Banned: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

No kidding.

Poppy seeds are not sold in Singapore. We have very strict drug-free laws and that extends to poppy seeds. The sale of poopy seeds is banned in Singapore due to the morphine content. Although the drug opium is produced by "milking" latex from the unripe poppy fruits rather than from the seeds, all parts of the plant can contain or carry the opium alkaloids, especially morphine and codeine. This means that eating foods (such as muffins) that contain poppy seeds can result in a false positive for opiates in a drug test.

So although many bloogers have written about lemon poppy seed muffins, do you see why they are very special if you lived in Singapore? I brought my own supply of poppy seeds just because I wanted to bake these muffins for my sis. She is addicted to these muffins (hmm...that may be a bad choice of words...). If I had more poppy seeds, I would love for my sister to try to this Polish poppy seed cake from Margot's mom.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
(from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)
Makes 12 small-ish muffins

grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon soda bicarbonate
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup lite sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the lemon glaze:
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
up to 3 tablespoons lemon juice, fresh squeezed

For the muffins:
- Preheat oven to 200°C. Coat a 12-capacity muffin tray with nonstick spray or line with paper muffin cups.
- In a bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingers to draw out the lemon oils from the zest. The sugar will take on a yellow tinge.
- Sift the dry ingredients into the sugar and whisk till completely combined.
- In another bowl mix together the sour cream, eggs melted butter, lemon juice and vanilla extract with a fork till well blended.
- Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir quickly and gently with a large metal spoon or rubber spatula. Don’t fret if there are some small lumps – do not overmix! Divide batter evenly among the prepared muffin tins.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then remove the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the lemon glaze/drizzle:
Mix the icing sugar with enough fresh lemon juice until it reaches a nice liquid consistency. Glaze or drizzle artisticaly on top.

Fantastic 4 MeMe & David Lebovitz's Black Bottom Cupcakes

A week ago the lovely KJ from A Cracking Good Egg tagged me for the Fantastic Four MeMe. KJ has a lot of terrific recipes on her blog, like her Chocolate Buttermilk Pancakes that I will be making for breakfast this morning as soon as I finish this MeMe. I love Sunday mornings!

For this Meme, I have to list four points for five categories. I will keep some points brief since I my tummy is calling out for pancakes. Feel free to ask me questions if you would like to know more. So here I go:

4 Jobs I've had:

(1) Bakery Assistant. I took up this job so that I can buy my sister a wedding present with my own money. This was the physically most tiring and most under paid job I ever had. I was paid $4.50 an hour and was on my feet from 8.30am till 10.30pm. I did everything except for the baking - serving, packing, cashier, cleaning, cake decorating, etc. The only reason why I hung on to that job for 3 months was because I wanted to work close to home, it gave me the exposure to what it was like to run a bakery, the owners were nice (they gave me a raise - I was initially paid $4/hr), I could eat as much bread as I wanted and I could bring home all the leftover breads.

(2) Volunteer at a large hospital in Perth. I spent most of my time with elderly patients. I also got to push a tea trolley and made drinks for them. It was enjoyable but I also felt sad for them because some patients didn't have any visitors and were battling terminal illness.

(3) University Tutor. I've been tutoring first year psychology for the last three years. I've always been doing some sort of teaching/training/talks for the last 10 years.

(4) Forensic Psychologist. I was doing that for 6 years and although it was a very fulfilling job, I felt really burnt out and I also realised that it gave me a rather dark view of life. That's why I've switched to clinical psychology.

4 Places I've lived:

(1) Singapore, where I was born.

(2) Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA). Lived there for a year when I was at the University of Michigan on a 1-year research scholarship.

(3) Perth, Western Australia. I completed my undergraduate degree there. I loved Perth.

(4) Sydney, New South Wales (Australia), where I am living now. I moved here to complete a doctorate program.

4 Places I've been on Holiday:

(1) Thailand. Friendly people + beach + spicy Thai food. I'm in heaven.

(2) Hawaii. I took a surfing class and tried surfing. All I can say is that I got 10/10 for effort!

(3) British Columbia, Canada. I had my first taste of skiing when I was there. I was by myself and I signed up for a beginners class. It was fun but I still found it a bit scary so all I did was go up and down the bunny slope. :-)

(4) Scotland. I was very fascinated by the castle in the middle of Edinburgh.

4 of my Favourite Foods:

(1) ALL breads, especially wholegrain.

(2) ANY chocolate desserts, especially molten choc cake.

(3) Seafood, especially prawns and raw oysters.

(4) Green, leafy vegetables, e.g. spinach, rocket.

4 Places I would rather be right now:

(1) Singapore. I really miss my family and friends.

(2) Anywhere on a beach, with Quikong, reading a book.

(3) Climbing Mount Everest (o.k. that might be a bit extreme. Maybe a smaller mountain).

(4) New Zealand. I've heard so much about NZ through a Kiwi friend and recent travel shows I've seen on TV.

Thanks for tagging me KJ. That was fun and brought back good memories. Now, on to the cupcakes. And I'm off to make KJ's pancakes. Have a wonderful Sunday everyone!

David Lebovitz's Black Bottom Cupcakes

You can find the recipe for this utterly luscious black bottom cupcake from David Lebovitz's The Great Book of Chocolate and also via this site. It is moist and not overly sweet - I love the contrast between the fluffy choc cake, creamy cheese and the chunks of choc. I highly recommend this recipe.

I followed the recipe exactly (yes, sometimes I do know how to follow instructions!). It's super easy. The only thing to be aware of is do not over-mix the chocolate mixture. If you do over-mix it, the cupcakes will still turn out ok, but might be a little on the dry side. The first time I made this, I made it in a square cake pan (see photo below) and it also worked out fine. I've also made the recipe with the addition of an egg in the cake mixture and it also turned out super moist and fluffy.

Low(er) Fat Baking using Yogurt

I love cakes and muffins, especially for morning and afternoon tea. I usually have a fruit for my mid-morning break, but I like the idea that I have a yummy reward waiting for me after working hard all afternoon. This is also an important strategy because we tend to eat dinner quite late, so having a pre-planned (preferably ealthy) snack in the late afternoon prevents me from snacking on unhealthy stuff in the evening while I prepare dinner.

In recent months, I have been baking with yogurt as a strategy to lower the fat in cakes and muffins. While I love the taste and texture of cakes made with butter, these yogurt cake and muffins still won me over because they taste good in a different way - they are always moist, and the flavours of the ingredients (e.g. fruit) immediately satiates the palate. Quikong also likes them a lot and he doesn't usually like my low-fat baking. Iusually freeze half of what I bake for later snacking or a quick breakfast on the run.

The two tried and tested recipes I want to share are slight adaptations from recipes found 0n two food blogs:

Yogurt Muffins - I found this wonderful recipe from Anne. I've made this a dozen times now. I usually use extra large muffins pans (makes about 9 muffins). I have four varieties of the original recipe that I like a lot:

(1) Banana Maple Muffins (original recipe). My adaptation - I used raw sugar instead, mashed 4 bananas, and sometimes add chopped walnuts.

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(2) Apple and Rhubarb Muffins. I omited the bananas, added a chopped granny smith apple and used rhubarb compote as a filling. (see Haalo's stewed rhubarb recipe but use only 2 tbspn of water).

(3) Banana Rhubarb Swirl mini cakes. I used the original recipe but swirled some rhubard compote through the cake.

(4) Wholemeal Banana Choc Muffin. I replaced half the flour with wholemeal flour, used half brown sugar, half raw sugar, mashed 4 bananas and added a handful of chopped bittersweet choc.

Yogurt Cake:

French Style Orange and Poppy Seed Yogurt Cake - I used Mary's version of Molly's recipe. I added a pinch of salt and used 2 tbspn of poppy seeds. I also pierced the surface of the baked cake with a fork before pouring the lemon syrup over (done while cake is still warm).

Thanks Anne and Mary for posting the original recipes!

Oh, how Delightful!

When I came across the theme for Muffin Monday (MM02) which was to create Muffins that Make you go *Ooooh!*, my mind started to tick instantaneously. The challenge by Elena of Experiments, who is hosting this blogging event, is to create "Unusual and Unique Muffins - using ingredients that you won't normally find in a muffin that you could buy from a store".

Staring at our pantry, my gaze settled on the little bottle of rose water that I had recently purchased. I felt this sudden surge of inspiration - "I shall make turkish delight muffins!", I declared. "Huh?" came the reply from Quikong. I didn't realise that I had said it out loud. Anyway, Quikong usually ignores my ramblings and mumblings but the words "turkish delight" must have caught his attention. He LOVES that sticky sweet treat. After explaining to him the MM02 theme, and describing what I was planning to do, he responded, "as long as there is chocolate in it." He was actually right on the mark - turkish delight and chocolate are very well acquainted. Just look at the confectionary ailse of any grocery store and you can find several brands (e.g. Fry's) that produce chocolate with turkish delight flavours. You can even find chocolate turkish delight easter eggs.

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Turkish delight can be flavoured with rose water, vanilla or mastic and can contain nuts such as hazelnuts or pistachios. It is made from starch and sugar; and cut up into small cubes that are dusted with a powdery mixture of cornflour and icing sugar which prevents sticking.

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This recipe is for all those turkish delight lovers out there!

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Turkish Delight Muffins

(own creation)

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Makes 6 Extra Large Muffins

(the basic muffin mixture was adapted from the recipe provided by Elena)

2 Cups self-raising flour

1 Tspn Baking Soda

½ Tspn Salt
1 Cup Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

½ Cup Vegetable Oil

½ Cup Milk

1-2 tspn of rose water

a few drops of red food colouring

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a few cubes of store bought turkish delight

good quality dark couverture chocolate

Stage 1:

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Prepare the chocolate covered turkish delight which will be stirred into the muffin mixture: Using a sharp knife that has been coated with the powdery mixture, cut the turkish delight pieces into smaller cubes. Melt the chocolate in a microwave and coat the small pieces of turkish delight. Set aside to set or place it briefly in the fridge while you prepare the muffin mixture.

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Stage 2:

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Preheat oven at 180C (Fan-forced) and place rack in the center of the oven.
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In a large bowl sift together the dry ingredients.

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In separate bowl whisk together eggs, vegetable oil, milk and rose water.

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Pour egg mixture into the flour mixture and fold in ingredients. Seperate the mixture into two protions. Drop a few red food colouring into one portion and mix.

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Fill muffin cups - start with either the pink or yellow, then place a few of the chocolate coated turkish delight cubes on it, then pour other mixture, and then pour the first mixture again until ⅔ full. This will create the marbled effect (see second photo of the sliced muffin).

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Bake for 20 minutes until deep golden brown, and after a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove muffins from the tins and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

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Dust the cooled muffins with the powdery mixture from the turkish delight. or place a few of the chocolate covered turkish delight cubes on the muffins and drizzle with melted chocolate.

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And, devour...... oh, it tasted so delightful!!!
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Taster Notes by Quikong:

.Taste, teture, looks - 3.5/5, Originality - 4/5

Total - 7.5 spoons out of 10

Suggestion - Cut the turkish delights bits smaller and put more in each muffin.

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Do check out Elena's blog and the MM02 round up: