Absolutely Tastalicious Muffin Recipe

I recently found this recipe for Blackbottom Muffins and if you have been looking for THE muffin recipe then I, in all honesty believe that THIS IS IT! Search no more for you have just obtained the recipe of a lifetime!


I have tried many a muffins but this one is by far the best and it will be part of my repertoire for a long, long time to come and I am hoping to pass this on to my kids in the future. It is that good I tell you.

Best of all it is so easy to make and the ingredients are all easily available and you can have these in the oven and ready to eat in a few hours. If you are the sort who cannot wait like me, then you can have them the moment they come out of the oven!

The reason they are called "BlackBottom" is probably because the bottom part of the recipe calls for a chocolate muffin mix and the tops of these muffins is a dollop of a glorious mix of cream cheese and chocolate chips. Can it get any better than this? Chocolate and cream cheese - it is a marriage truly made in heaven I tell you.

Best of all, you can use store-bought chocolate muffin mix and then add the cream cheese mixture on top of that. Thus your work is cut in half and this in turn speeds up the process of getting these incredibly chewy morsels into your mouth.

Here is the recipe for all to enjoy:

Blackbottom Muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda (I always use more, so this should read "a HEAPING teaspoon")
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar (I substitute with soft brown sugar - firmly packed)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/3 cup white sugar (again firmly packed soft brown sugar)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips (for want of chocolate chips one day, I reached into the belly of my fridge and found some white chocolate - I chopped them roughly and added them which produced a wonderfully rich muffin...sinful indeed!)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line two 12 cup muffin pans with paper liners. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line two 12 cup muffin pans with paper liners. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese, egg, 1/3 cup sugar and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Fill muffin cups 1/3 full with chocolate batter, then top with a heaping tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture. Bake cupcakes in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until done.

There will be lots of the cream cheese mixture left over so I sometimes bake a double batch of muffins and use small teaspoonfuls of cheese mixture in them. If there are any leftover muffins (which I doubt) then ziplock and chuck them in the freezer and pop them in the oven when you need a fix - guaranteed to still taste like they were freshly baked!

Happy Baking!

Hello Kitty Cake

This is a cake that I did for my good friend's daughter who turned 6 in February. For a first attempt at doing "Hello Kitty" I think this turned out great! I used Wilton Paste Colors for the frosting, however, the black color paste actually turned out a more dark brown than black. Hence, the outline of Hello Kitty is in dark brown.

For 'Kitty purists, her nose is actually supposed to be yellow and it is indeed brown because of a small oversight on my part! If you are wondering how I managed to get 'Kitty looking so perfect, no, it was not done free hand but rather I got my husband to print out a picture of 'Kitty I got off the internet and he cut the outline of the design for me. (Thanks darling!)

Also as you can see, the writing is a little crooked.......I really did not have much time left so this was done in haste. Had I more time, I would have traced the script and done my piping over it. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve my writing please feel free to drop me a line. I would be well pleased with any helpful advice.

I was very happy with the finished product and the butter cake under the heaps of frosting was superb. Moist and a lovely molten shade of yellow - quite unlike the beast of a cake I did for Anoush' which was slightly more brown because I left it in the oven a few minutes extra.

I received lots of good feedback for this cake that I made and I thank God for giving me the patience and strength.

Anoushka's 4th "Superheroes" Themed Birthday Parties

The table setting - food, drinks and lots of other goodies.

Anoushka in her Superman outfit looking well pleased and Caitlyn in her Spidey outfit!

Anoush' getting jiggy with it!

SuperHeroes Party For Anoushka

Anoushka recently celebrated her fourth birthday party in style. She loves Superman so much and she requested to have a "Superheroes" themed party. I made some invitation cards with her on the front dressed in her Superman outfit standing with a cute pose. She looked so hero-like!!

I then made a Superman cake which turned out better than I expected actually which was a pleasant surprise. I made a simple butter cake as I really, really hate sponge cakes (the one's from our cake shops are so horribly bland and unappealing). I then made a buttercream frosting and I colored different portions into the different colors.

I for one believe in using good, quality ingredients so I made the cake with SCS butter and for the frosting I did not use liquid coloring but instead I used Wilton paste colors.

Everyone of our guests so enjoyed my cake and best of all Anoushka was extremely happy. To add to the Superheroes theme, I printed out and laminated loads of Heroes from the internet and stuck them all around the party area. I also filled goodie bags with Spiderman stationery and Superman stickers as well as other bits and pieces. As I brought out the cake I played the theme song for the Superman soundtrack which was so cool.

I hope that if anyone reading this has ideas on how I can improve or if anyone has any tips for me please leave a comment.

partyinmotion

Welcome to partyinmotion - a party planning company which I have set up to start a business doing what I love doing which is planning parties! I welcome you to this blog and I hope that through this blog I can share ideas with you as well as get ideas from people all over the world.

My business is based in the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The reason I chose the name partyinmotion is because firstly, it sounds catchy, sort of a take on the phrase poetry in motion. Also, parties are full of 'motion' or movement because people come to parties to have fun, interact, and socialize. My tagline is "Events to Remember" which is what I want everyone who attends parties planned by me to do...........remember.

I started out by planning parties for my children (I have 2 little girls - to whom this business is a tribute to) and when I received positive comments on the way I planned my parties, I thought, why not take the plunge.

I will, in future posts, add lots of photo's and comments from my guests and share with you the high points and low points (not many of those I hope) of all my party planning endevours.

Thank you for visiting this page.