I got really excited when I first read about the theme for the latest Muffin Monday (MM05) that Wonder Sophie had planned. Childhood Muffins! It sounded really fun but at the same time challenging because a lot of what I had during my childhood is not quite the same now. But the first thought that popped up in my mind where these wonderful bite-sized biscuits with colourful piped dollops of icing sugar on top.

I honestly don't know if there is a formal name for these confections. These are sold at your neighbourhood provision shops by weight. I bought mine pre-packed for $1 for (150gm pack) - with no formal label on the package, so it appears there still is no formal name for these gems.

My contribution to MM05 are regular muffins filled with these bite-sized sugar surprises. I had placed a bite-sized biscuit on the top but the heat caramelised the colourful tops to something brown and not so pretty. The icing sugar made the insides of the muffin really colourful (and a bit strange), it was fun all the same to make them and everyone enjoyed it!

Tags: MM05, Childhood, Sugary,

Care to wake up to Wasabi Glazed Muffins? This will make your brain explode and your eyes pop! It's actually not as weird as it sounds (you can stop making that strange face now), the glaze is complimented with salty seaweed-bonito-sesame seed flakes so it works quite well to balance the shocking flavour of wasabi. And much of it depends on your preference and tolerance to Wasabi - if you don't want to shock your eyeballs out of their sockets you can of course opt of a milder subtler taste.

Why Wasabi Glazed Muffins? Gourmet's is hosting Muffin Monday (MM03) and this time round, it's all things SPICY SWEET SAVOURY! I'm just making the deadline (30 May) and when I saw the round-up (Lip smacking!) - I needed to come up with a spicy muffin FAST! And to be honest, I'm not really big on spicy food - save for a few wonderful exceptions. I think I suffered from some sort of childhood trauma relating to chilies and that memory has been blocked out. So I was only left with the very few spicy options that were left open for me and hey! Wasabi!

This is very basically a generic Muffin (sweet) recipe with a Wasabi glaze (spicy) and sprinkled with Nori Goma (Seaweed - Sesame Seeds ) Seasoning Mix (savoury). The basic muffin recipe is adapted from Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers. This is the best basic muffin I've had - very moist, spongy texture and nicely balanced flavours!

Note : I would try the glaze on 1 muffin first, just to see if you like it. If you don't at least you won't have to get rid of otherwise perfectly yummy muffins!

Tags: MM03, Wasabi, Muffins

First up, I want to send out huge huge thanks to Food blog S'cool, Sticky Date, Is My Blog Burning and the Herald Tribune for posting the Muffin Monday event on their site and to everyone who participated!

A total of 28 different most unique and unusual muffins that make us all go *Ooooh!* were submitted for the second Muffin Monday! I was initially a little uncertain how this theme was going to be received - it was more challenging than the previous one. But the creativity and originality that was exuded from the participants well exceeded expectations - I (and I'm sure many many other readers) was really impressed by the amazing variety and the enthusiasm the bakers presented. This most evidently proves to the world that there are many many incredible and creative muffin bakers out there!

As I had mentioned in my Muffin Monday (MM02) post, I will be passing on the torch for the next host for Muffin Monday (MM03). I am pleased to announce that Gourmet of Un tocco di zenzero will be hosting the Brand New Muffin Monday! It's an Italian language blog but fret not all English language readers/ bloggers, Gourmet has assured that the event will be in English and it's going to be Spicy! Her post for the next Muffin Monday is not yet on her blog as she is away for the long May Day weekend but details should be posted in the next week. So keep a look out for it!

It's been wonderful being your host for Muffin Monday! I'm most grateful for all the wonderful encouragement and support everyone has shown me!

So okay already! Let's Muffin Monday!!

When I checked my mail this morning, the last thing I expected was a writer from the Herald Tribune newspaper from Sarasota, Florida informing me that she's written an article about Muffin Monday (MM02)! Laura J. Cullumbine (the writer) has also contributed her very cool recipe of Root Beer Muffins to the event.

I am completely honoured, totally trilled and it really made my day! I don't think I've ever had an article written about what I've done. It's usually part of a credit list at the end of a Film or TV programme.

This is so going to boost my ambition for Muffin World Domination!!

I told myself I had to bake muffins today.

I had such a hard time thinking of what to bake for my entry for Muffin Monday (MM02). Why did I come up with this theme?! I kept coming up with ideas but they were too usual and un-unique. I had an idea to base it around breakfast, like pancake like muffins wrapped with strips of bacon. But bacon's been done before - nothing unusual about that. Then I saw this recipe from Donna Hay magazine for apple bread pudding - it had thinly slices of apples holding the bread pudding. I thought I'd make a variation of that. But I couldn't think of anything that I could add in with apples that hasn't already been done in a muffin.

This morning while walking to the neighbourhood coffee shop for breakfast and I saw that the fruit seller was selling Japanese Sweet Potatoes. They're pretty, purple and yummy. I thought Yam Muffins. I know it's not original... but I knew I had something. I looked around and see what I else I could use. From the corner of my eye I saw coconut milk. Hmmm... The only combination comes to mind was Bur Bur Cha Cha - a coconut milk based dessert that has yams, sweet potatoes, pretty tapioca balls, red/ green beans, etc. I'll make Bur Bur Cha Cha Muffins! I don't really know how... but I'll figure it out. I was lucky that they were selling tapioca balls too although the plain not colourful ones. That'll do. I think Bur Bur Cha Cha is originally a Nonya dish and I never really knew why it has such a fun and wonderful name - might have something to do with a treasure trove of surprises hidden in coconut milk that'll make you want to do the Cha Cha?

I had to make adjustments to the basic recipe because I was including Coconut milk. It's half oil, very rich and creamy. The result was sweet! The natural sweetness from the sweet potatoes really came through nicely, the texture of the muffin was slightly heavier than the usual and I was quite glad that it wasn't too overpoweringly coconut-y. The balance was really nice. The Tapioca balls were a nice touch as a surprise element - although I think if I had colourful ones it might've been better.

Are you ready for another round of Muffins galore?! I was so excited with the previous round and inspired by all the wonderful ideas everyone had created for their muffins - as I am sure many readers are! Again, huge huge thanks to Food blog S'cool, Sticky Date and Is My Blog Burning for posting the Muffin Monday event on their site and to everyone who participated and in making MM01 a great success!

This time round, you will have a month long to experiment and create your muffins because the Deadline is only 27 April and Final Roundup 30 April. We'll talk about the details later...

Inspired by the amazing previous round-up, the theme for Muffin Monday (MM02) is Muffins that Make you go *Ooooh!* Unusual and Unique Muffins - using ingredients that you won't normally find in a muffin that you could buy from a store. So that means no regular muffins, no chocolate chip muffins, no banana muffins, etc. Think very healthy and wholesome, think comfort and sweet, savory and surprising, spicy and exotic, think junk food, think outside the box. The wonderful thing about creating a muffin is it's versatility, you can include almost anything in it! I know everyone is going to create something totally fabulous, amazing and fun (and yummy)!

Again, you can Create-Your-Own-Muffin with the provided basic recipe or you can use another recipe from a preferred source! It's completely your choice.

Also the next Muffin Monday (MM03) will be hosted by you! I'm passing on the torch to someone who will give Muffin Monday a different twist. For anyone who is interested, please indicate in your entry if you would like to host the next Muffin Monday and your plan for the next theme. I will be organizing a poll (just have to figure out how to do that in my blog) and have readers vote for the next theme and host for Muffin Monday (MM03) and this will be how the next and next theme and host will be. Like Reality TV! To those considering hosting the next Muffin Monday, please read these this and this!

Update 2 April 2007
Is holding a poll a bad or good idea? Because the last thing I want is people to feel like they lost out on something. Please let me know your thoughts.

Some tips to keep in mind when baking muffins here and here.

To participate:
Create your muffins!

If you are a blogger,
• Post a photograph and recipe by Friday, 27th April 2007 (please be sure to include a link back to this post).
• Send an email to muffinmonday[at]sqpixels[dot]net, your name, name of your blog, where you are from, name of recipe and a permalink to your post.

REVISED 19 April 2007
Code for a small banner (200px x 75px):
<a href="http://www.sqpixels.net/files/muffinmonday02.html" ><img src="http://www.sqpixels.net/files/mm02_sm.jpg" width="200" height="75" alt="Muffin Monday" /></a>

If you're not a blogger but would like to take part,
• Send an email to muffinmonday[at]sqpixels[dot]net with an attachment of a photograph of your muffin, your recipe, your name, where you are from and a few words of your creation by Friday, 27th April 2007.


Deadline for this event is Friday, 27th April 2007.

As I receive entries I will be posting them up here.

Round up of this event will be posted on Monday, 30th April 2007.

Happy Baking!!

Basic Muffin Recipe here...

What a week! This week started with a job that will see me through to 3 weeks of intensive late late nights - I just completed week 1 and have 2 more to go. Most of the entries for Muffin Monday flooded in at the same time. I have a mail notifier that goes *Bing!* whenever I get new mail so while I'm working, I'm also sometimes hearing *Bing! Bing! Bing!* in the background and it made me glad to know that I now have a well balanced life and people want to take part in my event! Woo!

Green Tea muffins has been sitting in my head for a long time now and I've finally made it to commemorate the round up of a very successful first Muffin Monday! Also I've been wondering what to make for Zorra's St Pat's Day: Green or Irish, and was curious how green these muffins would turn out. They obviously became a little brown...

Early round up! (Couldn't wait to blog about this!)

43 45 46 muffin recipes from 38>/s> 40 41 bakers around the world! Huge thanks to everyone who participated in Muffin Monday! For those who don't already know, the round up can be found here.

The response of the first ever Muffin Monday was fabulous and I am overwhelmed by everyone's enthusiastic participation. I was initially uncertain if anyone would be interested and was really hoping to have at least 5 people participating. It became really exciting when more and more people filled in my inbox with their great recipes.

How Muffin Monday came about and became a food blog event?

Muffin Monday was something I created at work some months ago - every Monday I would bring in muffins I've baked to treat my colleagues (who I've since spoiled). And quite honestly, I was running out of ideas. At the same time I was having quite a lot of fun participating in other food blog events that other food bloggers have hosted. So I thought - why not make Muffin Monday a food blog event and have other food bloggers make their colleagues and friends very happy people on a Monday morning! Share the love! And then I'll have so many recipes to choose from every week for weeks to come!

It was fantastic to see how everyone got creative in the kitchen, transforming a simple basic recipe into something scrumptious and delightful! Bananas, coconut, chocolate and pineapple were the more popular ingredients used (you really can't go wrong with them). While there are some a little more adventurous bakers who went with more unusual ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes, mars bars and zucchini.

I've had a blast hosting this event, it brought me to wonderful food blogs I've never known and it was fun reading everyone's entries - also it was great knowing people had fun baking their muffins! I'm so glad how well it all turned out because I now have so many more food blogging friends from around the world!

So what's next?! When is MM02 going to happen? Who wants to host the next Muffin Monday MM02? How does this work? I don't know! Leave your comments and I guess we'll find out!

It's my turn! I was planning to bake these on Sunday but I couldn't wait to try out my new toy! I bought a "Heavy Duty" Kitchen Aid yesterday, it was on sale so it was my chance! So happy so happy I can finally try out the more challenging bread recipes that require lots of kneading and successful windowpaning.

Anyway, MUFFINS! The past 2 weeks I've been tossing around in my head what I should make for Muffin Monday. I've had a few ideas - Kaya (Coconut Jam) or Green Tea with Red Beans... then for some reason I wanted to try Mascarpone cheese (might be from watching Top Chef). So I thought I would use that as my fat content. Then what? What else do I put in it?! Then 2 days later I thought Gingerbread! Not bad idea... but I didn't think Molasses might go with Mascarpone so well, so I used honey instead. But I needed something else, like some kind of chopped nut. A few days later, Pistachios came to me. So the recipe has been floating around my head about a week until today when I actually made it.

The final product was aromatic, moist, spicy and kindda' exotic. I will be experimenting with Mascarpone more in muffins and try to bring the flavour out more next time - perhaps with some fresh berries or something.

Introducing a brand new food event - Muffin Monday!

Muffins make the best breakfast and if you're like me - so important to start the week right with a good cup of coffee and a yummy muffin. The variety of flavours are endless and amazing - sweet ones, savoury ones, sweet and savoury ones, healthy ones, clever and interesting ones and bizarre ones.

Baking muffins are the easiest baking item to make and the fastest. With a basic muffin recipe you can add any ingredient you like. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, mix wet ingredients in another bowl. Mix wet and dry ingredients together until combined, don't stir too much, divide batter up into muffin tray and bake! Easy peasy! You can't go too wrong when baking muffins.

It only gets a little more complicated when you start baking english muffins - which in my opinion fall into the category of bread - simply because yeast is used and it requires proofing time.

So here's the fun part! Create-Your-Own-Muffin with (or without - it's completely up to you) the basic muffin recipe here, or from any other preferred source! Eat it all by yourself or share it with your friends!

Some tips to keep in mind when baking muffins here and here.

To participate:
Create your muffins!

If you are a blogger,
• Post a photograph and recipe by Friday, 2nd March 2007 (please be sure to include a link back to this post).
• Send an email to muffinmonday@sqpixels.net your name, where you are from, name of recipe and a permalink to your post.

Code for a small banner (200px x 75px):
<a href="http://www.sqpixels.net/files/muffinmonday01.html" ><img src=http://www.sqpixels.net/files/mm_small.jpg" width="200" height="75" alt="Muffin Monday" /></a>

If you're not a blogger but would like to take part,
• Send an email to muffinmonday@sqpixels.net with an attachment of a photograph of your muffin, your recipe, your name, where you are from and a few words of your creation by Friday, 2nd March 2007.

• Post it on your photo sharing site such as Flickr by Friday, 2nd March 2007 (please be sure to include a link back to this post). Send an email to muffinmonday@sqpixels.net your name, where you are from, name of recipe and a permalink to your post.

Deadline for this event is Friday, 2nd March 2007.

Update! (14 February 2007):
As I receive entries I will be posting them up here.

Round up of this event will be posted on Monday, 5th March 2007.

Happy Baking!!

P/S:
This is my first time hosting a food blogging event so please be patient with me if I fumble about a bit!

Basic Muffin Recipe here...

Once when I was maybe 4, I went on a covert mission that lead me to crawl onto the kitchen counter top so I could procure the monster tin an of Milo in the overhead cabinet. After securing the highly valued object, I rewarded myself by grabbing a big spoon and proceeded to fill my mouth with abundance of Milo. Amidst of the pleasure and excitement of it all, I failed to anticipate the possibility to choke on enormous amounts of powdered Milo. I started to choke on it, dropped a wonderfully BIG can of Milo onto the floor - which broke my heart as I saw in slow motion the dramatic spill of precious particles of Milo powder fall across the kitchen floor.

I was caught, scolded and I cried. Not because I was scolded but because I lost my big can of Milo.

Another decadent recipe I used to make for myself as a child was Milo bread. I would spread a layer of condensed milk onto white bread and very generously sprinkle Milo powder over it. I think that was probably my first personal creation of food - I thought about it all by myself and made it. I was quite impressed with my invention - soon I learnt it has been done by others. I was disappointed that what I thought was a genius original idea wasn't so original after all, but still I was proud of my ability and I think it sparked the beginning of food creation that was to follow years later.

So this is my ode to my first ever recipe, Milo Muffins with white and semi sweet chocolate chips!!

It was to the dismay of many when I walked through the entrance of my office muffin-less this morning.

"Whacha' bake?" "Where are my muffins?" "What happened?" "Is it all gone?"

What have I done? I've spoilt them all!! I of course had to remedy the drama and had to think up some recipe for belated muffin monday. Was at the supermarket and decided on blueberries when I found Dried Roselles..... mmmmmm!! So Berry Nutty muffins it is to the rescue...

I was trying to think what kind of muffins I should make this week. I wanted to do something asian - without being it too complicated. And I've also always loved the taste of Gula Melaka, especially in Onde Onde and Chendol. And since I like using brown sugars in my muffins I thouhgt it might be sweet idea to use Gula Melaka instead. Gula Melaka or Coconut sugar originally from Malacca is one of the most wonderful ingredients in my book. It has a wonderful aroma and a sweetness that is slightly savoury and subtler than the cane sugars. The texture of the sugar is highly dense and slightly tricky to handle, it's abit like corn flour mixed with water. It's best to melt it down first or dissolve it with any other liquid substance rather than using it as a dry ingredient.

It's Desmond's Birthday! One of the very loyal and supportive tummies I feed every Monday with my weekend baking experiments. So especially just for him (and the benefit of many others) I rushed home to make Applesauce Allspice Muffins for his very special day. This recipe is an adaptation from the one from Epicurious.com. The Applesauce I used is from the Applesauce I made last week - so if you are using this recipe with the Applesauce I would suggest you half the sugar. Otherwise if you are using canned Applesauce keep the the sugar indicated. I've lowered the fat and sugar portions, and added raisins for texture. The lovely crunchy tops are a delight when you take the first bite into it - then comes the moist and spicy flavors that come after... *slurp!*

Bran Muffins..... I was worried that they would taste like cardboard shreds. But they turned out quite tasty and moist!