Carrot muffins with (St Pattys day) cream cheese icing

I must credit my flatmate for these, before I go any further. We had a belated St Pattys Day BBQ last night and the green icing matches the balloons, cups and plastic cutlery.

This is just the good old Edmonds Carrot Cake recipe which works perfectly as cupcakes (which, in my experience, is unusual...)

3 eggs

1c sugar

3/4c canola oil

2c flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

1/2tsp cinnamon

3c grated carrot

The original recipe also calls for 3/4c crushed pineapple (drained) and 1/2c chopped walnuts but I presume these were left out...

- Preheat oven to 180deg C

- Beat eggs and sugar for 5 mins until thick

- Add oil and beat for a further minute

- Sift flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon.

- Fold carrot into egg mixture.

- Fold flour mixture into egg/carrot mixture.

- Spoon into muffin cups or a greased 20cm round ring tin.

- Bake for 50-55mins if a cake, unsure about the time for muffins to be honest.

- When cold, spread with cream cheese icing.

These muffins were FANTASTIC. However I bit into one today and it may or may not be mouldy... I actually made carrot muffins a fortnight ago with apple sauce (as a substitute for oil, because it's lower in fat) and they were mouldy in 3-4 days which is my experience when baking with yoghurt or apple sauce. However it may have been that my flatmate put something green in the muffins, which I highly doubt. It definitely was not the icing soaking through to the muffin as Tom suggested. It's a real shame because the muffins were perfectly moist, not too sweet and not too carroty. And, my personal pet hate with carrot cake, they didn't contain sultanas! But I would recommend only to make if you can guarantee they'll all be eaten within 6-12 hours sadly.

NB: After some googling I have discovered that cooked carrot often turns green! So not mould, good news.

Subway cookies

Probably the yummiest cookies I've ever made.

2 eggs

225g butter

3/4c white sugar

3/4c brown sugar

2tsp vanilla

2 1/4c plain flour

1tsp baking soda

1tsp salt

2c chocolate chips (combination of white and dark, can use buttons)

-Preheat oven to 180deg C

-Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs, stir in vanilla.

-Combine flour, salt and soda. Stir into wet ingredients.

-Add choc chips.

-Place rounded spoonfuls on baking tray (make sure tray is cool, and not too close together)

-Bake for 8-10 mins until lightly brown on the edges. Don't over-bake!

-Let sit for 10 minutes before shifting them or they'll break.

These went down a treat with Tom and my flatmates, so much so that my flatmate who only ever bakes from a box even made them. Unfortunately it's easy to eat 2 or 3 at once so i don't recommend them for anyone on a diet! If you over cook them they're a bit too hard when they cool down so it can take a few tries before getting the perfect bake. Good luck!

Best Ever Chocolate Mud Cake

This really does live up to it's name! It's a bit trickier to make than a regular chocolate cake and definitely more time consuming. And until AFTER I made this cake I had no idea what buttermilk was or whether we could get it in this country- so for every 1 cup of buttermilk that you're meant to use, you can use 1 cup of regular milk and 1 tablespoon of either vinegar or lemon juice (and let it sit for 10 minutes before using it).

220g butter

220g dark chocolate

6tsp coffee

160ml water

480g castor sugar

7tsp vegetable oil

125g self raising flour

125g plain flour

50g cocoa

1/2tsp baking soda

4 large eggs

110ml buttermilk

-Preheat the oven to 160deg C

-Melt butter, choc, coffee and water in a saucepan. When combined, remove from heat.

-Sift together flours, cocoa, sugar and soda. Make a well in the middle.

-Whisk together eggs, oil and buttermilk. Pour the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and gently whisk.

-Pour wet mixture into the well in the dry ingredients. Mix well.

-Pour into greased cake tin (22cm round) and bake for approx 1h 45min. Leave in cake tin until completely cooled.

I put grated white chocolate on mine after using just a regular chocolate icing.

This was for Tom's birthday shout at work so I didn't get to try the cake- but there were no leftovers brought home which is a good sign! YUM!

Cadbury Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Easy to make, about 10 mins prep time and 25 mins baking time.

Recipe made 15 muffins, in a regular size muffin tin. I used standard Pams Chocolate Chips instead of Cadbury Dark Cooking chocolate and no muffin cups.

Muffins came out soft but crisped up a little when they started to cool.

I just love baking with NZ recipes because I know they are made with the exact same ingredients that I have in the cupboard and designed for a NZ oven.

Verdict: Delicious. Not too moist, not too dry, and not too sweet. Now let's see if they last the week without going mouldy in the muffin tin!

Recipe found here: http://www.cadbury.co.nz/Cadbury-Kitchen/Kids-in-the-Kitchen/Chocolate-Chunk-Muffins.aspx

Hi, my name is Kaylene, and I'm addicted to baking.

It has come to my attention that I bake a lot. And because I bake a lot, I use a lot of recipes. And because I use a lot of recipes, I can never remember which ones I have tried and which ones I actually liked.

Google Chrome Favourites can only help me so much, so I decided to blog about my creations. I am no professional baker, and my products don't always look perfect, or even good.

But this way I can record the recipe, what it looks like, and what Tom's verdict is! This is because I don't often sample my own creations, but I do it because it's relaxing and I love the smell in the house!