Steamed Pumpkin Muffins

Since Boyboy is stuck at home and Didi is boarding at Popo's place, I decided to try baking with him during this confinement period. Today was a good day because at Day 3, he had exhausted his desire to watch TV all the time in this new-found 'freedom' from school ;)

There was a big piece of pumpkin in my fridge, so I thought of making these muffins from Food 4 Tots again. Actually, that is probably the only thing that we can 'bake' these few days cos it is in fact steamed and not made using an oven. After all I was supposed to keep him away from heaty food. This is nutritious too!

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This is a great recipe for children cos it uses the mixing method using normal balloon whisk. No need to carry out (and wash after use bleah) your electric beater, or hand whisk til your arms drop.


RECIPE:


[Dry mixture]

Sift together

200g cake flour

1.5 tsp Double Acting baking powder

[Wet mixture]

Beat til foamy
1 room-temperature egg abt 64g (I used a normal Seng Choon one)

Stir to dissolve these into egg mix
85g castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Stir in separately in order:
100g thick coconut milk
30g EVOO
125g steamed mashed pumpkin


[Combine wet & dry mixtures]

Make a well in centre of dry mixture, pour in the wet mixture and fold in til well-blended. Put into lined cups and steam,

And that's it! So simple right?


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First, the pumpkin. Buy Australian pumpkin which is sweeter. Not the Vietnamese ones. Japanese ones can too, but more ex and harder. Not sure if will affect the final texture.

The recipe calls for 125g of steamed mash pumpkin. I used half of this chunk and had about 2 tablespoons of mash leftover.

Instead of dicing the pumpkin to steam, I cut it into 4 big chunks so as to retain more nutrition. Let Boyboy drink the water expelled by the pumpkin during steaming, and he gave it a thumbs up, saying "又健康，又好喝!" Lol.

Recipe also requires Double Acting Baking Powder. This helps with the light fluffy texture of the muffins. Note that the muffins may look like 发糕 or Huat Kuey, but the texture is more similar to 'real' muffins.

You can get DABP from Phoon Huat, but I managed to find it at NTUC Xtra @ City Square Mall. From the comments on Food 4 Tot, the muffins will not be as light if you use normal baking powder. So try not to skip this.

Coconut milk is used in this recipe to add to the aroma and sweetness of the muffins. I used Kara Coconut Cream and it smelled so heavenly! But felt that the taste was a little overwhelming. Can put less or use healthier evaporated milk next time.

These are the pudding moulds I used. Food 4 Tot used $2 pudding cups from Daiso and took about 15 minutes to steam her muffins. I found these $1.90 ones from the same NTUC Xtra branch above. These are smaller and thinner, so they cooked in less than 11 minutes. A plus is that they can be used to make cute puddings!

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I copied out the recipe in my usual method to make it easier to understand. Numbered the steps and labelled the ingredients with letters.

Learning Point 1:

Unexpectedly that got Boyboy's attention! He's very interested in numbers and letters now, so he studied it for a while. Later I got him to help me find the next number / step, as well as the ingredient to use. Helps in recognition of numbers, letters and some sight words.

Learning Point 2:

I also got him to help me weigh out all the ingredients, watching the number on the digital scale jump as I increased the amount. This exercise helped him to be clearer about the sequence of numbers after 30 ;) He was counting them out like a Getai auction host!

Also took the chance to explain the difference between tablespoon and teaspoon.

Learning Point 3:

It was also a great exercise in being gentle haha. Very useful for being with Didi :p

Boy mashed the steamed pumpkin gently and also carefully sifted the flour for me... although quite a lot fell outside the bowl and onto the kitchen floor. But I already disclaimed to him that if he doesn't do each step carefully the muffins might not taste nice ha!

He got into the momentum and wanted to hog the whisk and do everything. So I let him beat the eggs (snuck in some of my beating when he rested) and also help dissolve the sugar and salt.

Learning Point 4:

Practice writing your numbers! I taught him how to beat using a No.8 action and let him pretend-write other numbers in the wet mixture.

He was very excited to get the muffins out and feed them to Grover and Oscar who were greedily waiting -_-"

Taught him to fold in the dry mixture over the wet one. Boyboy then scoop the batter into the lined pudding moulds. Used my stash of football-print cupcake liners and he was so happy ;)

Learning Point 5:

Patience, patience, patience. Had set the digital timer for 15 minutes initially and Boyboy must have come looked at it 5 times by the time I realised the muffins were ready @ 11 minutes.

He couldn't wait to eat them so I made an exception and let him have the muffins for lunch ;)

Learning Point 6:

The rewards of your own labour are sweeter :)))

After today's experience I think I have more confidence to bake with Boyboy again. He seems to have an aptitude and can actually settle down and focus on the tasks at hand. He's already asking me what we're going to bake next.

Later boy.... when you get well :)