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Tham Jiak: It's Weekend Again
Tham Jiak means in some way "love to eat" in Hokkien. I am a Malaysian Hokkien and truly love to eat.

Monday, August 07, 2006

It's Weekend Again

Well a week just flew by in a breeze. It is weekend again. Although I know the weekend breakfast blogging is meant for, well weekend cooking, which means taking more time to prepare and enjoy breakfast. In oppose, I either sleep late on weekends or eat out. On weekdays though, I prefer to enjoy some healthy homemade breakfast before going to work. Knowing that I have a lovely breakfast waiting for me seems to be a pretty good motivation to get out of bed. Now that is the best alarm clock in the world, don’t you agree? So I had this really good, healthy and substantial muffin recipe from 101 cookbooks really long time ago in my to-do list, which I cannot resist sharing it here. I can’t seem to find this post anymore in that blog, so I could not link it, but I will share my adapted version here though.

This muffin turns out great the way I imagine it would be, slightly chocolatey, with good thick texture, occasional encounter on soft raisins and crunch on the nuts. To top it off, it uses all the readily available ingredients in your pantry and is really versatile for substitutions accordingly. These huge muffins can only keep for bout 3 days in room temperature but fret not, it freezes really well, so far I still have 2 left in my freezer and it is still keeping well. Whenever I wanted to have it the next day for breakfast before work, I would take one out the night before, put it in a tall container and leave it in room temperature, and by the time I wake up in the morning, it is ready to eat. No better reason to wake up than breakfast; pour a cold glass of milk and enjoy with this yummy muffin. Eating one is enough to fill you up for the whole morning, without feeling as if you ate too much. It’s really good and healthy too! Give it a try.

Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Muffins

I had, as usual, adapted the recipe to suit whatever I have or can get my hands on. Anyhow, feel free to experiment. Besides, I had halved the recipe to make do with my mini oven, thus there are cases like half a ¼ cup, which I hope you would understand, I advise to double the recipe since it freeze so well, for rainy days. The oat and bran cereal topping is optional, but it does give the muffin a novelty look besides adding more crunch and flavour to it. You can use whatever oat bran cereal you have, or even granolas. Remember to push it down slightly though when you sprinkle on before baking, as quite an amount of mine fell off during removal.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1.5/4 tbsp brown sugar
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 ½ overly ripe bananas, mashed
¼ cup low-fat yoghurt
1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup of nuts (walnuts, almond, pecan)
¼ cup of raisins (original calls for currants)
1.5/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Oil for preparing the pan
Oat and bran cereal for topping

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/350F
Lightly oil a 6 hole muffin pan (I used an oiled tissue to wipe it)
Combine flour, brown sugar, cocoa and baking soda together.
Add in mashed bananas, yoghurt, egg white, vanilla, nuts, raisins and coconut.
Stir until combined.
Pour batter into the muffin pan and top with the oat bran cereal.
Bake about 25-35 minutes, or tooth pick is clean when inserted.

Makes 6 large breakfast muffins

P/S: I just bought a new camera, Canon Ixus 60! I am so ready to take lovely food pictures now. Do you notice the clearer and better muffin pictures? I must admit I need more practice though, as I am still testing out my camera’s various functions and getting use to its ability. So look out for more pictures for you to drool on, I hope ;)

19 comments:

Unknown said...

It looks & sounds super duper yummy!!!!

rokh said...

puspha, certainly yummy! got me off to a good start in the day all the time. give it a try :)

boo_licious said...

Congrats on the new camera! Muffin looks yummy and so healthy.

Babe_KL said...

have fun fiddling with your new toy ;-) hmmm muffins... my boiboi fave

Tummythoz said...

My dream weekday mornings. In reality, not having to rush out the door breaking into sweat is tough enuf. How I envy you. ;)

KY said...

most of mine are taken with a lousy 1mp camera phone. :P

myCoffee said...

Yum..., looking forward to trying this recipe soon. By the way, congrats on the new camera. I have the same camera. Yeah, to me it seems like it has tons of functions but the 'lazy' me always use AUTO...In other words, I still haven't figure out how to use the rest. *LOL*

rokh said...

boo, thank you for your earlier advises, now i got a camera!

babe, i will. muffins are my fave too

tummyThoz, just waking up 10 minutes earlier and you will get to enjoy breakfast. ;) i must admit, half of my them are consumed in the car on the way to work :P that's why i make portable breakfast fare. hehe

KY, well, all my previous pictures are with my lousy 1mp PDA camera, so I understand ;)

myCoffee, try it try it! we have same camera? how coincidence. so far the auto function is pretty good to me

myCoffee said...

Rachel, for this recipe, did you use dessicated coconut or fresh coconut flakes? Can omit both?

rokh said...

mycoffee, i used dessicated coconut. i believe you can just omit it as it only enhances the flavour a little and gives a little crunch.

Unknown said...

This is absolutely fabulous Rokh-your new camera rocks, but your muffins are even more rocking...low on oil and made with whole wheat flour, this goes straight into my to-do list

Audrey Cooks said...

Great camera and muffins too. This is one muffin I will want to make. So I presume the yogurt and the egg white is the binder for the batter? No butter eh?

rokh said...

nandita, yes the my camera and muffins rock! :)

audrey, yes no butter! amazing isn't it? and it is so soft. do try it!

Audrey Cooks said...

Rachel, I made them today, couldn't wait a day longer. Excellent muffins, just like u described them. Thanks for the great recipe, btw I posted it, check it out!

Rayhana said...

hi there,

what is 1.5/4? :p
sorry i was trying to figure it out but didn't wanna take a chance.. wld appreciate if u wld explain it to me, and what it would be like orginally! thanks :D
great blog btw!

rokh said...

sorry for making it so confusing. i was actually specifying one and a half of 1/4 cup. i did a search and that is equivalent to 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoon. have fun trying :).

Glory said...

hi,
thanks for the recipe! this was the first muffin i've ever baked!! very nice! i made some modifications.. couldnt find unsweetened cocoa powder, so used lesser cocoa powder but put in more bananas!! used currants instead.. yummy.. i think i'll be baking this very often!! :-) thanks again!

Carnation said...

yummy, i love muffins. nice work on the recipe blog.

Anonymous said...

tis look quite healthy .thanks ur sharing recepi ^^

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