Carrot Muffins

Muffins aren’t my favorite, but I love carrot breads. This recipe is pretty good, not the best, but pretty good. But I burnt them so they might be better if they weren’t burnt. No, I’m SURE they would be better. I have no idea where this recipe came from. My mom came up to me and said, ‘Here’s a carrot muffin recipe, make it.’ We didn’t have any the first time (that time they weren’t burnt). But the second time our mom let us have some. Here it is.

        CARROT MUFFINS

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I put 3 or 4)
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup honey
6oz plain yogurt or sour cream
½ cup oil
2 teaspoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1&½ cups shredded carrots
1/2 cup raisins

•          Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
•          In a separate bowl, combine egg, honey, yogurt, oil, lemon juice & vanilla.
•          Fold in carrots and raisins. Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups 2/3 full.

•           Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.
•  Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Oatmeal Bake

This recipe comes from a friend in Papua (we live in their house now). And you can put lots of different fruits in this such as- apple cut & diced, banana, mashed, or some other fruits would probably work great. Here it is.

        Oatmeal Bake
4 eggs
½ cup oil
1&½ cup sugar
3 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon salt
6 cup uncooked instant oatmeal
2 cup milk

Combine eggs, oil & sugar in a bowl. Add oatmeal, salt & baking powder, mix well. Pour milk on top & mix in. 
Pour into greased 9x13 pan and bake 30 mins. Can make night before & bake in morning for 40 mins. 
Cook in a preheated 180C (350F) oven.

Oatmeal

  Ok, oatmeal is not one of my favorite foods. I’m just posting it because it is SO different then sticking some oats and water in the microwave. This is so much harder than that. So here it is.

       

        Oatmeal

Six cups water

Six cups oatmeal

2/3 cup palm sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

¼ block (1/4 cup) butter

1 cup milk
1 Tablespoon salt

·         Heat water til’ almost boiling.

·         Add sugar and butter and stir. Turn off the heat. Return lid to pot. Let sit til’ butter and sugar are melted and dissolved.

·         Then slowly add oatmeal one cup at a time. Stirring well between each cup. Add salt too and stir well.

·         Then add milk. Return lid and let sit til’ desired thickness. Maybe 5 mins.

Pumpkin Scones

I love pumpkin breads, pie, etc. so I was looking for some kind of pumpkin bread recipe to make for a friend. I came across this recipe, and we had all the ingredients so I went and made it (a couple days later, maybe 5?). They turned out really good. Even my dad liked them (he doesn’t really like pumpkin stuff). But it has loads of sugar so who wouldn’t like them? I don’t know. So here it is with my changes.  You can see the original recipe at the link below.

                                                                     
        Pumpkin Scones

  

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup plus 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

6 Tablespoons cold butter cut into 1-inch (or almost 1 inch) cubes

½ cup fresh pumpkin

2 Tablespoons whipping cream

1 Tablespoon milk

1 large egg

        Powdered Sugar Glaze

1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

        Spiced Glaze

1 cup plus 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons milk

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of ground nutmeg

Pinch of ground ginger

Pinch of ground cloves

·         In a mixing bowl, whisk together pumpkin, whipping cream, milk, and egg. Set aside.

·         Sift together in a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of your stand mixer), the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Add the cubed butter on top.

·         With a knife, cut the butter into the flour (if using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment on medium speed) until you reach the consistency of coarse cornmeal (butter should be no larger than a small pea).

·         Now gradually fold the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. I used a spatula to do this, but I had to use my hands in the end to get the last bit of flour to incorporate into a well formed dough ball. My dough was pretty ragged, but that’s just fine. The important thing is to make sure all the dry ingredients have been moistened well.

·         On a well-floured surface, flatten and form the dough into a 12”x4”x1” thick rectangle.

·         Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, divide the rectangle into 3 equal pieces, then slice each piece into 4 triangular pieces by making an ‘X’ through them, then cut right down the center of the rectangle in the 12” direction. (http://theshoeboxkitchen.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/pumpkin-scones/)

·         Preheat your oven to 220C (425F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (wax paper works great).

·         You should have 18 triangles. Put the triangles on the pan and bake for maybe 15 minutes or until light brown (mine only took 13 mins, but they were still kinda’ burnt on the bottomL) Remove to a cooling rack or to 2 plates and let cool before icing.

·         Make the powdered sugar glaze by mixing the milk and sugar until smooth, then paint the tops of the glaze using a pastry brush or spread the glaze with a spoon.

·         While the first glaze is drying (10 mins), make the spiced glaze combining all ingredients and mixing till’ smooth. Drizzle onto the scones by putting the spiced glaze into a ziplock and snip off the corner.

The glaze is supposed to dry for an hour, but we waited about 30 mins since it was about 9:00 and we were hungry. These are the BEST scones ever!