Apricot Orange muffins

This is yet another muffin recipe from me. I know I am giving you an over dose of muffins. S even joked that I should be called as Miss Muffin. At first, I thought of not posting the recipe. But then these muffins were so tasty that I thought it would be a shame if I did not share the recipe with you.

I had some oranges in the fridge and there was some apricots. I decided to put them together and bake these muffins. The apricots gave a moist richness to the otherwise regular orange muffins . Apart from these already healthy ingredients, there is also oats and corn meal which give these muffins a healthy boost. mmmmm too good!!! Shall we move on to the recipe??

Apricot Orange muffins recipe:

Preparation time: 20min

Baking time: 20min

Makes- 10 muffins

Ingredients:

Freshly squeezed orange juice- 1 cup

Chopped Apricots- 1/2 cup

Raisins or currants- 1/2 cup

All purpose flour or maida- 1 cup

Oats- 1/2 cup

Corn meal- 1/2 cup

Sugar- 1/2 cup

Butter- 2 tbsp

Baking powder- 2 tsp

Baking soda- 1 tsp

Nutmeg Powder- A pinch

Vanilla essence- 1 tsp

Thick butter milk- 1/2 cup

Method:

• Sift the all purpose flour along with the baking powder, baking soda and nutmeg
• Add the corn meal, and oats to the flour mixture and mix well
• In a separate bowl, mix the butter, butter milk, sugar and vanilla essence and beat well
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix till the ingredients are well combined
• Fold in the chopped apricot and raisins and mix gently.
• Fill the batter in greased muffin cups till 3/4th full and bake in preheated oven at 180C for 20 to 25 min or till the muffins are brown and firm to touch.
• Allow the muffins to cool in the muffin cups for 5min before cooling them on the wire rack.

Note: The muffins turned out a little crumbly in texture because of the corn meal. Feel free to substitute the corn meal with APF if you want the muffins to be soft.

I have used 1/2 cup sugar because I felt that muffins would become too sweet along with the apricots and currants. You can increase the sugar by 1/4 cup if you want the muffins to be sweeter.


These muffins will go to YBR event hosted by Nancy of Spicie foodie

My 100th post and Rava laddu recipe

Hello friends!! Wondering where I was?? As a matter fact even I am wondering the same thing. Even though we moved to the new residence 15 days back, we still have'nt settled completely. We are still arranging and rearranging the furniture, there are 2 more packing cases to be unpacked, we are still shopping for furniture and other house hold items. Apart from these, there are carpenters and plumbers walking in and out of the house everyday. So you can say that my house/world is still as chaotic as ever. My guess is that this chaos should subside by the end of next week.

Coming to the recipe for these laddus, This is my mom's recipe. As far as I am concerned, she makes the best rava laddus ever. I really don't know why I never tried making these. It was only after S's colleague had brought us some rava laddus which was made by his mother, that it occurred to me that I had ignored making this lovely dish all together. I immediately called amma and asked her for the recipe. I made this yesterday especially for the 100th post. So these laddus goes to all of you for encouraging me to blog a 100 posts. I really couldn't have done it without your support. A BIG thank you to all of you for making this a joyful and an enriching experience :)

Rava laddu recipe:

Preparation time: 20min

Makes- 15 to 18 laddus

Ingredients:

Semolina or rava- 1 cup

Sugar- 1 cup

Milk- 1/4 cup, warmed

Shredded dried coconut- 1/2 cup

Cardamom- 5, crushed in a mortar and pestle

Edible camphor- a pinch( optional)

Cashew- 10, chopped

Raisins- 1/4 cup

Ghee or clarified butter- 2tbsp

Method:

• Heat a tsp of ghee in  a heavy bottomed skillet or wok and add the semolina and roast till slightly brown and fragrant. Take off the heat and set aside
• Heat the remaining ghee and add the cashews and raisins. Once the cashews turn brown and the raisins puff up, take off the heat and set aside.
• Transfer all the ingredients except milk, to a separate bowl and mix well.
• Slowly add the warm milk little by little and check if the rava can be shaped into laddus.
• Wet hands with milk and shape them into balls and allow the laddus to cool completely before serving or storing in an air tight container.

These laddus are my contribution to Miz helen's full plate thursdays

And to Nithu's Quick and easy recipe mela

Apple oatmeal streusel muffins

The past few days have been extremely hectic for both me and S as we are moving to new house. Yup!!! We will soon be leaving the house which was our home for four and half years. I had moved into this house just after few months of getting married and made this house my home. There is so much to be done in so little time. The one thing that I have realized over this past few days is that, I am a hoarder. I had never realized that I had collected a huge packing case full of magazines. We really had a tough time sorting them out. So I guess I really don't need to tell you how chaotic my life is right now. 

You must be wondering as to what kind of a mad woman can I be to bake these muffins amidst all the chaos. But believe me friends. It is these muffins which is tiding us through the "pick me up breakfasts" that we are having the past few days. Even though, the breakfast is a hurried one, I can at least make sure that I am having a nutritious as well as tasty one. So here goes the recipe

Apple oatmeal streusel muffin recipe:

Preparation time: 20min

Baking time- 25min

Makes- 12 muffins

Ingredients

For the muffins:

Quaker oats- 1-1/2 cup 

All purpose flour- 1-1/4 cup

Thick buttermilk- 1/2 cup

Unsweetened apple sauce- 1cup

Sugar- 1/3 cup

Baking powder- 2tsp

Baking soda- 1/4tsp

Salt- 1/4tsp

Nutmeg powder- 1/4tsp

Vanilla essence- 1 tsp

Dried currants- 1/2 cup

Butter- to grease the pan

For the streusel topping

Quaker oats- 1/4cup

All purpose flour-1/4 cup

Brown sugar- 1/4 cup

Butter- 2tbsp

Method:

• Heat the oven at 200C or 400F
• Line 10 to 12 muffin cups with paper baking cups or grease the bottoms only with butter
• For the muffins, combine the all purpose flour, salt, nutmeg powder, baking powder and baking soda and sift once
• Add the oats and sugar to the flour mixture and mix well
• In a separate bowl, combine, butter milk, apple puree, vanilla essence and mix well.
• Add the buttermilk-Apple puree mixture to the dried ingredients and mix just until the ingredients are well combined.
• Fold in the dried currants mix gently
• Fill the prepared muffin cups till 2/3 full
• For the streusel topping, combine the dry ingredients and cut in the chilled butter until mixture is crumbly.
• Sprinkle the streusel mixture over the muffin batter and pat gently.
• Bake for 25 to 30 min till golden brown or till an inserted skewer comes out clean/
• Cool on wire racks and serve warm.

These muffins are my contribution to Heather's WWC-cooking with Spelt or Oats event which was started by Sanjeeta