Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Sometimes I get into a rebellious mood (and only to regret later). Remember how my gynae had warned me not to put on too much weight too rapidly during this last stage of pregnancy or the baby fat will remain with me for the rest of my life?

Sometimes statements like “DON’T eat so much” or “DON’T eat sugary and fatty stuff” or “DON’T put on weight too rapidly” do not serve their purpose. See the pattern here? The statements all begin with “DON’T…”. Now, if I say “DON’T think of a pink elephant”, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? A pink elephant right? This is becos the brain sometimes cannot process a negative statement as quickly as a positive one.

So the rationale is that if you want something to work for you, you gotta psycho your brain in a positive way, like “Remember to take your pre-natal vitamins”, rather than “DON’T forget to take your pre-natal vitamins”.

Anyhow… becos I want to blame somebody if I really do have excess “baby fats” (in this case, my gynae, cos she said DON’T put on weight too rapidly”), I made Orange Muffins. Orange Muffins with empty calories - (sinful) sugar and (blistering barnacles!) butter.

My Orange Muffins recipe was gotten from Baking Mum’s Madeleines Recipe. I have a muffin tin that can bake six muffins and I could make ten muffins out of her recipe.

I am not particularly excited about muffins, becos they (like those you get from Starbucks) are usually quite big and bleh (the middle part). I only like the top and bottom part of muffins becos those parts are the crispy bits. These Orange Muffins that I made out of a regular-sized muffin tin (same muffin tin I used to make Portuguese Egg Tarts) turned out to be a good size for me becos I had enough crispy top and bottom and just sufficient soft part of the middle of the muffin to make me happy.

Oh. I need to add some notes here. The recipe had called for cake flour. Er… what flour? Cake flour. According to the Joy Of Baking website, “Cake flour has a 6-8% protein content and is made from soft wheat flour. It is chlorinated to further break down the strength of the gluten and is smooth and velvety in texture. Good for making cakes (especially white cakes and biscuits) and cookies where a tender and delicate texture is desired. To substitute cake flour for all-purpose flour use 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour for every cup of all-purpose flour. Make your own - one cup sifted cake flour can be substituted with 3/4 cup (84 grams) sifted bleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (15 grams) cornstarch.“

I did not have cake flour, so I used all purpose flour and cornstarch according to the instructions above. The end-result was that my Orange Muffins was of a slightly more dense texture than if I had used cake flour.

These Orange Muffins are good for breakfast, tea-time or an anytime snack. I have eaten four Orange Muffins and I am not feeling guilty yet.