge in haha..

Honey is sweet just like love

Chocolate is delicate just like love and

You'll go nuts once you're in love..

Don't be left out if you're single out there, although valentine day is also known as S.A.D (single's awareness day). Valentine is not meant for lovers only, it is a day to celebrate love, be it your parents, your friends or whatever you love to do... You must learn to love yourself before you can love others. Here's to my love for baking, yummy...

INGREDIENTS

150g plain flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate 

1 egg lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla essence

60g salted butter

100g wild honey

125ml low fat milk

50g semi-sweet chocolate chips

50g white chocolate chips

40g almond silvers (any nuts will do) 

40g Oreo crumbs (i just can't resist to add these)

METHOD

1. Melt the honey and butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Let it cool down.

2. Add in the egg, milk and vanilla essence into the mixture and stir well.

3. Sift the flour, baking powder, soda bicarbonate and cocoa powder.

4. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients into the wet mixture slowly to avoid over mixing.

5. Combine the nuts, Oreo crumbs and chocolate chips into the batter and mix well.

6. Spoon the batter into some muffin cups and bake in a preheated 180 Celsius oven for 25 minutes.

7. Cool on wire racks and enjoy!

Chocolate Muffin with Peanut Buttercream Frosting

I promised my friend's kids that I would make them muffin when I see them next time. With an easy chocolate muffin mix brought from 'Bake With Yen' which I usually go to but my baking supplies, I decided to make a quick muffin bake, topped with peanut butter frosting. This is my first time using this easy mix from BWY and with some creativity, I created some penguin look-alike muffins for them too. I was so happy when I see the smile on her faces and they're shouting cupcakes! Well, sometimes I can't tell whether its muffin or cupcakes myself ;-). Hope that they will enjoy eating them!

Chocolate Muffin

INGREDIENTS

4 eggs, 

500g muffin mix

130ml water 

135ml corn oil

METHOD

1. Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until combined well.

2. Divide the batter into 16 cupcake cup equally using a ice-cream scoop or spoon.

3. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190 Celcius for 20 minutes.

4. Let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack before decorations.

Peanut Buttercream Frosting
(Recipe adapted from allrecipes.com)

INGREDIENTS

50g butter

125g creamy peanut butter
2 cups icing sugar
30ml whipping cream (you can substitute with milk)

METHOD

1. In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter until light and fluffy. 

2. Slowly beat in 1/2 of the confectioner's sugar. 

3. Mix in 1/4 cup of the cream. 

4. Beat in the remaining confectioners' sugar.

5. If necessary, add a little more cream or milk until the frosting reaches a good spreading consistency.

DECORATIONS

1. Use a spatula to spread the peanut buttercream on the muffin and decor with some sprinkles and chocolate rice.

2. To create the penguin-look, I use Munchy mini cookies. Separate the cookies and pipe some buttercream to stick the cookies on top of the muffin. Finally pipe the nose and walla, penguin look alike.