Yogurt and Berry Muffins

Everytime I have left-over food in my kitchen I try to use it up as soon as possible (and that's only one of many extremely economical habits of mine ...) For that I immediately look for a suitable recipe and this, mostly, leads me directly to smittenkitchen. If you have the same passion of scanning and stalking cooking-baking blogs for yummy recipes, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. In her most diversified blog Deborah shares a lot of ordinary and extraordinary recipes and each is followed by an amusing story and beautiful photography. That's where I got my yogurt and berry muffins recipe from. I was actually reading through her post of a lemon yogurt anything cake with the intention of baking a fresh yogurt loaf but then I thought 'why not use the same recipe for some lovely muffins?' - Yogurt makes your muffins soft and berries make them fruity, combine those ingredients with a lot of love and voilà - breakfast is ready.

Yogurt and Berry Muffins
recipe (slightly changed) from smittenkitchen

1.5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain yogurt (if you use sweetened yogurt, you might want to reduce the amount of sugar to about 1/2 cup)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
zest of 2 lemons
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1.5 cup redcurrants (or any other type of berries), fresh or frozen and thawed

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line 12 muffins moulds with paper cups or one loaf pan with baking paper. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl whisk together yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and oil. Sieve the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients and whisk well just until incorporated, try not to overmix. Gently fold in the berries. (In Deb's recipe it says to mix the berries with another tablespoon of flour before adding them to the batter mixture, but I skipped this step because I don't mind the berries sinking to the bottom of the muffins. Do whatever you wish.) Fill the batter in the prepared muffin cups (or loaf pan) and bake for about 25 minutes (or 50 minutes for a loaf cake) until done. Let cool completely and dust with some icing sugar if desired.

It's Chai Time ~ Vanilla Cherry Cupcakes

Well, I made these cupcakes some months ago but still, I'd like to post some pictures and the recipe since they were pretty and very delicious. There's just something amazing about a soft, fruity batter combined with a milky, creamy frosting. So if you have no idea what to have with a nice cup of tea today, try them!

Vanilla Cherry Cupcakes
makes about 18 medium size cupcakes

batter
1.5c white flour
2 tsp baking powder
150gm butter or margarine, softened
1/2c (homemade) vanilla sugar
1/2c white sugar
2 eggs
about 1.5c fresh cherries, cut in small pieces

frosting
200gm сметана / sour cream / soft cream cheese
100 - 200gm yogurt (it depends on how much frosting you want to have on your cupcakes)
4 tsp vanilla sugar

Preheat oven to 150-170C. 

Prepare the frosting: Beat together all ingredients for the frosting using a mixer until well combined and fluffy. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and keep in fridge while baking the cupcakes.

Prepare the batter: Line about 18 muffin cups with cupcake baking cases.

Whisk together flour and baking powder.

Beat butter, sugar and eggs using a mixer on high speed until light and creamy. Sieve over flour mixture and quickly beat in, just until incorporated. Do not over beat.

Fold in the cherries. 

Fill batter into prepared muffin cups and bake for about 30 minutes until done and nicely browned. Let cool completely.

Take the cooled frosting out of the fridge and frost the cupcakes as desired.

Decorate with anything pretty, such as cherries, grated chocolate or chocolate beans.

Keep in fridge. 

Breakfast Yogurt Muffins

They were so yumyum. Actually I never eat muesli (swiss breakfast oats) or cereals for breakfast, but we had a huge package of chocolate muesli left which I had to use up. So I just baked some deliciously sweet breakfast muffins. They had a soft texture and a sweet sugar crust (which I love!)

Breakfast Yogurt Muffins

200gm yogurt
2 eggs
100gm sugar
vanilla sugar (as much as desired)
9 tabsp oil
175gm flour
100gm chocolate muesli (or oats combined with chocolate chips)
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 175-200 degCelsius. Beat together yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla sugar and oil. Mix well flour, baking powder, muesli and salt. Add to the wet ingredients and beat in until incorporated. Fill into 12 muffin cups (lined, buttered or silicone cups). Sprinkle some sugar on top for a sugar crust. Bake for about 12-30 minutes until done. Enjoy.

Gulchathaii

Black & White - Vanilla Cinnamon and Chocolate Orange Muffins

To be honest, baking them was a disaster. I've never baked two sorts of muffins at the same time. But they turned out pretty yummy, I liked both - vanilla cinnamon and chocolate orange. The muffin batter of the white ones was totally different from the chocolate batter. The white muffins were amazingly fluffy and soft while the dark ones were moist and heavy. So here comes the first recipe...

Vanilla Cinnamon Muffins

2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tabsp cinnamon, or more if desired
a pinch of ground cardamom
200gm butter or margarine
1 c homemade vanilla sugar
2 eggs
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup whipping cream

Preheat oven to 175degC. Beat the eggs with salt until bubbly and light. Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Sieve together flour, baking powder and spices. Combine beaten eggs, butter mixture and beat well. Beat in whipping cream and flour mixture. The batter should be golden and creamy. Fill into 6 big muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes until done.

Optional: Dust with powdered sugar.

Chocolate Orange Muffins

2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1 c white sugar
2/4 c orange juice
3 tabsp cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 175degC. Sieve together flour, baking powder, cocoa and sugar. Beat eggs until bubbly and light. Beat in orange juice and oil. Combine everything, beat until incorporated. Fill into 8 big muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes until done.

Optional: Dust with powdered sugar as well.

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Almond Cupcakes / Muffins / Tarts

These almond cupcakes or whatever you wanna call them are super soft, moist and delicious. I'm not pretty sure if the dark chocolate on the top goes very well with the flavor of almonds, probably I'm going to skip it the next time. 

Almond 'Cupcakes'


1 3/4 cups flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1.5 cups sugar
100gm ground almonds
100-200gm chopped almonds (as much as desired)
3/4 cup oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (low fat)
Optional: almond flavor, vanilla flavor


Preheat oven to 175degC. Combine flour, baking powder, ground almonds, chopped almonds and whisk well. Whisk together eggs, oil, sugar and yogurt. Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. Fill into 12 buttered muffin forms. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until done. 
Decorate with melted chocolate, chocolate ganache or cream cheese frosting, if desired.

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Chocolate Banana Muffins

I havn't been blogging for such a long time now, there was so much going on, but now I'm back with a some incredibly simple but delicious Chocolate Banana Muffins. I baked them for my friend Stephanie as a present because she told me that chocolate banana muffins were one of her favorite ones. 

Chocolate Banana Muffins

275gm white flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 large bananas

125gm sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

50ml milk

75gm melted butter

3 tabsp cocoa powder, or more if desired

chocolate chips, if desired

Preheat oven to 180degC. Combine dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients and mashed bananas. Combine everything together and mix well until incorporated. The batter should be kind of thick and lumpy. Fill into 10 to 12 prepared muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes. Enjoy :)

As I am not a huge fan of bananas, these were not my favorite muffins. Though I have to admit that they were pretty yummy. But this recipe is gread for those who love bananas combined with chocolate. So give it a try :)

My Breakfast Plum Muffin

This one's going to be about a fruity and yummy muffin, which I totally forgot to take pictures of. Everyone loved them and we ate them up so quickly and then I found myself sitting at school holding my last breakfast plum muffins in my hands and thinking 'I did not take any pictures!'. I mean it was so yummy and I wanted to post the recipe here so badly. That's why I have only one picture of a muffin that was already almost eaten :)

But . . . here's the recipe of the breakfast plum muffins. Enjoy!

Breakfast Plum Muffins

1 3/4 c flour
1 coats
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup yogurt (10%)
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
1 c soft margarine
1 c sugar

+ 2 c plums, cut in small pieces

Preheat oven to 180degC. Combine flour, baking powder and oats. Beat together yogurt, milk, eggs, margarine and sugar until creamy. Add flour mixture and mix well until well combined. Fill into prepared muffin cups and bake for about 30 - 35 minutes until nicely browned. 

A muffin that containes oats and fruits is so yummy, I could not stop eating them. I hope you get the chance to try them out :)
Thanks a lot for reading!

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Lemon Mint Muffins

Do you love mint as much as I do? And do you love mint combined with lemon as much as I do? Especially iced mint tea with lemon juice and lemon slices. If you have never tried that before, do it now. Make strong mint tea and let cool in the fridge for 1 night, then add fresh lemon juice, as much as desired. Put some lemon slices into the mint tea to intensify the lemon taste. Enjoy :)

Anyways, this muffin recipe is really easy, it's actually one of my basic recipes and can be changed into every kind of muffins.

 Lemon Mint Muffins

2 cups white flour
1 teasp baking powder
1/2 cup freshly ground mint
1 cup sugar
1 cup yogurt
zest and juice of 1 or 2 lemons
1 cup oil
3 eggs
optional: green food coloring


Preheat oven to 175degC. Sieve together flour and baking powder, add mint. Lightly beat together sugar, eggs, yogurt, oil, zest and juice until combined. Sieve over flour mint mixture and mix until batter is smooth. (Add food coloring if wanted). Fill into 12 prepared muffin cups. Bake until done, for about 20-25 minutes. 

I loved these muffins, they were moist, soft and full of flavor. I still have a lot of mint left, I'm definitely going to bake these again, maybe as a cake. 

I hope you enjoyed reading :)

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Simple Blueberry Semolina Muffins

One of the easiest muffins ever. As we are going to Kazakhstan in about 5 days (Yay!) we had to use up all of our left-overs and that's why I used our last frozen blueberries to bake these easy muffins. Actually, I wanted to use this recipe for blueberry kefir muffins that I baked not very long ago, but I changed it a bit.

Simple Blueberry Semolina Muffins

1 3/4 cups white flour
1/2 cup semolina (polenta)
1 teasp baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup oil
1 cup hot milk


+ about 1 cup frozen blueberries


Preheat oven to 180degC. Combine flour, semolina, sugar and baking powder. Whisk together oil, milk and eggs. Add dry ingredients, mix well. Fold in the blueberries. Fill into muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes. Makes about 12 muffins.


Note: 1 cup blueberries is definitely not enough if you love fruits like I do, so I think 1.5 or 2 cups are better. 

Thanks for reading :)

Gulchathaii

Strawberry Almond Muffins

These fruity and delicious muffins were baked by me for the Strawberry Festival which was created by good friends. I really loved it, my time with friends which I havn't seen for a longer time with those who I met for the first time. I was enjoying it, not to mention all the different kinds of cakes that were absolutely delicious. 
Back to my strawberry almond muffins. Actually I wanted to bake something with peaches or apricots but we had strawberries left. But plain strawberry-muffins are sort of boring, so I added almonds (yumyum).

Strawberry Almond Muffins

this recipe makes about 30 muffins, ingredients measured in 300ml cups 


 
2 cups white flour
2 teasp baking powder
1 cup sugar
150gm sliced almonds
1 cup hot milk
1 cup oil
4 eggs


+ 400gm strawberries, cut into very small pieces


Preheat oven to 180degC. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and almonds. Whisk together milk, oil and eggs. Add mixture of dry ingredients, mix well. Fold in strawberries. The batter should smooth and not sticky. Fill into prepared muffin cups. Bake for about 20-25 minutes.
  

Optional: Topping
Almond frosting/glaze
some strawberries

At the Strawberry Festival there was also a poppyseed cake and as I adore poppyseed I had to try it. And to be honest, it was the very best poppyseed cake I've ever eaten in my whole life. I'm definitely going to bake it and blog about it as soon as I get the recipe. Can't wait!

So I hope you liked it :)

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Blueberry Kefir Muffins (& Some Pancakes)

Our kitchen still smells like blueberry muffins, just love it. 

Wait, first of all, thanks to all the readers of my blog, I get more and more readers. It's not my goal to achieve a lot of readers or followers, I just like writing, posting and sharing. That's why I hope that you all like reading my posts. If you have any tips or suggestions for anything just let me know, I really do appreciate that :)

But now back to the delicious blueberry kefir muffins. Last week my mom bought tons of kefir (not tons... but it seems that our fridge contains only kefir right now...) and we also had some frozen blueberries left. I absolutely love blueberries, especially mixed with kefir or even buttermilk, though it's not the same cause in my opinion kefir tastes way better than buttermilk. Anyways, there was no certain recipe for these muffins, but they are very delicious and soft though. 

Blueberry Kefir Muffins

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teasp baking powder
1 cup sugar (I mixed white and brown sugar)
1 cup kefir
3/4 cup oil
3 eggs
(vanilla extract or cinnamon, if desired)



+ about 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries (or more, if desired)


Preheat oven to 180degC. Combine flour, baking powder and sugar. Fold in the blueberries very carefully, make sure that all the berries are covered with flour so they will not sink during baking. In another bowl whisk together kefir, oil and the eggs. Add the flour blueberry mixture to the wet ingredients and mix well. Fill into prepared muffin cups and bake for about 25 minutes. Makes about 14-16 muffins. 


Optional: Use yogurt or buttermilk instead of kefir. Or white flour instead of whole wheat flour. Mostly, I use whole wheat or whole spelt cause I love the taste of it. 

And now something about my pancakes. There was some batter left and I didn't know what to do with it but then I thought, why not make quick pancakes, I mean my grandma's traditional kazakh pancakes are made with kefir and fruits too. So I took my tiny little pan and baked some pancakes using the rest of my muffin batter and - the first one broke-.- But fortunately the other two look gread and taste very delicious. So if you like the idea of baking something with blueberries and kefir but you don't feel like baking muffins you can use the same ingredients to make delicious, soft and fluffy pancakes. 

Today's my blah blah day. I'm talking & writing way too much, I'm sorry about that :)
Thank you for reading :)

Gulchathaii

Chai Muffins ♥

These chai muffins are loved by everyone. I had them with - guess what? - chai!

Chai Muffins

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 teasp baking powder

2 tabsp cinnamon

1 tabsp ground ginger

1/2 teasp ground anise

1/4 teasp ground cloves

1/2 teasp ground cardamom

1 cup brown sugar

vanilla extract

1 cup oil

2 eggs

3/4 cup hot boiled black spicey tea + 1/4 cup hot milk (the chai I was using contains black tea, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, anise and fennel)

Preheat oven to 190degC. Combine flour, baking powder, spices, sugar. lightly whisk the eggs and add oil and chai. Add vanilla (I was using a looot of vanilla...) Add dry ingredients and mix very well. Fill into muffin cups and bake for about 20-25 minutes. 

Optional: Prepare a mixture with cinnamon, ground ginger and brown sugar. Sprinkle the top of the muffins before baking. (definitely going to do that next time)

They were definitely one of my favorite muffins, can't wait to bake them again! If you love spices and chai like I do you really have to try these! :)

I hope you liked it, thanks for reading :)

Gulchathaii

Simple Rhubarb Muffins

Actually, I never ever made rhubarb muffins and unfortunately, I don't have the chance to eat rhubarb that often. But the taste of rhubarb is still irreplacable, I love to eat it raw =) My mom bought a lot of rhubarb and wanted me to bake a cake or make syrup or juice or whatever. I made a cake, but still there was a lot of rhubarb left so I was looking for a rhubarb muffin recipe on other blogs and websites but I couldn't find anything for me. So I just took all my fruity recipes and combined and changed them into a recipe for simple soft and yummy rhubarb muffins. They were really really good, I luv em!

 

(they look pretty flat... I should have filled more batter into the muffin cups)

Simple Rhubarb Muffins

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1.5 teasp baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup сметана (or 40% chream cheese)

1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup oil

2 eggs

2 cups rhubarb, in small pieces

Preheat oven to 180degC. Combine flour with baking powder and sugar. Mix сметана and milk until very smooth. Add oil and eggs, mix well. Add dry ingredients. Fold in the rhubarb pieces and mix well. Fill muffin cups. Bake for about 30 minutes. Makes about 14-16 muffins. 

my cute silicone muffin cups my aunt bought me :) pink and greeeeeen

I'm definitely going to bake these muffins again, they were absolutely soft, fruity and delicious. Maybe next time I'm going to replace the rhubarb by strawberries.  Anyways, I hope you liked the recipe and the pictures :) 

Thanks for reading!

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Banana Carrot Muffins

One of the best breakfast muffins ever *.* Very moist and soft. About a year ago I was given a little bottle of banana flavor from the philippines which I'm totally happy about. Actually, this is the only flavor that I use, I don't like the other ones. Anyways, the muffins were very delicous and I'm definitely going to bake them again.

Banana Carrot Muffins

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teasp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 mashed banana
2-3 grated carrots
1 egg
1/3 cup oil
some banana flavor


Preheat oven to 175degC. Combine flour, baking powder and sugar. Mix carrots, banana, egg, oil and buttermilk. Add banana flavor, as much as desired. Combine dry and wet ingredients. Fill in muffin cups. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Makes about 9-10 muffins.

(Lovely Ikea muffin cups hehe. sadly, these were my last ones...)

Our kitchen smells like banana flavor now :)

Gulchathaii

It's Chai Time ~ Easy Marble Muffins

This afternoon I wanted to bake cupcakes or muffins, then I decided it should be something black-white, like marble cake. I've baked marble muffins about 2 years ago and they were absolutely disgusting haha. But this time I wanted to try it again - and they were pretty and delicious. Yay :)

Actually, I never wanted to bake marble cakes or muffins cause I was thinking that I was too clumsy to bake pretty cakes. In my opinion marble cakes were old-fashioned and dry and only square people would eat marble cakes. and I still prefer fruity and milky/cheesy cakes. But my mom loved these.

Easy Marble Muffins


1 3/4 cups spelt flour
1 teasp baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 cup hot milk
3/4 cup oil 
2 eggs


+ 3 teasp cocoa powder
+ 2 tabsp spelt flour


Preheat oven to 175degC. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar. Add hot milk, oil and eggs, mix well. Fill 1/3 of the batter into another bowl and slowly add the cocoa powder. Add the 2 tabsp flour to the other 2/3 of the batter, mix well (the white batter is quite water). Fill the muffins cups with 1 tabsp of the white batter, then add a teasp of the brown batter, then another tabsp of the white batter and so on . . . If you want to have a swirly patter, take a toothpick, put it into the batter and 'draw' a circle in the batter (not too much, otherwise the black and white batter will be combined and the nice color will disappear). Bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool completely. Makes about 12-14 muffins. 
 

 Gulchathaii

Oat Muffins With Dried Fruits

It's breakfast time again! =) This recipe is really easy and doesn't take much time. But is still yum. These muffins taste like oatmeal because of the oats and milk and fruity because of the dried fruits. My mom loved them too Hehe

Muffins 'Завтрак'

1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour
1 teasp baking powder
1/2 cup oats
50gm candied orange peel
50gm candied lemon peel
1/2 cup sugar
1 cups hot milk
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
(almonds if desired)


Preheat oven to 180degC. Mix flour, baking powder, oats and sugar. Add orange and lemon peel, mix well. Add milk, oil and egg. Fill the muffin cups. (Place the almonds at the top). Bake for about 25-30 mins. Makes about 14 muffins.

(Yay, my watermelon nailpolish! I think I already have a post about this polish...)

Very moist, fruity and not too sweet. I ate them with my Mom while we were drinking chai Hehe. So if you think about baking something yummi for breakfast, try this recipe! :)

Hugs,

Gulchathaii