Apple muffins with cinnamon and oats

The previous time I tried this muffin recipe was for the oreo and marshmallow muffins, and the oreo crumbs made the batter a little on the dry side, and the marshmallows resulted in all those cavities.. i decided to try the recipe again, and use apples instead (: another reason was that i had this inexplicable craving for apple and cinnamon muffins x)

so this time i chopped 2 apples into chunks and mixed them into the batter, and loaded the muffins with the crumb topping mixed with cinnamon and oats. The result was quite satisfactory, the muffin was really soft inside, with the apples retaining their juicy goodness, and of course, the crumb topping, the best part of the muffin, is still really good (:

I made normal sized muffins for some of my friends whose birthdays are just round the corner, as well as tiny ones for my class and my gymnastics juniors (:

Cookies and cream and marshmallow muffins!

I had a sudden craving for oreo muffins, so I went to the supermarket and bought oreos.. and I have no idea why but I thought marshmallows would be a good idea too, so into the batter they went (:

They rose pretty well in the oven, and the marshmallows looked nice and brown (: but i wasn't so sure about when to take them out, so the marshmallows got burnt and they exploded o.O I ate one muffin and most of the marshmallows were just empty spaces with sugary residues o__o

But overall these were really great muffins!! its modified from a blueberry muffin recipe, the crumb topping is really nice (: although the insides were a tad hard and dry ): its a really easy recipe, the electric mixer isn't even needed. less washing for the lazy ones x)

Butterscotch brownies/blondies

A few days ago was my trampoline competition, and as comp souvenirs i baked blondies for my batchmates, seniors, and juniors (:

Original recipe: http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/30256/Chewy-Butterscotch-Brownies/detail.aspx

my butterscotch morsels were all stuck together for some reason, so i heated them a bit to melt them and hopefully mix them in. however the batter got wayyyy to sticky and i was so worried my mixer will give up and die.. luckily it didnt. Maybe next time i'll melt them further and stir it in by hand.

they took a really long time to cool and harden a little, and the outcome was this nice, crusty and chewy blondie ((: The crust wasn't as thick as i would have liked, but i really liked the chewy texture (: the butterscotch was rich, it wasn't too sweet, and they did disappear pretty quickly, so i assume it must have been good (: its a recipe worth keeping and making again!

Rainbow Macarons

I have never done food blogging before, but after spending so many hours drooling at pictures of good food on other's blogs, I have decided to start my first food blog! Most of the things I do in the kitchen is usually baking, during the times I have between homework and when I have a sudden itch to make something..

I've been following Mactweets since the end of 2010, and that was also around the time I started making macarons. Truthfully, before I started making them, I have never eaten a single macaron before, not knowing what I was missing out, and I was intrigued by how it's smooth top and frilly feet comes about. Being adventurous teenagers, who have just completed our end-of-year assessments at school, and thus have nothing else to do, a group of friends and I decided to spend an afternoon learning how to make macarons after googling the recipe.

The very first attempt at making macarons, in 2010

And how naive we were! Of course the macarons failed, leaving us clueless and wondering what went wrong for us to end up with cracked meringue cookies. That was when I did more research and realised making macarons wasn't as easy as the recipe looks, and the result: my obsession with macarons ever since. Strangely how something so small can cause such a huge and lasting impact x) I've also learnt alot from all those who participated in mac attacks, everyone always have interesting and inspirational macaron ideas (: Of course, my macarons are still far from perfect, for some reason they always stick to the parchment paper a bit too much when I'm trying to remove them o.o

In the banner up there, are pictures from some of the batches of macarons I have made. Most are plain shells with dark chocolate ganache, and sometimes coffee flavored shells. there was one giant mac I made in the last picture, with the spectacles in the photo as reference.. it was originally meant for me to enjoy sinking my teeth into a mac as huge as my face, but my mother cut it up into pieces when I wasn't at home.. But well it was her good intentions to allow for less messy eating.. .___.

Recently some of my friends asked for rainbow macarons, and then I saw the newest Mac Attack #29 calling for colours... :D and in my sudden fit of excitement, I decided to start a food blog, and here I am typing away while my homework is calling.. erm nevermind that for now.

I'm not sure how to rotate the pictures.. oops.

batter in rainbow colours!

macarons shells matched up and ready for assembly

I went crazy with the food colouring, because previous times the colours were too light and didn't turn out very pretty after baking, and I ended up with these intense shades, causing the macarons look a little like play-doh.. haha x) I also tried piping various shaped macarons, but some of them went out of shape as the batter was too runny after all that mixing of colours :(

Anyway here are the prettier ones!

mickey mouse!

Everything seems to be on pops nowadays, and to join in the party.. here is a heart shaped macaron pop!

They are rainbow macarons with peanut butter filling, and rainbow macarons with apple buttercream frosting (original recipe from the cupcake project)

The idea of using the apple buttercream frosting came from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/new-recipes/caramel-apple-macarons-with-cinnamon-apple-butter-frosting.html, they have some of the coolest and most creative macarons I've seen :D the frosting was good, just a little too sweet for my liking, although my friends loved them. For the peanut butter ones I was afraid the taste of the peanut butter would overshadow everything else and so I filled those macs with less filling. The result was quite interesting, the sweetness of the shells was balanced out by the nutty flavour. I quite like it, and I would probably try peanut butter again, probably peanut butter and chocolate or PB&J (: