Orange Cupcakes turned out well and I used some chocolate chips top it off with the rest of my batter. You can access the Orange cupcake recipe from this link. These cupcakes are delicious and you would love it.

You could bake in the muffin tins with small moulds or regular or silicon liners.

Earlier I tried lemon cupcakes and they were delicious. You can find the recipe on my old blog. Click here to access it. I replicated that recipe with teeny change, I replaced lemon zest with Orange zest and Lemon juice with Orange Juice. I also used orange essence you could very well ignore it.

Banana is a fruit filled with plenty of nutrients. Combining this with chocolate would only enhances the flavor and make these cupcakes delicious. I am not a chocolate lover hence reduced the sugar.

This recipe makes 12 muffins of normal size. I used the regular ripe green bananas available in India. These aren't large in size you could

Dry Ingredients:

Plain Flour - 1 cup
Regular Sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa Powder  - 3/4 cup
Baking Soda - 3/4 t.spn
Baking Powder - 3/4 t.spn
Salt - 1/4 t.spn

Wet Ingredients:

Ripe Banana - 2 - Mash well using a fork.
Oil - 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Milk - 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Water - 1/2 cup (120 ml)
Egg - 1
Vanilla Extract - 1 t.spn

Preparation:

Sift all dry ingredients, mix and set aside.
In a separate bowl beat egg and add other wet ingredients and whisk well.
Pour wet mixture into the dry ingredients bowl and fold in gently. The batter would be of liquid consistency.
Pour into muffin tin or liners and bake for approx. 17 to 20 minutes. Oven should be preheated to 180 °C.

I got my muffins done at 18 minutes in convection. I baked in a muffin tray with 6 moulds. The baking time might vary slightly based on the type of oven.

This cupcake remains spongy even when refrigerated. 

Recently I made lemon cupcakes and then tried orange ones, now with little alteration to the main ingredient yogurt instead of milk. You could also try making this with buttermilk instead of yogurt. Below ingredients make 12 large muffins. This is filled with nutrients as it contains wheat flour and dates.


Plain flour - 1 cup
Wheat flour - 1 cup
Firmly packed light brown sugar - 2/3 cup (140 gm)
Baking Soda - 1/2 t.spn
Baking Powder - 2 t.spn
Salt - 1/2 t.spn
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 t.spn
Dates chopped - 1/2 cup

Melted butter - 1/4 cup
Yogurt 1 cup
Egg - 1

Orange Zest - 1 tb.spn
Orange Extract - 1.tsp
Vanilla Extract - 1.tsp
Orange Juice - 1/3 cup (80 ml)

Preparation:

Mix all dry ingredients from first section and orange zest with hand and keep aside.
In another bowl beat egg, yogurt, butter and mix using a wire whisk or spatula. To this mixture add orange juice, and flavoring extracts.
Pour the wet ingredients to dry and fold everything together well gently.
Transfer to the muffin moulds or liners and bake at a preheated oven (180°C) for 16 to 20 minutes.

I got mine baked at 17 minutes in convection. Set the time to 17 minutes, check and increase the timing as per the results.

You may add any topping of your choice. I have used some chopped cashews.

While using yogurt ensure you use set thick curd and not the thin packet curd. Whisk the set curd with a whisk or in a blender so that the yogurt would be free of lumps, and it would be smooth.

Ever since I tried baking chicken with different combination of spices, I wanted to try and replicate KFC's fiery grilled chicken. I attempted to do it and the result was remarkable. Like the name say Fiery it's hot. You could alter the ingredients to your choice.



Step 1: Slit and Poke the chicken drumstick with a fort so it absorbs the flavors from the seasoning. Rub some salt, lemon juice all over and let this sit for atleast 15 minutes.

Step 2 : Preparing the seasoning for the drumsticks. I dry roasted some Indian spices and blended it with herbs. I used dried red chilies, Coriander seeds, Cumin seeds, Pepper corns. Blend this to a coarse powder.

Herbs - I used the combination of both fresh and dry herbs. For example 1/4 t.spn dried Rosemary and and about 1/2 t.spn finally chopped fresh rosemary. It's totally upto you. Ensure you don't over power it. You could use one herb or a mix of few. I used Rosemary, couple of basil and parsley.

Step 3: In a bowl mix the powdered spices, herbs, garlic powder ( 1 tspn), granulated chicken bouillon (1/2 tspn), onion powder 1/2 tspn (optional) and some olive or vegetable oil. Mix everything well.
Step 4: Marinate the chicken with the above mix using hand. Cover the container with cling film wrap or with lid and refrigerate for an hour or 2. You could also let it sit overnight.

Step 5: Baking time :)  bake on a preheated oven of 190°C for 40 to 50 minutes. You might want to turn the chicken after 30 minutes. I baked mine on a convection oven.

Now who would not love some potato wedges, except for the ones on diet. I love french fries from McDonalds and Potato Wedges from KFC. Every time I visit one of these fast food restaurants I do not miss a regular in my order.
Baking is recently been added to my culinary skills and I am a newbie in this area as I am still exploring and experimenting.
I tried baking cauliflower, potato cubes, broccoli and the outcome was different with each of these vegetables based on the spices I used. I am going to try the above dishes once again with different temperate and cooking time. But Potato wedges came out so well. I have the list of ingredients I used to season but you are free to experiment with what you have in your kitchen counter.

Ingredients:

1. Potatoes long medium size - 2
2. olive oil - 2 tbl spn
3. Maida (all purpose flour) - 3 tbl spn
4. Corn Starch - 1 tb spn (optional)
5. Parmesan Cheese - 3 - 4 tb.spn
6. Chili powder - 2 t.spn
7. Pepper powder - 1/2 t.spn
8. Garlic powder - 1 t.spn
9. Onion Powder - 1 t.spn (optional)
10. Dry herbs (Parsley, Rosemary, basil) - 1 tb.spn
11. Salt to taste
12. Fresh herbs (Parsely, Rosemary, basil) - finally chopped.