Double Choccy Mini Muffins by The Fabulous Bakin' Boys

Any chocolate muffin said to be less than 70 calories each is rather inviting.

Check out my fancy woollen leggings from Hounslow!

Then I gave myself a face-palm after opening the box – of course they are less than 70 calories each, they are weeny!

Yeah, apparently my Macbook is now a plate.

Much shouldn't be expected from baked goods which come sealed, and aren't from the baking section. Well... sometimes, you can't expect much from the baking section either – I once had a triple chocolate muffin from Tesco's bakery shelf which tasted like charcoal. Never again.

Packaged baked goods tend to be too dry and boring, with standard shapes and sizes, and none of that rustic, hand-made-with-love, cracked-on-the-top-but-who-cares stuff.

The dryness is nothing to worry about in The Fabulous Bakin' Boys' Double Choccy Mini Muffins (£1 at ASDA, U.P £1.48) as they are filled with moist chocolate and delightful chocolate chips.

The muffin is fluffy and sweet, quite enjoyable, and one can finish it in two bites, or one if you're pushing it. They are moist and fudgey on the inside, and so small that you don't feel satisfied unless you eat three of them to make up a regular-sized muffin.

A good buy if you've got a last-minute party or gathering to plan, and haven't got time to bake.

Otherwise, why not just get proper cupcakes from the bakery, (if not Tesco, then Sainsbury's or Waitrose or something) or make some on your own?

St Margarets was all slushy and raining during a Saturday in January. I had just finished a rehearsal at school, and was looking for lunch.

I ended up joining my friends at a little café in St Margarets, just next to the station, called 'La Creperie Bretonne'. Apparently there's a famous eating place in Paris which bears the same name, and the one in St Margarets is un-Google-able.

The rain was annoying and I wanted to get indoors – this café welcomed me with its lit-up display counter containing cakes, muffins, rolls and croques, as well as a long menu full of reasonably-priced food and drink behind the counter.

One of the things I love about London is the cafés and patisseries, which are just everywhere. Even if you've just had lunch, you could pop into a café for some hot chocolate or coffee, or salivate on the shop windows of patisseries. It is comforting to know that there is food everywhere, available in a chill and comfy atmosphere.

The guy told me that this was a nougat, but [again] I can't seem to find a nougat like this on Google. It's basically some sort of danish pastry with cinnamon and almond, with glaze. It filled me up okay for a lunch meal, and was satisfying.

The hot chocolate was just great. It was sweet, warm, chocolate-y and really value for money. The small size already came in a pretty big cup, unlike in Café Nero's overpriced, tiny, little shot-mug.

Us three friends split a double chocolate muffin into three for dessert, and it was a really good muffin – hot, chocolate-y and fragrant.

As the name suggests, the café also does crêpes which I am eager to try. I will go back to La Creperie Bretonne during my next chance to try out more of their stuff!

La Creperie Bretonne

113 The Broadway
St Margarets

United Kingdom

Click here for part two.

Maple and Pecan cupcakes

Recipe from abakedcreation

Get some pretty cupcake liners and place them in a patterned order for no particular reason.

Chop up some pecan nuts, then realize that crushing them in a plastic bag would've been easier, quicker and less messy.

Add some maple syrup to cupcake batter and take a big sniff.

Put in more stuff, as well as the pecan nuts, and wonder why the batter looks like a puddle of sick.

Make a cool-ass caramel and pecan card and hold it up in wonder.

Wonder why caramel is so magical.

Like, magic.

Take more pictures because you can't believe it.

Think that it looks like a nut army swimming in beer.

Take a deep breath and try to crack the card evenly.

Tell yourself that you succeeded,

sort of.

Eat some bits of caramel.

(I'm running out of instructions)

...

Stop playing with the caramel and fetch your cupcakes from the oven.

Slab maple buttercream on the cupcakes and stick the caramel and pecan chunks on them.

Feel proud.

Very proud.

Take pictures from all sorts of angles.

MAPLE AND PECAN CUPCAKES

(adapted from abakingcreation)

To make the [12] cupcakes:

Ingredients

60g of pecan nuts
110g unsalted butter, room temperature
40g brown sugar
160 ml pure maple syrup
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour

Instructions

1. Put the pecan nuts in a plastic bag and crush them with your fingers or a rolling pin, but not too finely (see photo above). If you want to look more like a professional and less like an angsty madman, you can use a knife to chop them up.
2. Preheat your oven to 180°C and line your tray with cupcake liners.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth.
4. Pour in the maple syrup and mix well.
5. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until incorporated.
6. Gently fold the sifted self-raising flour into the batter until well incorporated.
7. Fold in the chopped pecans.
8. Use an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute your batter into the liners, filling them about 2/3 full. (I just poured them, it will come up to the right amount for 12 cupcakes if you have functional estimation skills)
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester (i.e. toothpick or a stray fork) comes out clean.
10. Let the cupcakes cool while you make icing and toppings.

To make the caramelized pecan toppings:

Ingredients

60g granulated sugar

12 pecan halves (what you get in packets are already halves)

Instructions

1. Pour the sugar in the middle of a heavy-based saucepan and heat it until it turns a pale golden-brown colour. Do not stir with a spoon, but you can tilt the pan to spread the caramel. Do not let the caramel burn into a dark-brown colour.
2. Spread the pecans on a non-stick pan or a silicon baking mat, and evenly pour the sugar over the pecans immediately after removing it from the heat.
3. Leave it to cool and harden. Once caramel is ready, remove from mat/pan and break into even pieces.

To make Maple syrup buttercream icing:

Ingredients

110g unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups icing sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Instructions

1. Using a mixer, beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth.
2. Gradually add in maple syrup and continue mixing until it becomes smooth buttercream.

And we put it all together!

If you have a piping bag, you'll have prettier cupcakes. As you can see, this isn't in the recipe's font because I trust you should know what to do with the three components which you've got. But if you have no basic common sense, what you do is you spread/pipe the buttercream on top of the cupcake, (try not to spread them all the way to the edges like I did) and stick the caramelized pecans on top of the icing, as well as remaining caramel bits.

I have reduced the amount of sugar in the cupcake recipe, to play it safe when faced with maple syrup.

These cupcakes are absolutely delicious. The combination of maple and pecan never fails to impress, and the nuts in the cupcake give a delightful crunch to it. It is so much fun to make, especially with the caramelized pecans. I'm definitely doing this again, when I have recovered from my sugar rush.

I bake at last

What is that?

Is that my oven?

Is that something in the oven?

Is that something I made, in the oven?

:D

I'm so happy to be back. On the first day, I slept for seven hours, so I woke up just in time for dinner, (dinner, no longer 'supper' like they say in Britain) so the only pocket of time I could find to bake was at half-past nine at night, but I took it anyway.

I made butterscotch muffins from a recipe written on a slip of paper by my mum, with mainly the ingredient list and minimal instructions copied from god-knows-where. The muffin was a regular vanilla butter muffin, and the rest was simply butterscotch sauce spread over the top. I made a mistake by using brown sugar instead of muscovado sugar, for the muffin bit. I think muscovado sugar gives a stronger, molasses-ey taste, but brown sugar works too. Still tasted great!

And then the butterscotch decided to throw me in a corner and tell me what a wannabe baker I am.

The last time I tried cooking sugar, I was making creme caramel (a.k.a flan) and, although I got the caramel without burning it, majority of it hardened in the ramekins and the pan. Why? I still have no clue.

I made butterscotch by mixing and heating golden syrup, butter and sugar. Then I left it on the stove while waiting for the muffins in the oven. Then the butterscotch became all weird when I stirred it. It turned into what looked like toffee worms swimming in a pool of oil. I have no idea what happened, could someone please enlighten me.

Anyway, I salvaged what I could, and managed to yank some of the hardened butterscotch onto my muffins.

Overall, the muffins tasted great, with or without butterscotch sauce, (as you can see I didn't have enough sauce for the last four muffins) and I'm happy.

Then we had some great cake from Jane's Cake Station to celebrate my brother's 19th birthday. It was a basic single-layered chocolate cake, and the texture of everything was perfect. Chocolate cream not too runny and not too firm, while the cake was moist and almost jello-like, meaning that it didn't fall into crumbs very easily. It is a cake that you can't fail to like.

Today, I baked this baby, and as my friend Chaice would say, "I feel like a proud mama duck."

It is a Finnish apple cake with cinnamon, found on my trusty recipe source, Foodgawker. It was a rainy day and I woke up at noontime, plus I didn't seem to have plans for most of the day, so why not more baking?

Here's some of the action (Apples being mixed with sugar and cinnamon)

I'm never a fan of spice, such as cinnamon, but I decided to give it a go anyway, and now I actually find the taste and smell of cinnamon quite appealing! While in the oven, the aroma filled my entire house, and I couldn't wait for the hour of baking time to be over so I could try some of that cake!

We got some beautiful cake batter here... and some kick-ass apple-arranging over there...

And some more top-quality springform pan removal... and some apple-arrangement disappointment!

The cake poofed up and rose above the apples, so the apples look like they are disappearing under a patch of quicksand. But it's fine because it tastes amazing.

Well of course it does, because if you take a look at the recipe, the amount of butter and sugar in that cake will give anyone a clogged digestive system if taken all at one go.

Here's a fossil of a quicksand victim.