When is it a cup cake and when is it a muffin?  for the curious George and Georginette check out  the Faceoff: Cupcakes vs Muffins at Cakespy (just click on their cute drawing)
I love this one test: "If you threw a cupcake against the wall, you would hear something of a 'poof!' If you threw a muffin, you would hear a 'thud!'" :P

 So this morning I made these Zucchini muffins with walnut crumb topping adapting from the Zucchini Bread IV recipe from allrecipes dot com.  I definitely recommend the topping as it balances out nicely with the zucchini bottom which otherwise would be ... a bit boring methink.  And I also think these would be cute to serve on St Patty's day given the green accents in the muffins :-)

INGREDIENTS

makes 6 muffins

• 1 eggs
• 1/6 cup vegetable oil - 1/6 cup applesauce
• 2/3 cups white sugar
• 2/3 cups grated zucchini
• 2/3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/16 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 1/6 cup chopped walnuts

Walnut Crumb Topping

• 1/6 cup brown sugar
• 1/6 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/6 cup walnut

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F ( 165 degrees C).
   
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and frothy. Mix in oil and sugar. Stir in zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder, salt and nuts; stir into the egg mixture. Divide batter into muffin pan (lined with cupcakes holder)
3. Mix all topping ingredients  together really well and crumble on top of the batter prior to baking. Half way through baking cover loosely with foil so the topping doesn't get burned.
4. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until done.

I have problems accessing this from my home PC (window vista) so for now my recipe book is migrating to:

http://kisamuse.blogspot.com

See you there until I figure things out :-)

One day I decided to have fun with the Banana Bread Recipe and make Banana Muffins with Walnuts, Nutella, and Rhum Raisin.  Funny enough they all take on new personalities when 'dressed up' :)

For the Walnut muffin, it's easy enough I just added some chopped up walnut to the batter (pic 1). Walnuts go very nicely with banana as you probably know.

For the Nutella muffin, I just added a dollop of Nutella  to each muffin and swirl it around with a chopsitck (pic 2). The Nutella is definitely yummy and moist  although the swirl is gone when cooked!

And for the Rhum Raisin, well I add rhum to the batter, mix well, pour it into the muffin paper holder then drop in some golded raisins (pic 3) which turn orange when cooked.  I think you can add both the raisin and walnut  for a nutty fruit muffin!

It's that easy really :) 

Are you wondering 'what in the world is it?'  Well, it's my first and maybe last attempt to make an edible origami crane following the instructions found at: ttp://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/EdibleOrigami
(It's quite an interesting site on more than just food)



This is what it's supposed to look like.  ( I can only say in consolation to myself that mine looks more realistic :) like a wounded crane :)  The other thing is I used lumpia skin rather than wonton so it's much bigger but also harder to hold its shape I think. I had some left over wonton skins in the fridge and maybe because they are 'old' when I fold it, it breaks/tears at the crease...



 In case you wanted to give it a try, here are the steps :-)  Look how many this person has made!

Earlier this week I saw some pomegrenate as my neighbourhood fruit stand and it reminded of this healthy, yummy, pretty and perfect snack  that I discovered about a year ago.

 My first try at pomegranate. I have to say it can get a bit messy but it's well worth it.





Ingredients:
- a yogurt
- a pear
- 2 Tbsps of pomegranate seeds

Steps:
- Wash and cut the pomegranate sideway into two. Make eight little nips in the skin around the cut of each half. Place one half in the palm of your left hand (if you are right-handed), cut-side face down over a bowl, preferably in a sink. Now comes the fun and messy part, give the pomegranate a good squeeze to then whack it firmly with the back of the spoon to dislodge the seeds into your bowl. Scrape them out if they are stubborn. The ruby colour seeds are gorgeous! Pick out any bit of white skin that fell into the bowl with the seeds as they are pretty bitter.
- Peel and dice the pear into bite-size chunks
- If you use greek yogurt like me, add some sugar or honey, the pomegranate seeds, pear chunks; mix it all up and slurp :)

- If you just want the pomegranate juice, roll it (whole) on the counter until all the seeds had popped
(your guess is as good as mine :)), pierce a little hole in the pomegranate with the point of a knife and squeeze the juice into a bowl.




Then following Caroline's suggestion, I sprinkled some pomegranate seeds on a scoop Godiva Chocolate Rasberry Truffle ice cream and boy oh boy it was good. The slightly tart and refreshing pomegranate juice balances off against the sweet chocolate gorgeously !!! YUM!!!