Moist Chocolate Chip Banana Muffin / Cupcakes Recipe

 

I buy Bananas all the time, sometimes we eat it and sometimes it site and gets mushy. Most of the time I just bake banana bread. Although for the past 3 or 4 times I've made banana bread, they don't get eaten. So this time I figured I make muffins / cupcakes instead. This recipe is also a banana bread recipe, so, if you prefer to make the bread you can do so. Just make sure you grease the bread pan before putting the batter into the pan.

I have tweaked this recipe so many times and this time I finally, I think, perfected it. LOL! 

Here's what you need:

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

• 2 eggs

• 1 cup (2 medium) mashed bananas
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups  All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (No one in the family likes nuts on anything so I OMIT this) OPTIONAL
• 2 cups chocolate chips (We love chocolate chips instead) OPTIONAL
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

 Here's what to do:

1. Heat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pan with the paper liner / cupcake liner.
2. In a large bowl, mix sugar and butter, beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and blend well. Add bananas, milk and vanilla, blend well.
3. In a small bowl, combine flour, nuts, chocolate chips, baking soda and salt.  Add to banana mixture , stir well until all the dry ingredients get combined and moistened. Scoop a big spoonful into the paper liner.
4. Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes and remove from pan. Cool for another hour or until completely cooled. Wrap tightly or a tight container and store in the fridge.

The kids loved it and so did I. I can just have one piece and I'm good to go. With the banana bread, I usually cut a big slice and eat a lot. With this cupcake / muffin size, it's well proportion.






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BIG Thank you!

Hey Everyone!

I know my blog is small and I don't post that much, well as much as I want to, but I really do appreciate the new followers and those who have followed me for a while now. I post as much as I could because of you guys.

Sometimes soon, I will be posting recipes or things that I have tried or liked, but I didn't make it myself. Then I will have more postings in the blog.

Again, thank you for following my itty bitty blog :-)

PS. Look out for some giveaways soon. 

Claire

Chocolate Jell-O Mousse Treat (RECIPE)

New York is having a heat wave and it's HOT, HOT, HOT! outside. I think we reached about 100F today and I don't ever remember reaching that hot. I haven't even let the kids outside to play in fear of dehydration, and it's b'coz I'm such a worry wart mom.

So, what does a baker do when it's too hot outside, where you can probably bake or cook something off in the driveway, do? You make something cold. I have been meaning to make this with the kids but never had the chance. We actually made this last week. This is the perfect time to share it though.

Here's what you need:
1 pack Chocolate supreme mousse or if you have your own Mousse Recipe (use that)
1 Chocolate Fudge Instant jell-o pudding (small box)
Chocolate chips
White chocolate chips
Chocolate shaving (optional)

Milk
Small shot glass or small glass

What to do:

1. Mix the mousse; follow the direction on the box and chill.
2. Mix Jell-o; follow the direction on the box and chill.
3. When ready, assemble it in the glass. Starting with the pudding, layer of white chocolate chips, layer of mousse, layer of chocolate chip, layer of pudding, more chocolate chips and some chocolate shaving (optional).
4. Just repeat the layers, and wait 30 minutes and serve. I'm not sure if you could wait but, you can probably eat it right away.

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Ground Turkey with carrots and potato -RECIPE

Hot out there! I wish I have a pool :-) That would be awesome! I would just lay on a float all day long, LOL!

Here's another recipe for you to try out. This one is super easy and you only need one skillet or wok to make it.  Simple ingredients and it's healthy for you. Even my kids loved it. Although, I am blessed and lucky to have kids that aren't picky. They pretty much eat anything I give them.

This dish in particular they love and they even asked for seconds. If you're a Filipina or born to a Filipina mother, you would know that Rice will always be in your staple. Although I am guilty of not cooking rice all the time. I might cook rice, maybe once or twice in 2 weeks. This dish definitely goes with rice.

Here's what you need:

    •    1 lb. ground turkey
    •    1 tbsp. minced garlic
    •    1 medium sweet onions, chopped
    •    1 cup of cut up carrots
    •    1 cup cubed potato
    •    1 cup sweet peas
    •    1 can of tomato sauce (8 oz)
    •    1 cup chicken broth
    •    powdered cumin
    •    salt and peppers
    •    soy sauce

Here's what to do:

    1. Sautee onion in a large wok or large non-stick pan, until transparent in color and caramelized; add garlic.
    2. Add ground turkey and cook until brown.
    3. Add carrots and potato with the chicken broth. Cook in medium heat for 10-15 minutes, or until the potato and carrots are done. Then add the tomato sauce and sweet peas and simmer on low for 10 minutes.
    4. This time you can add the *soy sauce, *powdered cumin, *salt and pepper. Simmer on low for another 10 minutes and serve over hot rice.


* If you notice that I didn't put down how much Soy sauce, powdered cumin, salt and pepper to put in your dish. It's because each person has a different taste on their food. I don't put a lot of cumin on this dish because of the kids. Plus it's a very strong flavored spice. You can even omit the salt or the soy sauce (for less sodium).

Questions? Email me at CLAIREPFENDLER(at)yahoo(dot)com

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Spaghetti and Meatballs CUPCAKE (Recipe)

 July is a the most busiest time of the year for us. Almost every year our July calendar is pretty much filled with birthdays and parties on weekends. This year hubby's Birthday fell on a Monday. YUP! He's a 4th of July baby.

He has requested this Spaghetti and Meatball cupcake last year, which he saw in my Hello, cupcake! book,  but never had the chance to make it. So this year, our daughter and I decided to surprise him with this simple dessert. I baked a batch of vanilla cupcake and I just used a regular white paper liners. The frosting on the other hand I made from scratch. The book, called for 1 can of vanilla frosting, but if you know me, I hate anything pre-made. It's less special too :-) if you put a lot of work into something, then you might as well go all out and make everything fresh. RIGHT?

Since I'm so nice and I'm in a great mood I'm sharing with you on how to make your own Spaghetti and Meatball cupcake. This is what the book says. If you decide to make your own frosting then you're going to have to eye the ingredients they called for and add onto the frosting.


What you need:
*Note: I'm copying what the book says. I made a whole batch of cupcakes so I used 14 cupcakes and made added fresh blueberries on the rest of the cupcakes. It was yummy!

10 vanilla cupcakes baked in white paper liner 
1 can (16 oz.) vanilla frosting
1/2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
3 drops yellow food coloring
11 Hazelnut chocolate (Ferrero Rocher), unwrapped  (It's hard not to eat one while unwrapping, LOL!
3/4 cup low-sugar strawberry preserve (low sugar has the best color *I used SMUCKER's)
2 tbsp. grated white chocolate, plus and additional chunk for garnish (Optional)

What to do:
1. Tint the vanilla frosting with the cocoa powder and yellow food coloring and spread a thin layer on top of the cupcakes. Arrange the cupcakes on a swerving platter so that they are touching.
2. Spoon the remaining frosting into a ziploc bag. Press out the excess air and seal the bag. Snip a 1/8-inch corner from the  bag. Pipe the frosting all over the cupcakes to make the spaghetti, piling it high and allowing some of the spaghetti to hang over the edges.
3. Place the hazelnut chocolates and the strawberry preserves in a medium bowl and toss to coat. Spoon some of the preserves on top of the cupcakes. Place 1 hazelnut chocolate on each cupcake and 1 on the platter. Top the cupcakes with the remaining strawberry preserves.
4. Sprinkle with the grated white chocolate. Place the chunk of white chocolate on a separate place with a small hand grater and bring to the table with the platter of spaghetti.

This would also be great for April Fools Day. Just watch and enjoy everyone who falls for it. The kids would absolutely love it!


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