Mangoes Figs n' Walnut Muffins

I have been missing from here since a while now. Just having been having some issues with time management. Have been having people over at home n that has kept me off the Internet n' in the kitchen or out shopping with them. :)....I wonder how many awesome recipe updates I must have missed out on of my blogger friends out here. Well, I hope to catch up on that in couple of days...:) After my big proclamation about learning to bake in my kitchen itself. I have been kinda doing well in the baking department. I'm guessing it has something to do with the great recipes I have found. I'm gonna do 2 small posts today.









I'm baking something again today n' I'm looking forward to it already. The first post are these muffins. The Blueberry Banana Muffins I had done had come out so well I wanted to try some more. Just to make sure it wasn't fluke n' that I did have a great recipe n' some amount of skill to get it right. Why this combinations? I'm not too sure, I just went with things I like n' I had with me in the kitchen. With this second batch also coming out really well, I'm comfortable with my muffin recipe n' would substitute the fruits with anything in season n' know that they will turn out well. I have used the exact recipe from the Blueberry Muffins recipe here. The only change is I have used fresh ripe mangoes, along with some chopped figs n' crushed walnuts for sprinkling on top instead of Blueberry n' Banana. With this I salute my Muffin Recipe. I made 15 muffins using this recipe.

Ingredients:

1. All Purpose Flour (Maida): 3 cups minus 2tbsp
2. Baking soda: 1tsp
3. Baking powder:2 tsps
4. Heavy pinch of salt
5. Caster sugar: 1 cup
6. Vegetable oil: 1/2 cup (or half a cup of melted butter) *
7. Egg: 1no
8. Yogurt (plain n unflavored) : 1 generous cup (throw in extra if you want)
9. Mangoes(ripe n fresh):1 and a half cup
10. Figs (chopped): 1/2 cup
10. Vanilla Extract/Essence : 1tbsp
11. Softened Butter, for muffin tins (I used the cupcake liners so didn't need this)
12. Caster sugar (optional): for sprinkling on top.
13. Walnuts (crushed): to sprinkle on top

(* to my horror I saw that I didn't have enough Vegetable Oil with me. So I used melted butter instead. They say that while mixing the wet ingredients as mentioned in Step 3 below, one should take care while adding the hot butter to eggs. What I did was I added butter n' then added yogurt before adding the eggs n' I was safe.) This is what I had done for the blueberry recipe n' I did the same this time around too.

Method:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180° C.

Step 2: In a large bowl sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Step 3: In another large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla essence, egg, and yogurt.

Step 4: Add the dry ingredients (I sifted it in little by little) and stirring to a count of 10.

Step 5:Add the mangoes and the chopped figs, to mixture and stir 3 times. (At this point I got a little worried, coz the batter looked really different from anything I have ever baked. But I decided to proceed as instructed.)

Step 6: Add mixture to well-buttered muffin pans or like I mentioned the Cupcake liners. Sprinkle some walnuts on top and press down lightly. Sprinkle a little sugar over top. (Brown sugar can be used instead.)

Step 7: Bake 20 to 25 minutes and allow to cool completely.

Blueberry and Banana Muffins

Let me start today's post by giving a heartfelt thank you to all who have left me a comment on my previous post. I will try the recipes you have taken the trouble to recommend to me. :) Here is my first post from a small series of Baking goodies I want to do this month. I had never made muffins before. I have eaten them a few times. But seeing these blueberries in the stall pushed me to buy them. I have heard on countless occasions how these are filled with anti oxidants, that pushed me a little too. I bought only a 100gms (what with the being so expensive in Bangalore n all that), that left me with very few recipes I could actually try. The first classic things that came to my mind were these Blueberry Muffins n' a Blueberry Compote on pancakes. But Rj doesn't like Pancakes n' I would've had to finish the whole thing on my own...how can that be interesting? That left me to choose these Muffins.






I really didn't know muffins were this easy to bake. An ingredient lead me to choose the dish, but boy am I thrilled with the results or what? So this is the first baked dish I taught myself. :) I will shamelessly say, what helped me the most is the fact that I didn't make any changes to measurements of the base ingredients. (normally i'm always keen on that coz I don't want too many baked things on my table) I got 15 baked muffins with measurements and there are only 3 left. :( If nothing else at the end of my baking journal, I will be overweight at this pace. :) But even that daunting thought is not killing my spirits. :) So, here you go. The recipe is adapted from here.






Ingredients:

1. All Purpose Flour (Maida): 3 cups minus 2tbsp
2. Baking soda: 1tsp
3. Baking powder:2 tsps
4. Heavy pinch of salt
5. Caster sugar: 1 cup
6. Vegetable oil: 1/2 cup (or half a cup of melted butter) *
7. Egg: 1no
8. Yogurt (plain n unflavored) : 1 generous cup (throw in extra if you want)
9. Blueberries (fresh):1 cup
10. Banana (chopped): 1 cup
10. Vanilla Extract/Essence : 1tbsp
11. Softened Butter, for muffin tins (I used the cupcake liners so didn't need this)
12. Caster sugar (optional): for sprinkling on top.

* to my horror I saw that I didn't have enough Vegetable Oil with me. So I used melted butter instead. They say that while mixing the wet ingredients as mentioned in Step 3 below, one should take care while adding the hot butter to eggs. What I did was I added butter n' then added yogurt before adding the eggs n' I was safe.

Method:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 180° C.

Step 2: In a large bowl sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Step 3: In another large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla essence, egg, and yogurt.

Step 4: Add the dry ingredients (I sifted it in little by little) and stirring to a count of 10.

Step 5:Add blueberries and the chopped bananas, (reserving 1/2 cup of blueberries for later), to mixture and stir 3 times. (At this point I got a little worried, coz the batter looked really different from anything I have ever baked. But I decided to proceed as instructed.)

Step 6: Add mixture to well-buttered muffin pans or like I mentioned the Cupcake liners. Sprinkle remaining berries on top and press down lightly. Sprinkle a little sugar over top. (Brown sugar can be used instead.)

Step 7: Bake 20 to 25 minutes and allow to cool completely.

They came out so well, I looked at them and I could cry with Joy. I just couldn't stop smiling. Rj was at work n' I took some to my cousin Seena, who is passionate about baking. I just had to get her view on them. She liked them too n I was ecstatic. When Rj came home, he was balled over with the texture n' the fact that I used blueberries for the muffins. :) All in all I feel like a Happy Baker! Happy Baking!