Muffins or Cupcakes? Yes, there is a difference!

Our new found love: Cupcakes! :)

My sister made batches and batches of cupcakes during Ramadhan from Betty Crocker's French Vanilla cake mix.

I managed to get a few pictures of them before they vanished.

There's actually a difference between cupcakes and muffins.

Cupcakes are basically mini-cakes so you use any cake's recipe and bake cupcakes out of it. Simple as that!

Their bake time is around 20 minutes at 175 ° C.

They are sweeter, lighter in weight and smaller in size than muffins. They are a special occasion delicacy because of their fancy decor (icing).

Muffins on the other hand come from the family of bread. Unlike cakes their inner texture is not very soft. They are sweeter than bread though.

They are plain on the outside and usually have some filling (fruits or nuts) inside.

They require no icing and make for an ideal breakfast. They are best served warm with a little butter perhaps.

The perfect muffins

One fine day my sister got bitten by the baking bug so she baked these muffins. I wanted appropriate sunlight to take good pictures of them. The days went by but it seems the sun just refused to shine with all its intensity on purpose.

Today was yet another day of this nature until it dawned upon me that the sunlight might never be the way I want it to be and by waiting any further there might not be any muffins left at all to shoot considering the speed at which they were being consumed.

There is no point in waiting for the 'perfect light' or a 'perfect moment' in life. We have to grab whatever is available to us right now and make the most out of it. So I finally shot the muffins.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 cup milk

1/3rd cup vegetable oil

1 egg

2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Grease muffin tray with oil or line with paper cups. Its always a good idea to use paper cups as it saves you the trouble of washing the muffin tray later.

Preheat oven to 400ºF/205ºC. Beat milk, oil and egg. Add sugar and beat.

In a separate bowl mix flour, salt and baking powder. Add to above mixture and beat well till smooth. Stir in chocolate chips.

Divide batter equally among muffin cups. Bake for 25 minutes.

This recipe makes 12 muffins. Original recipe can be found here.

Cookies on demand

We just finished a grand lunch all prepared by my sister. The next thing we know it, we were craving for dessert!

My sister wanted me to make sugar cookies but I was putting it on hold for no particular reason.

That's when my sister took a poll on Twitter: 'Who wants CookieNF to bake sugar cookies?' I got enough votes from there that finally compelled me to bake these cookies.

The recipe I used is from here.

Sugar Cookies

3/4th cup sugar

2/3rd cup oil

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 cups flour

Mix sugar, oil, baking powder, salt, eggs and vanilla with spoon. Stir in flour.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on baking tray.

There is no need to grease the tray.

Flatten balls with finger until 1/4 - inch thickness.

Preheat oven to 400º F/205º C. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven immediately.

Do not wait for them to go hard in the oven. Cool completely.

Recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.