what's cookin' good lookin'?

It was only recently that I started baking. I was somewhat inspired by my friend Aim who posted a bunch of photos of stuffs she baked, my cousin Izzy who convinced me that baking is easy peasy and my colleague Sathya who introduced me to the bakery supplies store in USJ and gave me quite a handful of useful pointers on baking. Thanks guys! :D

Funnily, I started off with the simplest of baking recipes - the bread and butter pudding, and FAILED miserably. But that didn't stop me. I did bake the damn thing using a toaster oven. LOL. So, i put the toaster oven away and bought myself a proper oven.

I officiated the oven by trying a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. It wasn't too bad...it could use some improvement, but it was nice fresh out of the oven. :) I came across a recipe that looked pretty scrumptious. The idea of a cinnamony carrot muffin topped with cream cheese and crunchy streusel, I can taste the awesomeness just by reading the recipe...

So I tried it, and I shall continue making them for the rest of my life and put a smile on someone's face. I made them again today and my mom enjoyed it. :D

Here's the recipe courtesy of What's Cooking Chicago? and The Delicious Life:

Note: 
I tweaked the recipe a bit coz I don't like my muffins too sweet. The adjustments are stated in Italic. 

Carrot Muffins:

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sugar (I used 2/3 cup packed brown sugar)
3 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup shredded carrots (about 8oz of baby carrots)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I used 1 cup)
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in hot water or rum for 10 minutes

Grated Carrots

Walnuts. Don't forget to chop them!

All Purpose Flour and Packed Brown Sugar

Cream Cheese Filling:

4 oz. cream cheese, softened (about half of the 250g pack of Philadelphia cheese. I used 3/4 of the pack)
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar (again packed brown sugar, adjust amount according to taste)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Streusel Topping:

1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar (I omitted)1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar (I used 2 tbs)
pinch table salt
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tablespoons warm, melted unsalted butter

Streusel

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare your muffin tins by greasing with cooking spray or using paper liners. (I cant be bothered to buy a muffin tray so I used paper muffin cups and placed them in aluminium foil tart cup thingy)
   
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar; set aside.
   
3. In separate bowl, beat the eggs and oil together until lightened. Stir in the carrots, walnuts and raisins. In another bowl, cream together the cream cheese filling ingredients; set aside.
   
4. Fold the dry muffin ingredients into the wet egg/oil mixture and stir until just combined (don't stir in too much or else you muffins will be dense).
   
5. Fill each muffin cup about ¾ full. Top each filled muffin cup with a generous teaspoon of the cream cheese filling. (Here I filled the muffin cup 1/4 full of muffin batter, then a generous teaspoon of cream cheese, then topped it with some more muffin batter until about 3/4 of the muffin cup)  
   
   
   
   Before topping off with another layer of batter
   
6. Combine all the dry streusel ingredients in small bowl. Drizzle with the warm, melted unsalted butter and toss with fork until evenly moistened and mixture forms large chunks with some pea-sized pieces throughout. Before baking, top the filled muffin cups with the streusel topping.
   
   
   
   Streusel on Top
   
7. Bake about 20-25 minutes*, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake part comes out clean.
   *If making standard sized muffins, bake for 17-20 minutes.*If making jumbo sized muffins, bake for 23-25 minutes.

Before the oven:

After the oven:

Try it yourself! Or you can come over to my place and I'll make you some! :P