Chocolate banana sour cream muffins

The Sister was making ice cream and she had some leftover sour cream. I hate waste, so I told her I'll use it up for her. Words said, I then had to go hunt for recipes that uses sour cream.

After a quick search, I thought that muffins and quick breads for breakfast are the most likely items to use sour cream, and I chanced upon this recipe, which encompasses one of my favourite combo as a breakfast item - chocolate and banana.

Chocolate banana sour cream muffins

Apple cranberry walnut oat crumble for a picnic

I went for a picnic a couple weeks back with some of my girlfriends. They requested that I make the dessert, and I was okay since you know, I love to bake. And the girl pals are not a big fan of sweet, so they requested something fruity, preferably a fruit crumble. So, I decided to make an apple crumble. And add in frozen cranberries(which are tart) that I had frozen when they were in season  to make the dessert less sweet.

Apples, cranberries, walnuts and oats.

Berry ice cream and cinnamon walnut palmiers

I had leftover puff pastry in my freezer for god knows how long. And I don't think anyone in the family, aside from me is a huge fan of puff pastry.

I was going to use up the leftovers to make palmier cookies. The pretty ice cream sandwich cookies seen here made me want to make my own too. I had leftover cream from making the chocolate mango mousse cake, and Sis was leaving for her America trip, I wanted to finish the cream quickly to make an ice cream for her to try before she left. The cookies will be made only after she's gone, cos she's not a puff pastry lover anyway.

The below ice cream sandwiches? For me and me alone... 

 

Berry ice cream and cinnamon walnut palmiers

Cherry crisps and a new book

It's cherries season now. Hooray for that. I simply love popping those bright chirpy looking fruits into my mouth. The taste of exploding cherry juice on your tongue - priceless. Pity about the pits though. Someone should just cultivate seedless cherries already...(think seedless grapes). ;)

Rainier cherries

Applesauce muffins with walnuts and goji berries

Muffins. Warm muffins straight out of the oven. Mmmmmm. It conjures to mind a country style kitchen, where a red-cheeked cook pulls out a whole tray full of these lovely babies outta the oven with a pair of worn frayed kitchen gloves. In my dictionary, muffins are homely creatures.

Applesauce muffins with walnuts and goji berries

Cinnamon walnut macarons with apples and burnt caramel filling

For every great macaron, behind lies a supportive ice-cream. Whenever macarons make an appearance on the blog, 90% of the time is because I had made ice-cream and have lots of leftover eggwhites. I made black sesame ice-cream (for another post when I retrieve my currently lost pictures from my 'gone case' laptop) and was debating on what flavour macarons I should make.

I tossed some ideas around and posted on Facebook to get votes on what flavours I should make. I had like five eggwhites and I wanted to make two flavours cos I like variety. (: I didn't end up making the perennial favourite, the Ferraro Rocher, but I did the Hazelnut one (here) which was kinda similar since Ferraro Rocher = chocolate + hazelnut yes? I was very interested in making a matcha one, but then I wanted to sandwich something red bean-y in between and we had no red beans at home. That flavour combo shall be next on my list (I've since bought a bag of azuki beans). In the end, I decided on a making a plain macaron filled with salted caramel filling and apples. But what I first came up with was only the beginning of my flavour experiment...

Cinnamon walnut macarons with apples and burnt caramel filling

Granola chocolate chip muffins and a healthier lifestyle.

As always, there comes a time when I get sick of my blog layout, and decide to change it. It seems like the design is going from simple to simple-r. Simplistic is the key. From the multi photos collage designs I made from images I found on the web, to a handful of self-shot baking photos, to now, a single image design. Snorts. What next? ;)

Sigh. I'm still on the prowl for a job. Been sending out resumes and awaiting replies. It's getting hard to just sit by while your friends are all getting jobs. I'm happy for them, but at the same time, thinking, when is it going to be my turn? I don't expect alot from a job. Just that it pays reasonably well, has sufficient annual leave days, has a decent working environment, great learning opportunities and that's good enough. I mean, it's pretty realistic rights? I just got offered a job by a local F and B company. I really would like to accept it, but there are just too many cons to the job (mainly the pay and benefits). I'm in a dilemma but ultimately, I doubt I'll accept it. At the same time, I'm also afraid of not accepting it and no better offers come up. Sigh.

Anyway, have recently joined a Muay Thai class with my girlfriend and we've been attending classes several times a week (it's on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights). It's a great way to exercise cos you gotta do cardio, cardio, and more cardio. Burn those calories man. I'm all covered in sweat and the (whatever) muscles I actually have ache like mad after those sessions. I shall think of it as training for the coming 10k Sundown run in May since I havn't had the time to go jogging much, and has neglected exercise till I finished the SL intern.

Talking about a healthier lifestyle, here are some granola and chocolate chip (okay, not so healthy then) muffins I made two months back. I love granola, and what better than to add it into muffins to make it a filling breakfast item?

Granola and chocolate chip muffins

Home made granola

Seven layer bars

My mentor at Saatchi Lab left the company in January. She was a really nice lady and I wanted to bake her something to thank her. As her last day was in the middle of the week,  I knew that whatever I chose had to be simple and not take up much time. I browsed through my recipes, and saw these bars. Like hello? It screamed easy with a capital E. I also knew for a fact that Shareeda loves chocolate, so these would be perfectly fine for her. It comprised of approximately ten ingredients or so, and I went to the supermart the day before after work to grab whatever I didn't have at home so I could work on it the next morning.

The recipe was straight forward, but as I was making these bars, I realised that if I followed the proportions exactly, they were going to be extremely sweet. Therefore, I reduced the measurements according to how I felt should be enough. I didn't exactly measure anything out except for the digestives base. I just sprinkled the ingredients on top of one another and stopped when I think they were enough. I replaced half the butterscotch chips with some crumbled butterscotch cookies as a bag of butterscotch chips were friggin' expensive.

The bars baked beautifully and the aroma of these in the morning is enough to send any diabetic running. All that sugar. Tsk tsk. It was really chocolatey and a small piece of it is enough to sate any sweet cravings. Thank heavens I reduced the proportions, if not it would be overkill.
 

Seven layer bars

The instructions were to cut it after it has cooled down fully. And please, whoever reads this and plans to make these, heed those damn instructions. I left it to cool for twenty minutes or so, it was slightly warm, but I was rushing to work soon, I had no time to wait for it to cool anymore. So I cut it in half, and cut one of the halves into pieces. 

Needless to say, warm goods should never never be sliced. They crumble very easily and the pieces I finally chose for Shareeda were quite disfigured. :( Oh well, I comforted myself with the thought that at least the taste of them would be good (I knew - guess where those bits of broken crumbs went?).

Such yummy (and sinful) goodies should be shared with as many people as possible so you don't look at them lying on the table and munch on them. After I reached home from work at night, I sliced the remaining pieces, and they were so much easier to cut. They held their shape better and didn't disintegrate at the slightest nudge of a knife. I was meeting some friends for brunch in the weekend, so I made sure I saved some to share with them. They seem to like the bars, and two of them asked for the recipe after that.

Such a scrumptious bar, that takes so short of a time to bake (it's just the waiting that can make you go crazy. The smell and sight of it hmmmmm, yet you must exercise that last bit of self control - you must! - so that you can savour it fully later on.). What are you waiting for?

Pear banana walnuts muffins

Let me tell you more about these lovely muffins. I think that the pear is an often overlooked fruit for baking muffins. The common choices are banana, chocolate(fine, it's not a fruit but it is a popular choice!), apple, blueberries or raspberries. Yet, the humble pear is a really good fruit to use in baked goods cos they have a subtle light fragrance that heightens the finished product. If you get what I mean. The pears also soften considerably after baking so it doesn't matter if the pears are still not yet fully ripe. Add some chopped walnuts for the crunch factor, well, I think I've found a pretty healthy muffin recipe! (: