Very Berry Starwberry Muffins

Its a tale of Valentines Day this year. My husband isn’t a big fan of celebrating such ‘western’ events and hence the day passed pretty much like any other day, except that I was really bored that day since I didn’t have any cooking or any other chore to do. So I thought of going through some recipes online. Suddenly it hit me that my husband had vaguely hinted a few times that I don’t make any dessert with strawberries, strawberry being his most favorite fruit.

So, well, I started searching and I came across this recipe video of strawberry muffins by Chef Rahat. The recipe seemed quite interesting as it used fresh strawberry chunks and the final look of the muffins was so tempting that I decided to try it the next day. And so I did, and the result was amazing. It looked truly like muffins (unlike some recipes where the muffins end up looking more like cupcakes!) and tasted really delicious specially because of the soft strawberry chunks.

And since, I had made this dessert specially for my husband, I decided to make it special for him. So I made a special dinner including chicken tempura with dip, chicken boneless handi, and parathas for dinner. Keeping in mind the Valentines Day that had just passed, I decided to do a red theme. I decorated the lounge with tiny candles surrounding the muffins, dressed up in my best red attire (including red clip in my hair and red sandals!!), and totally took my husband by surprise when he got back from office. Needless to say, he loved the muffins and absolutely enjoyed having it.

All in all, it was a very special evening and since then, this recipe holds a special place in my heart. I have tried it many times after that, and the result is always perfect. Now enjoy the recipe and do leave your comments if you try it out.

Ingredients:

Strawberries 1 ½ cups (cut in chunks)
Flour 3 cups
Butter 125 gm (melted)
Baking Powder 1 tbsp
Castor Sugar ½ cup
Brown Sugar ½ cup
Eggs 3
Milk 1 cup (approx.)

 


Method:

• Preheat oven to 200 C.
• Grease muffin tray/ muffin cups.
• In flour, add baking powder and both sugars and mix with spoon.
• Beat eggs and add to the batter.
• Melt butter and add to the batter.
• Add milk (3/4 cups initially) and mix well with spoon. If the batter seems too hard, add more milk as required.
• Also add the chunks of strawberries and mix well with spoon.
• Fill 3/4 of muffin tray/ cups with batter leaving space at top for rising.
• Bake at 200 C (425 F) or gas mark 6 for 15-20 minutes.
• Decorate with whipped cream or icing sugar.
• Makes approximately 20-22 muffins.

Welcome Note served with Rich Brownies

Greetings to all who are visiting my blog. :) Before I start with the recipe, let me give a little background on how I started baking. If you have read the ‘About Me’ section on the left, I would like to add that in addition to realizing my talent for writing, I also discovered my passion for baking once I moved to UAE. I have been baking for a long time, mostly trying out recipes seen on TV. And as it is with baking (or in fact, with any other skill) with time, I kept getting better at it, and that combined with the tremendous appreciation I always received from family and friends, kept me motivated to try out new and different recipes.

Another very important factor that inspired my love for baking and that was the baking efforts of a very dear friend, who started her own baking blog with some very easy (not to forget tried & tested) yet delicious recipes, explained in a very detailed and easy-to-understand manner. This blog opened a whole new world of baking for me, with some very interesting recipes and an even interesting story behind each recipe, written in a beautiful manner. Here I would like to mention two more people who have been big inspirations to me; one is my dearest cousin who is also an amazing baker and I have also tried a lot of her recipes with amazing results, and second is a good friend of mine who has recently started baking professionally from home. So lots and lots of gratitude for all three of you for being such big inspirations to me. I dedicate this blog to all three of you.

Ok, enough talking, lets get to the real purpose of this blog. I recently made brownies for a dinner party at my place, and as always, posted pictures of it on my facebook group. I got an overwhelming response for the pictures and a lot of people requested its recipe. So, this recipe is for all of you.

Now a little about the recipe. I have adopted this recipe from a cooking show by Farah Jehanzeb. I tried this recipe first time 3-4 years back and instantly fell in love with it. And when my young niece and nephew demanded that they want some more, I felt really happy. Over the years, I have tried this recipe repeatedly and every time it turns out perfect. The thing that I like best about this recipe is that instead of cocoa powder, it uses melted chocolate, which gives it a very moist texture (unlike that of dry, cake-like brownies that are sold at some bakeries!), and the better the quality of chocolate, the better and rich is the taste of brownies. They taste great both alone or served with ice cream. This is a tried and tested recipe, so feel confident in trying it out. I hope it turns out as good as mine. I will be looking forward to the feedback.

Brownies

Ingredients:

Castor Sugar 100 gm

Eggs 3

Butter 50 gm

Baking Chocolate (good quality) 200 gm

Cream (fresh or canned) 100 ml

Flour 75 gm

Baking Powder 1/2 tsp

Essence 1/2 tsp

Salt 1 pinch

Walnuts (optional)

Cocoa powder (for sprinkle)

Chocolate Sauce

(Adapted from Bakefresh)

Cocoa Powder 3 tbsp

Icing Sugar 6tbsp

Butter 1 tsp

Milk 2-3 tbsp

Method:

Batter

1. In a double boiler (a smaller pan, placed inside a larger pan holding water), add butter and chocolate and let them melt on medium flame.
2. In another pan, beat eggs till fluffy.
3. Add sugar and essence and beat again.
4. In a separate pan, sieve baking powder and flour.
5. Once, the chocolate is melted, remove it from stove and add cream to it and mix well with a whisk, till the two are combined well.
6. Add this chocolate mixture in the egg mixture and beat will mixed.
7. Also add the dry mixture and salt, and beat till everything is combined.
8. If desired, add crushed walnuts.
9. Pour mixture in an 8 inch square (or brownies) pan lined with wax paper.
10. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180C or till a toothpick inserted in the center of the brownies comes out clean.
11. Top with chocolate sauce and walnuts or dust with chocolate powder or icing sugar and cut into neat squares of desired size.

Chocolate Sauce

1. Mix all well and cook on low flame for a little while until its sauce like.