Got muffins?

I bet most of you agree the Americans sure know their pancakes and muffins. Cakespy recently posted up a showdown between the muffin and cupcake. For more questions and her awesome debate (and pictures) of this epic facedown, check out her site through the link above.

On days where I’m plagued with melancholic notions of ladylike etiquette and wishful thinking of being in a historic age with pretty dresses and handmade embroidered fabrics, I think cupcakes. On days when I’m utterly annoyed with such pretentiousness and really prefer the fuss-free and just down-to-earth contents of life, give me muffins. Either way, I have to say I love them both with equal passion and adoration. It’s just all an issue of balance between my emotions and tastebuds. O yes, and state of mind. Damn that I’m a libra and need all this yin yang, balance and peace shizzle.

When it comes to muffins, I need them explosive.

Explosive, volcanic, man-sized, Texas-sized all the way. I don’t know why. It seems like a prerequisite to me, otherwise I just won’t fancy eating it. In more ways than one, I believe this will be why boys may find me repulsive or probably just overcome with fear or competitiveness. Jokes. Honestly, if you’re gonna have a muffin, I order you to have a enormous one with alright then, a (I here say it quite reluctantly) petite cup of tea to wash it down.

My rules for consuming muffins:

1. it has to be at least a medium-sized muffin

2. you must have a hot, comforting cup of tea or coffee to accompany it

3. don’t bother with forks and plates unless you’re eating it straight out of the oven hot

4. don’t talk; just eat, will ya?

5. occasional moans of pleasure allowed

Well then, are you quite so particular with muffin-eating too?

This recipe yields 6 power muffins.

American Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup buttermilk (or you can use a substitute of milk and lemon juice)
1 cup/punnet blueberries, tossed lightly in flour

Preheat oven to 200d Celsius.
Line muffin tray with paper cups.

Beat butter till creamy. Add the sugar and lightly beat it together. Add a beaten egg to the milk and gently mix into the creamed sugar and butter. Add the next egg.
In a separate bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
Carefully mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, make sure not to overmix. You want the batter lumpy and it’s alright to see bits of flour. Fold in the blueberries and spoon generously into muffin cups.

Place tray in middle rack of oven. Reduce oven temperature to 190d Celsius. Bake for 25-30min.
At the mark of the last 5 minutes, reduce oven temperature again to 180d Celsius.

Voila. Fluffy muffins with a lovely crunchy crust top. Ultimate.

I watch cooking shows as I plough through lunch. That’s quite intense. Eating as I watch others cook and eat. I suppose it’s equivalent to having a meal with others but you know, it does seem a little odd considering that’s become a daily habit. One cannot live without Channel 260 - UKTV food.

I thought I could pull a Ready Steady Cook. Got really panicky about trying to get the chicken to cook through so I suppose I failed in handling kitchen pressure. This recipe has been adapted from one I got off the popular cooking TV show and I really like it. Very yummy and filling. Looks good too. Although I’ll need to work on timing it better as I was really confused as to how long I’d been cooking each side of the chicken for.

Well then, for the first time really I’m not gonna chat on more than 3 paragraphs as I’m in the middle of a banging party to celebrate Anna’s end of exams. I’m outta here.

Enjoy, my friends.

Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Breast & Tomato Sauce
Ingredients

1 chicken breast, butterflied
4 strips prosciutto
1 vine tomato, deseeded and chopped
1 medium-sized mushroom, sliced and sautéed
1 tbs chopped chives
1/4 tsp garlic flakes
salt and pepper, for seasoning
olive oil, for frying

For the tomato sauce:
2 tbs tomato purée
2 tbs hot water
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
a few shakes of dried basil

Lay the prosciutto slices side-by-side, slightly overlapping, on a chopping board and place the butterflied chicken breast on top. Pile your stuffing into the middle of the chicken breast and pressing it down together, fold the chicken breast over and then tightly wrap it by rolling it in the prosciutto away from you until you the chicken ends up sitting surface facing up and the ends of the prosciutto all neatly folded up at the bottom.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Cook the chicken breast 5 minutes each side on medium heat. Be really careful here as you want to make sure it goes a lovely golden brown and cooks through completely. Remove from heat once cooked through.

For the tomato sauce, heat the ingredients together in a saucepan. Ladle onto a plate. Slice chicken breast in half and serve on tomato sauce.

After about a month allowance for the Beauty & the Feast challenge to run, I’ve had a number of encouragements along the way which I was and still am very grateful for. It’s made me so pleased to see others dedicated to what I was really interested in and the results? EVERYONE LOVES BODY BUTTER AND SOAPS (not to forget perfumes, hand lotions and face products). But if body butter is the new cool and butter is never not cool or out of fashion, then I suppose it’s totally awesome to dedicate some yummy dishes to the marriage of beauty and food. Thank goodness only pictures were sent to my inbox because if these were as delicious as the products sounded, I would have gobbled up every entry in no time.

Rather than ramble on about something unimportant, with no further ado, let’s bring on the round-up.

Presenting the lovely contestants and their submissions:

‘Better Cake Than Cream Brownies’ inspired by The Body Shop’s Cocoa Butter Body Butter
Deeba from Passionate About Baking
Gurgaon, North India

‘Beta Carotene Taken to the Extreme’ carrot salad & carrot juice inspired by own homemade soap ‘22 Carat’
Nazarine Andrychow from Giddy Gastronome
Littleton, USA

‘Mango and Pink Grapefruit Cupcakes’ inspired by Evodia Mango and Pink Grapefruit Body Butter
Minko from Couture Cupcakes
Australia

‘Luscious Mango Mousse and Grapefruit Marmalade Tart’ inspired by Crabtree & Evelyn Mango and Grapefruit Body Butter
Dee from Choos & Chews
Malaysia

‘Coconut Lime Scones with Mango Orange Curd’ inspired by Mango Tangerine Soap and Coconut Lime Soap
Elle from Elle’s New England Kitchen
NH, USA

‘Cheesecake Omnia’ inspired by Bvlgari Omnia
Gaurav from Gastronome by Choice
Hyderabad, India

‘Farida’s Zesty Fiesta Chocolate Fridge Cake’ inspired by Hand Lotion with Lemon, Lime and Orange
Farida from Farida’s Azerbaijani Cookbook
Long Beach, California, USA

‘Coconut-Ginger Scones with Lime-Ginger Curd’ inspired by Burt’s Bees Citrus & Ginger Root Body Wash
Toontz from Okara Mountain
Wisconsin, USA

Thank you everyone for participating. Each entry was a joy to read and receive. Hans was also very delighted to look through the entries with me and was absolutely fascinated with your creations.

The Top 3 have been selected based on the criteria of choice of product, creative use of ingredients, amount of care & love put into it, edibility and aesthetics. It wasn’t easy at all to come to the final decision as I found myself being tempted by all entries and every one was equally creative. Unfortunately, what has to be done must be done.

The long-awaited Top 3 now:

1st place: Farida’s Zesty Fiesta Chocolate Fridge Cake

2nd place: Dee’s Luscious Mango Mousse and Grapefruit Marmalade Tart

3rd place: Toontz’s Coconut-Ginger Scones with Lime-Ginger Curd

Congratulations to the winners! I hope there are no hard feelings to the rest who have taken part. You’ve made me so happy; if I could afford as many prizes as I want to, I’d send a package to every one. Will definitely keep in touch with your foodblogs for more delicious creations.

Finally, once the Top 3 have received emails from me, please reply asap with your recipient’s name and choice of postal address. I’ll thereafter proceed to send out your rewards and pray they reach you safe and sound via Royal Mail!

Best love.

xxx

It’s the 1st of June! A day before the deadline for Beauty & the Feast entries (2 June 2008). Looking at the entries so far, I’m so pleased and excited to share with the rest of you what lovely creations have been emailed to me.

Went into town today to sort out some of the prizes as well so I’m all ready to post these babies out to the top 3. There’s still time to send in your own entry. For more details on the rules of the challenge, you can click on the link above. To find out what my own contribution to the challenge was, it’s here.

Well then, I’ll be waiting in anticipation to select the top 3. The round-up will be posted as soon as possible once I close the challenge, most probably 3 June 2008 evening UK time as I’ve been looking through all the entries every day to keep myself with it. I’ll keep all ‘contestants’ updated via email and would greatly appreciate it if you guys will share your support for the lovely foodies who have sent in their contributions.

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If you’re wondering what I’ve been up to today (why would you actually, but maybe you would since I’m typing this here which relates it, of course, to FOOD which you should be very much dedicated to), I’ve wandered the lands of Pizza Express and EAT. to get myself ready for the round-up. Two of my favourite foodie hangouts and if you love organic, clean and simple food or would love affordable oriental-inspired quick-to-go lunches as well, definitely check out EAT. Not exactly very traditional but you can find fresh sushi and sashimi packs, salad packs and the ever-comforting matcha latte for £1.90 a regular take-away cup. I even got Hans into the matcha drinking. I mean at £1.90, you can’t resist that great taste and lovely green hue. You’d be an idiot to.

Also, it was the perfect Sunday. We should unwind during the weekends yes? It was much needed considering the drama we went through yesterday evening. Alex 2 roads down was plagued by a drunk banging crazily on her door and she’d rang Hans thinking she was being broken into. This was a day after we thought we’d been broken into. So, after frantically ringing all the guys we knew, Hans and I in ridiculous pyjamas and footwear (Hans in black loose flats and me in ridiculous summer flip flops) went flying through Selly Oak with Tunstall in a flurry of flying flip flops and shoes, and panic in our hearts. Thank God the police got to Alex real quick and stayed on the phone with her through the ordeal. The wanker of a drunk was sent home quick enough and we took Alex back home with us for the night. Tunstall, our big male hero, didn’t do much really but it was a relief to have someone there with us ridiculous girls. You should have seen the sight of us. Me running barefoot, Hans taking charge like a bulldog.

With drama like that, food’s what we should talk about to make things right.

Let’s talk food.

Send in your entries guys. Last call!!!

xxx