Apple Crumble Muffins

The days trickle by slowly when you're down with chicken pox and are 1) unable to go out and face civilization for fear you'll spread the disease and 2) too itchy most of the time to do much but lie on the bed and lament your sad fate. Yesterday I just had an urge to bake but even after surfing through many blogs for ideas, i simply had no inspiration.. so I opened the fridge and spotted 2 large fuji apples my mom's colleague gave me and voila, I decided to bake some apple crumble muffins! :) But before I write about it:

I'll like to present my dad's cheng tang! He makes it quite often using the pressure cooker :)

White fungus, dried longan, lotus seeds, and some more in a sweet soup, a cooling dessert for sick people like moi~ 

Thanks momsie and dadsie for taking such good care of pox-infected me^^ ( My mom has also been boiling water chestnut drink for me, as well as barley and green bean soups, and helping me put anti-viral cream on my spots)

Back to the muffin.

What you would need for the apples: Check out the huge fuji apples atop the container of brown sugar!

Dunk it into a pot and cook the apples!

What you would need for the crumble : pardon the extremely bright shot

Mix em' up and knead with your fingers till they resemble bread crumbs! ( or bird feed, more like)

On to the muffin part! Cream the butter and sugars till light & fluffyyy~

Taking the opportunity to show off   my stand mixer bought earlier in the year! Really useful for all things baked :)

Sift the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt together and set aside ( lazy me didn't bother to sift :P)

After mixing the flours and milk into the butter-sugar mixture, this is how the batter would look! Can't get rid of that perpetual shadow hanging around no matter where I take the picture

Stir in the cooked apples, sprinkle on the crumble toppings and pop em' in the oven! 

^ Before baking

^After baking- they got tan!

More pictures!

Check out their softness :)

Certainly not the most appealing looking muffin but hey, it's the taste that counts! The apples made it really moist and it stayed that way even the next day. In fact, it tastes like the muffin version of an apple crumble pie. My dad took like 3 or 4 and he kept asking ' It's not very fattening right?' SURE dad, all food is not fattening if eaten in moderation ;)  Glad my family liked it though~

Apple Crumble Muffins: Recipe adapted from honeybeesweets

Ingredients for Apple Crumble Muffins (makes 12 standard):
150g unsalted butter, room temperature
75g caster sugar
75g brown sugar
2 eggs1tsp vanilla extract
240g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
130ml fresh milk

Apple filling:
2 medium to large apples, peeled and cored, cut into small chunks
50g brown sugar
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon powder

Crumble topping:
60g cold butter, cubed
60g brown sugar
100g cake flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon powder

Method:

• Using a small heat proof sauce pot, cook the apples together with the rest of the filling ingredients till it's semi-soft, about 10 minutes. Let cool before use.
• In another mixing bowl, mix everything in the crumble topping ingredients together. Using your finger tips to knead till it resembles bread crumbs. Set aside or refrigerate till needed.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Sift the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.
• Cream the butter and both the sugars together till light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time and beat till well mixed. Add vanilla extract and blend well.
• Add 1/4 of the flour mixture into the butter & sugar mixture and mix well. Then add 1/3 of the milk in and again mix well. Repeat till all of the flour and milk has been added.
• Stir in the apple fillings and pour the batter into the paper lined muffin tins to about 3/4 full. Then scoop about 1 tbsp of the crumble topping over the top, gently pressing a little to make sure it will stick.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes till tester comes out clean and the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and let rest on cooling rack.

PS. I wish I had a nicer kitchen that wasn't so shadowy and cramped up so that I'll have more space/ nicer backgrounds for prettier food pictures sigh..

kbye~

Apple Bread Pudding

Update on my day before I blog about the Apple Bread Pudding i just made today:

one word pretty much sums it all up-HORRIBLE. My chicken pox is worse than ever and I have them all over my upper body, a few on my face and arms and in some of the weirdest places ever, like the skin on the back of my mouth, which makes me feel perpetually uncomfortable as it feels like food is stuck there but actually its the damn pox >:( Plus I absolutely cannot stand lazing around doing nothing, so the hours seem to tick by like years... I really need a hobby that wouldn't make me grow fat. ( esp since i can't train now arghhh!!!)

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So back to the pudding. As there is still stale leftover homemade wholemeal bread left in the fridge and  some slices from the one baked yesterday, I decided to make bread pudding as we have a surplus of apples as well. Plus it is pretty simple to make and perfect for a sick person bored out of her wits ):

What you would need for the first part: 

1) approximately 2 slices of bread; diced

2) 1 apple; peeled, cored, and diced

3) 5g of butter

4) 1 tbsp of sugar

5) whatever dried fruits you prefer ( I used apricot)

#1: Cook the diced apple with the butter under low heat. Add in the sugar and cook for awhile.

#2: Put the apples, bread, raisins into the ramekins. Set aside. ( i just used a loaf pan)

Next to prepare the egg mixture:

1) 20g of sugar

2) 200ml milk

3) 2 eggs

4) 40g whipping cream ( didn't have this so i omitted it and added more milk instead)

#3: 3. Prepare the egg mixture. Beat the eggs, milk & whipping cream until well combined. Add in the sugar and mix until the sugar had dissolved.

#4. Pour the egg mixture into the ramekins and baked at 190C for about 35-40mins. ( baked mine at 180C in a small loaf pan)

** Make sure to press the bread into the milk mixture so that the bread pieces are all soaked in the mixture.

Before baking~

After baking~ I think there wasn't enough milk mixture or something cos the pieces of bread on top are still rather dry

Fancy a bite? It's not very sweet :)

Recipe adapted from: mimibakeryhouse

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Remember how i said i was going to do toad-in-the-hole? Well I haven't done it and will probably do it for breakfast tmro as the homemade bread is too crumbly to make it ): In fact, i think i'll be baking much more as there really isn't anything better to do~

Anyway, I admit that I'm a very pessimistic person esp when I'm in a bad mood--> Such as now, when I've got the bloody annoying pox and it really annoys my family members sometimes. So I guess I'll try to change and be a more optimistic person, though i foresee it will be extremely hard as a leopard never changes its spots.

kbye~