American Fresh Strawberry Muffins (Bread-Like)

CookBook Challenge Week 48: Bread 

I felt very energetic this morning despite of loosing an hour of my sleep due to the day light saving. Since the wheather gets better and suns started to shine, I felt good and energetic. I am so powered by sun. In fact I even did the make-up and stuff (complete make up which I don't do on weekend) just to go to Victoria Garden Shopping Centre for Mr.J phone signing, magazine grabbing and K-mart-ing. OH YA! I bought a green rubber spatula which only cost me $2.. hehe.. Green is not my preference colour. I did wish they have pink or purple but it's just $2 so 'just grab it and go', I told myself and I even planned to make some fancy dessert today. But now I am feeling awfully tired, demotivated and annoyed. Feeling a lil sick and the sorethroat is killing me. Could it be because I stayed too long under the sun in St.Kilda yesterday or because I was really hyperactive this morning or simply because I am just lack of stamina due to excessive hibernation in winter? And my fancy dessert plan???? emmm, let's just change to something simpler.. Strawberry muffins? I still have some fresh strawberry in chiller :)

So, just to clarify that this is an American Muffins where chemical leavener (bicarb soda or baking powder) is use. The texture is more like a cross between bread and cake. American muffin can be further divided in to bread-like (fat in liquid form) where it contain lesser sugar and butter, while cake-like (butter in room tempreture creamed with sugar)  has more sugar and butter content.

The following recipe is a bread like muffin because it only takes less than 45 minutes from preparation  to baking and go into my stomach. So, it is a quick bread. Do not over mix the mixture when you pour the wet ingredient into dry ingredient. Don't worry about the lumps because it will dissappear during baking. OK, let's bake.

Make 12 medium size muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (about 250g) hulled and bite sized fresh strawberry
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar (caster or white doesn't matter)
• 65ml oil ( I use half melted butter and half canola oil because I want to finish up the butter)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125 ml milk
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 3/4 cup self raising flour
• 1/8 tsp bicarbonate soda/baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius make sure the rack is at the centre of the oven. Grease muffin pan with butter or oil.
2. Sprinkle and mix bite sized fresh strawberries with 1 1/2tbsp of sugar in a bowl. Set aside. If the strawberries that you use is sweet enough, then you can either skip this step or reduce the sugar.
3. Melt butter and set aside. In my case melt butter top up with cooking oil to reach 65ml and set aside.
4. Pour out 1/2 cup of milk in a bowl and add in lemon juice. Mix. Set aside and let it curdle.
5. In a medium size mixing bowl, whisk together brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and milk mixture. Add in melted butter mixture and stir to combine. 
6. In another large mixing bowl, combine SR flour, baking soda and salt. Gently fold in strawberries mixture, make sure they are all coated with flour. This is to avoid the strawberries from sinking during baking. Add the brown sugar mixture into SR flour mixture. Stir until the ingredients are just combine. Approx 10 strokes.
7. Fill each  muffin cups to 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tester comes out clean. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Dome and light weight

Strawberry Yogurt Cake

Have you ever had yogurt cake before? I have not had one before until today. Wow!! It is delicious and addictive. The structure is moist and have this creamy feeling. So, why did I came to make strawberry yogurt cake? After realising that I have a really stuffed chiller, I decided to do some clean up and that's when I stumble upon my 1 kg of strawberry 99% fat free yogurt which will expire tomorrow. So, i began to so some searching online for the recipes and I found yogurt cake. It is not a very simple journey actually. Ivery recipe seems to have their on measurement and ingredient. So, I decided to do some mix and match and work out the ratio. Guess what? It works.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:-

• a handful of fresh strawberry, rinse and diced (optional)
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 125g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 250ml strawberry yogurt 
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1/3 cup cornflour
• 1/8 tsp bicarb soda/baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat oveb to 170 degree celcius. Grease or lay cake/loaf pan with baking paper.
2. Diced fresh strawberries and set aside. 
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy over high speed.
4. Add in vanilla extract and eggs. One at a time. Beat for another minute or so. 
5. Add in yogurt and beat for another minute. Remove the electric mixer.
6. Then, stir in the mixture of sifted self raising flour, cornflour, baking soda and salt. Half cup at a time. Stir until the flour mixture until is well incorporated before you add in another batch.
7. Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan, mix in fresh strawberry into remaining batter. Mix. Pour into pan. 
8. Pop into the preheated oven and bake for 40 minutes or until the tester comes out clean.
9. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes and remove from pan to cool completely. 

TIPS:

• To avoid curdle cake batter, all ingredients should be at room temperature.
• Feel free to substitute strawberry yogurt with any other fruit yogurt