White Chocolate Lime Muffins

My hands itched to bake something. I surfed through the internet for recipes which has buttermilk as one of the ingredients.

Why buttermilk? Well, I had bought a small carton of buttermilk last Friday and it was still sitting in the fridge .. feeling rather lonely .. hehehe.

So what is buttermilk? You may even ask if it really contains butter?! Click here to learn more about it.

And also I have always wanted to try a recipe which contains key lime, like, key lime pie, key lime cookies, key lime chiffon and key lime cake.

When I saw a recipe for White Chocolate Lime Muffins here, I was elated. I have a bar of white chocalate, I have lime and I have buttermilk. Bingo!

So at 10 mins to 10 pm, I went into my little kitchen and took out the ingredients, weigh, mix, etc and these are the results after much a baking.

The lime was not overpowering at all .. just enough tang and the white chocolate chunks really added a touch of decadence!

Ingredients below are as per what can be found in my kitchen .. ;-)

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp lime zest
1 tbsp lime juice
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup white choc chunks

Method

Preheat oven to 175C.
Lay paper cases in muffins tins and grease bottom only of paper cases.
A - In a large bowl, put together flour and salt.
B - In another bowl, combine sugar, eggs, oil, buttermilk, zest and juice.
Incorporate B into A and using a metal fork, fold in the flour together with white chocolate chunks till just moistened.
Spoon mixture into the muffin cases and then bake for about 25 - 30 mins or until a pick/skewer inserted comes out clean.
Stand muffins for about 5 mins before turning out to cool on a wire tray.

These muffins will be my breakfast for tomorrow .. and dearest colleagues, I am going to share these with you!

Potato Salad

When I chanced upon Jihva for Ingredients, I knew that I wanted to participate. This time round, the host is Vaishali of Happy Burp.

Vaishali had chosen Potato for this month's Jihva for Ingredients. In Malay language, potato is called kentang.

A good oppotunity came. My good friend Isma, had invited me and another friend, Mila, to her house to chill. Each of us was supposed to bring a dish and I thot of bringing Potato Salad .

Mila, text me yesterday and these were our correspondences:-

Mila: Anie, (dats wat my good frens call me) can you bring potato salad to Isma's house tomorrow.
Me: Hmm .. it is as if you could read me. It was supposed to be a surprise. I am indeed going to bring those. Jus dun tell Isma, k.
Mila: I miss your potato salad!

Ingredients

8 potatoes, peeled chopped and boiled
2 small onions, chopped finely
3 gherkin, chopped finely
4 hard boiled eggs, chopped
mayonnaise
a dash of salt and white pepper

Method

Put all ingredients in a large bowl and mix together mayo, salt and white pepper.
Serve chilled.

Isma, I hope you are happy that at long last you got to eat my potato salad again!
Mila, sad that you couldnt join us. We ate wat was supposed to be your share. Pic below is for your eyes only! .. hehehe

This would be my entry for Jihva for Potato. The round-up would be on 8th of March.

Banana Muffins - 3 variations

I have been hankering for muffins! No idea why! In fact, I yearn for Banana Muffins to be exact.

When I wanted to make banana muffins yesterday for tea, I realised the bananas were gone. And so I thot, hokay, I'll make them tomorrow after work then and so I bought more bananas yesterday nite.

So when I got back from work today, all geared up to make banana muffins, I realised there were no more eggs .. grrrrrrrrr .. at dat moment, I was pissed .. really furious! My enthusiasm almost turned into rage!!

I requested DH (sorry DH .. ;-() to go down to get me eggs. So at 8.30 pm, I started making those babies and with 3 variations -

Banana Muffin

Banana Cinnamon Muffin

Banana and Raspberry Chips Muffin

The recipe below yields 12 regular sized muffins.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 large bananas, mashed

Method

Preheat oven to 175C.
Lay paper cases in muffins tins and grease bottom only of paper cases.
A - In a large bowl, put flour in.
B - Combine sugar, egg, oil, milk and mashed bananas.
Incorporate B into A and using a metal fork, fold in the flour till just moistened.
Divide mixture equally into 3 bowls.
- Leave the first bowl plain.
- Add a couple dashes of cinnamon powder to the 2nd bowl and
- Add a generous amount of raspberry chips to the 3rd bowl.
Spoon mixture into the muffin tins and then bake for about 25 - 30 mins or until a pick/skewer inserted comes out clean.
Stand muffins for about 5 mins before turning out to cool on a wire tray.

Note: To produce a light and fine textured muffin, do not overbeat. Fold mixture lightly till just moistened. The mixture should still be lumpy!

I have to mention that the kitchen smelt great while these were baking.

I just couldnt wait to eat them when they were done. DH was having his dinner and I took the oppotunity to share the muffins with him. I took one of each and the both of us shared.

The muffins turned out great. They were light, moist and best of all, they were chockful of mashed bananas.

The cinnamon one was yummeh too .. I could do with a lil more cinnamon .. the marrying of banana and cinnamon .. AWESOME!

The ones with raspberry chips were superb! Choc and banana just complements each other so well that I would say this was the best! By the way, the raspberry chips were from my last Blogging By Mail partner.

Two words to sum these babies up .. OUTRIGHT DELICIOUS!

This would also be my entry for Muffin Monday(MM01)! And the host, Elena of Experiments will post the entries here as and when she receives them.

Dinner @ Mak's Place

No it was not at Mak's as in mum's place. It is Mak's Place - The Hawkerant, serving restaurant food at hawker prices! Yeah we had dinner there and this hawkerant serves a wide variety from western food to porridge to noodles and seafood.

I have been craving for seafood dinner. DH had promised to bring me there to eat. I brought mum and Liza along as well.

And these were what we had ...

Sweet and Sour Sliced Fish

Crispy Cereal Prawn

Hotplate Tofu

Crispy Baby Squid

And a couple of vegetable dishes - Beef Kailan and Sambal Kangkong!

The look of satisfied gerls after a big, hearty meal!

Dats sis Rose and Auni ..
Dats mummy dearie

And dats Tihani ..

Delectable food, generous portions and affordably priced! I am one stuffed woman .. BURP! .. oops .. excuse me!

Cookie Order

I received my first cookie order last week. It was for a friend daughter's birthday. She didnt want to do the normal bday goodie bags and had asked if I could bake her cookies.

She chanced upon the bag of cookies dat I gave Tihani's teachers and wanted something like dat.

I obliged .. well hey, she was my FIRST REAL CUSTOMER .. i really thank her for giving me this opportunity.

This was wat I made for her daughter .. a bag filled with choc chip cookies .. I hope her daughter's friends in school love them.

These are the cookie gift packs .. actually at dis point, i am only half done .. ;-)

How time flies and HE turned 38 today!

My DH turned 38 today. A few people were invited over to my place for dinner. They were the newlywed couple, Jules and Paul, Serene, Kak Z & family,my uncle and not forgetting my sis.

I went to work in the morning, received a call from the babysitter to inform that her father had passed away .. Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rojiun .. then went to the market .. then went to pay a visit to the babysitter's and then rushed home back again to prepare for dinner.

I had 4 hours flat to prepare for dinner before the guests arrived .. luckily I had prepared the Crab Rangoon yesterday. Got sis to make the Chicken Wanton with the fillings that I had prepared yesterday too.

We then prepared Pizza and had them wrapped in cling wraps. It was easier that way .. as we jus had to pop them in the oven when the guests were about to arrive.

I decided on Roast Chicken . Bought the chicken at the market earlier, cleaned and marinated them.

Made Brown Sauce and also Yorkshire Pudding. Oh ya .. the puddings didnt turned out how it was supposed to be .. nevertheless all were gone by the time my DH and I cleaned up.

Just in case, the guests wanted rice, dearest DH bought Seafood Fried Rice too.

So wats a birthday without a cake. I baked a Cake for DH .. a really simple White Cake with Chocolate Ganache Filling.

Happy 38th Birthday dearest DH!