Great for your health muffin: Berry and yogurt muffins

I really have no reason at all when I bake this muffin, ^ ^, well sometimes life can be like that, we don't need the reason to do something.

All I want is to bake something, for me baking is therapeutic. When I feel down or sometime only bored (haha), all I have to do is go to the kitchen, mix something up and baking it.
But I think it's great to have a hobby like this, haha, because it's not only that you feel better when you making it but when the people you love eating it, you will feel a lot better.
This time, it's almost 8pm. when I start to baking it, after making bread for my dad, I feel bored (well, I make the same recipe again and again) so, I still want to do something more.
Then recipe came into my eyes, well all the ingredients are my kitchen stable (and I think most of you have these at home too). This is the muffin that I think it's great for the people who concern about their health, the vegetable oil is used instead of the melted butter (this time I use rice barn oil, which my friend recommend, it has less smell than other kind of oil), the yogurt, oats and berries are great for your health too.


So, from the reason (that is not a good reason, haha) that I was bored, I got a good muffins to serve my family ^ ^, and a great feeling when I  taste this delicious muffin.
If you feel bored or only want to have a great snack (or you can serve it as a breakfast), just try this recipe. You will see that it's easy to make yourself feel better by baking and other people to be happy when you serve them this delicious muffin too.


Note: I use small (5cm) Japanese muffin tins, but if you use standard muffin tin you will get 8 pieces.

Berry and yogurt muffins

Makes 12 pieces (5cm muffins)

150g ................................ Cake flour
20g .................................. Quick oats
1½ tsp  ........................... Baking powder
.......................................... a pinch of salt
110g ................................. Golden caster sugar
2 ....................................... Eggs
110g ................................. Yogurt
60ml ................................ Vegetable oil
120g ................................. Frozen mixed berries


Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Liner the tin with paper liner.

1. Sift flour and baking powder into medium bowl stir in oats, salt and sugar. Mix eggs, yogurt and oil together, then pour into the flour mixture, follow with berries, mix until just combine (don't over-mix).

2. Spoon batter into the prepared tins, bake for 20-25 minutes. Stand in tins for 5 minutes; turn, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.

Great for your health muffin: Berry and yogurt muffins

Malt chocolate ice cream with Oreo cookie crunch: Bring you back the delicious memory!

As I told you the last time that Oreo will come in the post, haha. Now you can see it, but this time the Oreo come hand in hand with one of my childhood favorite "Ovaltine". The malt chocolate that we usually got a big mug of it when we were children.

I love this drink, esp. when the teacher gave one glass of Ovaltine for all the children when the doctor came to vaccinate us.
Oh, it's a long time ago, ^ ^, but I like to think about the sweet taste of the cold Ovaltine (in Thailand they served us cold one), it's very soothing for the little children when they just cried from the doctor's room.


At that time I still love it to be very sweet (everybody did!) haha, we just eat or drink less sweet when we grow up.
When I saw the recipe in Goodfood magazine, I think "Oh, I must try this!" I think it will be great to bring back the childhood favorite in new form. But I need to make some adjustment because I don't want my Ovaltine ice cream to be very sweet (I don't need that sweet taste now, and I'm not afraid of the doctor or the needle anymore hehe).
So I use only half of the sugar from the original recipe, and the result is fabulous, the thick ice cream gives the great taste, the chocolate, the Ovaltine and the Oreo get along together in lovely harmony.
The chocolate add more intense chocolate taste, when the Ovaltine makes the ice cream smell sweet and Oreo, well, I don't have to say much about it only the fact that it makes this ice cream more delicious!
I make it 3 times now (I don't have a chance to take the photo when making the first batch of it, so you can see that it's very popular, haha).
So, let's make a delicious treat that will bring back a great memory of our childhood day and I know that you will be happy as much as me.

Malt chocolate ice cream with Oreo cookie crunch

SERVES 8 

750ml/l¼pts ...................... milk

250ml/9fl oz ....................... double cream

6 ............................................ egg yolks

70 g/2.5 oz .......................... sugar 

85g/3oz ............................... milk chocolate, chopped

25g/1oz ............................... plain chocolate, chopped 

140g/5oz ............................ Ovaltine (chocolate malt)

154g .................................... Oreo cookies, broken into chunks about the size of a large pea

1 Bring the milk and cream to a simmer in a pan. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until combined. Pour the milk onto the eggs, stirring well. Pour this back into a cleaned-out saucepan.

Slowly heat through for about 10 mins, stirring all the time. Don’t allow the liquid to simmer It should thicken as it heats up and is ready when it’s thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. 

2 Pour the hot custard mix over the chocolate in a bowl and allow it to melt. Add the Ovaltine and whisk until smooth. 

3 Cool, then churn in an ice-cream machine. As it thickens, add the biscuits. Freeze. 

Malt chocolate ice cream with Oreo cookie crunch: 

Bring you back the delicious memory!

Chocolate Banoffee Pies: Easy pies for the chocolate and banana lovers!

Chocolate and banana again, well I think it's one of the best combination in the food world, haha. Actually I happen to love both of them, they are great on their own and the best when coming together.

I feel like there are nothing much to say about this kind of dessert, only that I love it.

Banoffee pie is the combination of banana and toffee sauce. The easiest way to get the toffee sauce is... going out to buy a can of dulce de leche, ^ ^, but the problem is if you don't have it at home or you don't want to go to buy it what can you do? 

For me I just boil one can of the sweetened condensed milk in the pan over low heat for 4 hours (some people said that this method can be dangerous, but I have to say that everything in the kitchen will be dangerous if you don't pay attention to it). The key is always adding the water to cover most of the can and don't use high heat, that's all, then allow it to cool before open it.

For this recipe, I make a little change because I love to use the Oreo cookies (one of my favorite ^ ^), instead of the chocolate digestive cookie, which I don't usually have it at home. And if you like Oreo as much as I do you will love this banoffee pies more than the original version too, haha.

Actually I start to realize that I have many recipe that use the Oreo, so don't be surprised when you see my next post to have this name "Oreo" again, haha.

Chocolate banoffee pies 

MAKES 6 

Oreo cookies ............................. 250g 
Unsalted butter ........................ 180g 
Dark chocolate, chopped ...........75g 
Caramel condensed milk 
[dulce de leche] ........................ 395g
Brown sugar ............................. 100g
Golden syrup ............................ 1 tbsp
Double cream ............................ 300ml 
Small bananas, sliced ............... 2 
..................................................... Chocolate curl, to serve

1.Take the cream out of the cookies. Crumble the Oreo into a food processor. Melt 80g of the butter, then add to the crumbs. Pulse to combine. 

Press over the base and sides of 6 l0cm loose-bottomed fluted tart tins. Chill for 20 minutes until firm .

2. Warm the caramel, and the remaining butter and the sugar in a pan over a low heat. When the sugar has dissolved, remove from the heat and stir in the syrup.

3.Place the chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow to melt, then stir very gently until smooth. Pour the chocolate into the caramel mixture and stir until smooth.

4.Place the sliced banana and fill the tins with the caramel mixture, smoothing with a palette knife. Chill for at least 1 hour to set.

5. In a bowl, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. 

6.To serve, top the pies with, whipped cream, dust with cocoa and sprinkle with the chocolate curl.

Chocolate Banoffee Pies: Easy pies for the chocolate and banana lovers!