Eggless Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes / Mini Cupcakes / Muffins

[Video update on 4th March:

 ]

Who likes a hint of coffee in a moist, luscious, chocolate cupcake? I do! And so, when I was trying a batch of mini chocolate cupcakes last month, I went ahead and added some coffee in it. I loved the result and thought of sharing with you all. For this post, I made regular muffins, but given a choice, I'd go for a mini muffin any day. They are cute, just a tad bigger than bite-sized and, they've always been my favourite form of cake! If you do not have a mini muffin tray, you can use a regular muffin tray, but like I have said in my earlier posts here and here, do try to get your hands on one!

 I have not iced these cupcakes because they taste great as they are. The recipe is slightly modified from my earlier post on eggless chocolate cake. I halved the recipe and made some minor changes. If you want to make only chocolate cupcakes or just an eggless chocolate cake, then you should definitely try that recipe.

Ingredient:

1 cup water

1 ½ tsp coffee powder

1 ½ cups maida or all purpose flour

3 tbsp cocoa powder 

1 ¼cup sugar

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

½ cup oil

1 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice (or vinegar)

1 tsp vanilla essence

* Preferably caster sugar. If using regular granulated sugar, grind in a dry mixer for a couple of seconds. This is to dissolve sugar easily later. Optional step.

Method:

Bring water to a light boil and dissolve the coffee powder in it. Allow to cool completely.

Meanwhile in a bowl, mix maida, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. [ Run them through a sieve if they have lumps].
In a large bowl, mix all the wet ingredients - coffee solution, oil, vanilla, lemon juice, Add sugar and blend with a hand-held electric mixture till sugar dissolves. To this add the dry maida mixture little by little and mix thoroughly to get a smooth mixture. Blend for a few seconds.

Preheat the oven to 170  ͦC [340  ͦF].  

Line a muffin or mini muffin tray with paper liners. Pour in the batter till they are 2/3rd full.

Bake for about 20  to 22 minutes for muffins (15 to 18 minutes for mini muffins) or till fork inserted in the centre comes out clean.

NOTE: If the cupcakes are overdone, the edges tend to become crisp and stick to the paper liner.  Every oven differs in baking time so keep an eye. Once they are done, leave them to cool completely and refrigerate for atleast 30 minutes. Otherwise they may not come off easily from the paper liner.

You can easily double the recipe if you are looking to make lots of cupcakes. Infact I made a huge batch of these cuties for my son's birthday. The picture below is of a mini muffin tray and of the cute li'l muffins ready to be arranged for the party on their cupcake stand.

Go ahead and ice these cupcakes with icing of your choice and sprinkle some sprinklers on them if you like them pretty. As for me, I was content with these cuties adorning the dining table during the party. A proud moment indeed :)!

Basic Cake / Vanilla Cake

Under all the beautifully hand crafted fondant, the deliciously flavoured frosting and the subtle, creamy filling, lies a simple cake that holds these elements together. Here's a recipe of one such cake.

This is a vanilla cake by virtue of the vanilla essense I added, but you can experiment with any flavour of your choice. Another similar post that I have is of a simple yellow cake which is very easy to make, but I wanted one which required only 1 cake pan. So I went ahead and halved the ingredients of the famous 1234 cake adjusting butter according to the way it's packaged in India. Here we get butter in 100g slabs unlike the sticks it comes in elsewhere. 1 stick equals 113 g or 1/2 cup while a slab weighs 100g.

Ingredients :
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
100g butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

Note:
-All the ingredients, specially butter, should be at room temperature.
-Baking powder is different from baking soda.
-Please check the contents of the butter. If it has salt, don't add extra salt. You can add a small pinch if you want to. I forgot the butter was salted and I did add a pinch, but the cake turned out fine. Besides, I like salt. If the butter is unsalted, add a good pinch of salt.
-Try and use castor sugar (thin granules) if you want the butter and sugar to cream beautifully. I used granulated sugar which I found in my nearest small grocery store. The kind you run to after you start cooking. This sugar was very stubborn and did not want to get creamed easily.
-Try to get your hands on good quality vanilla essence. Always smell it before you add it. There was a time when I threw my cake because the synthetic vanilla essence I used was horrible. It was horrible. Did I tell you it was horrible?
-Try to get your hands yet again, on good quality parchment paper. It's a big boon. You don't have to grease too much and your cake will pop out right out when you invert the baking pan.
-Before using all purpose flour (maida), sift it to remove lumps/ impurities, if you wish to do so. To sift, just pass it to a large sifter / strainer.

Method:

First mix the dry ingredients. For this, in a bowl, add maida, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix well.

Now in a large bowl, take some butter. The butter should be soft enough to be mixed easily. Add sugar and mix with a spoon or spatula. With a hand held electric mixer, blend the sugar and butter for a minute or two till you get a nice creamy mixture. Add eggs and vanilla essence [ Notice how well I've succeeded in highlighting the eggs and not focus on the "creamed" sugar and butter, because, well, it did not cream well]  Blend to get a creamy mixture. To this add milk and flour mixture [the dry ingredients which you had mixed earlier] little by little and blend gently as you add. Towards the end, mix well with a large spoon or spatula, scraping the sides.

Preheat the oven to 170C [340F].

Grease the sides and bottom of an 8" or 9" baking tin with oil, butter or ghee. I also lined the base with parchment paper. Pour the batter into the tin. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or till a fork inserted in the centre comes out clean. [ I baked for 35 minutes so the cake browned a little more, but the taste was great. Infact I like it that way. I'm not justifying]. Allow to cool and invert on to a cakeboard / plate.

So now that you have a simple basic vanilla cake, you can experiment with flavours, fillings, icings, toppings and what not. Happy Baking!

Easy Eggless Banana Cake

Usually when I buy bananas, I end up buying a dozen of them. They come home with me and sit stubbornly in the fruit basket, as if gesturing to stay away for a few days till they ripen. And ripen they do, all together, making me wonder if they take a silent pledge of equal fruition. Almost always a couple of these bananas, specially the ones that stay at the bottom of the pile, end up getting ignored, and they seem to vehemently make this clear by quietly changing colour.

That, ofcourse, is not an excuse to bake this cake. Infact, I made this cake just as the bananas ripened, because I was waiting to lay my hands yet again on my new OTG after the delicious outcome of my earlier experiment - Eggless mini mango muffins. Just like the mango muffins, this is an eggless cake that comes out soft and light.

So here's the recipe. It's easy to make with ingredients probably available in your house right now.

Ingredients:
2 medium-sized ripe bananas
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup yogurt (curd)
1/4 cup oil
1 pinch salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cup maida or all purpose flour

Method:
Roughly chop bananas and blend with sugar and yogurt for about 20 seconds to get a smooth paste (there shouldn't be any banana chunks).
Transfer this paste to a large bowl. Add oil, mix gently till you fold it in and then mix thoroughly. Add salt and baking soda and mix. To this add maida little by little mixing as you add. Mix thoroughly, scraping the sides, and get rid of all lumps to get a nice and smooth paste. [You can use an electric hand mixer]. Make sure there are no lumps and that all ingredients are mixed really well.

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

Line a baking tin with parchment paper or grease it well with oil. [ Use a 7" round tin. I used 8" and the cake became thinner than I'd have liked].
Pour the cake batter into the baking tin. Bake for 35 minutes (+ or - 5 minutes depending on the oven), till a fork inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool. Invert the cake (gently peel off the parchment paper if you have used it).

My husband's serving suggestion - have this hot with ice-cream. Sounds yum!

Eggless Mini Mango Muffins

[Video update on 30/4/2015 :


 ]

Mango is such a divine fruit.  Mangoes are pulpy, juicy, sweet, luscious. Their bright orange-yellow colour plays with your eyes and their succulence makes them totally irresistible.

Here's an easy, eggless recipe with easily-available ingredients to make mini muffins out of these delicious mangoes. I prefer mini muffins to muffins because they are smaller, good for a quick bite and can be very appealing. If you don't have a mini muffin tray, you can use a regular muffin/ cupcake tray (baking time will increase by about 10 minutes), but I would urge you to get yourself the mini muffin tray. A few online stores seem to sell them. Mini muffins look very cute and you can serve them at a party or take them to your friend's house or to your child's play date and they will be immediately liked. You can even slip one into your child's tiffin box.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups Maida or all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

¾ cup sugar

3 to 4 cardamom pods

½ cup melted butter OR ghee

½ cup thick yogurt/ curd

2 large or medium mangoes (for 1 cup thick

mango pulp)

Note :
- I used 2 regular sized mangoes for the pulp/ puree. For best results use ripe and sweet mangoes.
- All ingredients, specially the mango, should be at room temperature.

Method:
In a bowl, combine maida and baking soda and keep aside.
Discard the skin and blend cardamom with sugar for about 10 seconds. Take this powdered sugar into a large bowl. Add ghee and mix well. Get rid of lumps. To this add curd and mix thoroughly. Get rid of lumps.

To make the puree, chop mangoes roughly and blend for 10 to 15 seconds or till you get a fine puree. Measure out one cup [You may need more mango depending on the size. ] Add puree to the above mixture and mix really well. Get rid of lumps. You don't want any lumps.

To this, add the maida+baking soda little by little and mix thoroughly [ I used my handheld whisk. You can use an electric hand mixer to get a smooth mix.]  Make sure you get rid of lumps. The batter should be smooth and lump-free.

Preheat the oven to 170˚C or 340˚F.

Line a mini muffin tray with paper liners. If you don't have a mini muffin tray you can use a regular muffin tray. The baking time will vary.
Using two spoons get the batter into each liner till it's 3/4th full.
Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, till the muffins are done and a fork inserted in the centre comes out clean.
[If you are using a regular muffin tray, bake for about 22 minutes.]

Allow to cool. You can frost these muffins and make cute cupcakes out of them. [If you are using a regular muffin tray and you realise only later that the inside in still a little sticky, then refrigerate the muffins and they should be good after an hour].

Enjoy these cute treats with your family or friends!

Valentine Brownies

This morning my son had a Valentine's Day party in school and he wanted me to make a cake for his friends. Using a heart-shaped pan, I baked these brownies and sprinkled powdered sugar on top.

The heart shapes are cut-outs of parchment paper on which I sprinkled powdered sugar. My son was very excited about the cake and helped me place the hearts on the cake. Here's to another kitchen adventure with my son!!

Links : Cake-ish Chocolate Brownies
            Hearts on top

Eggless Almond Coconut Cookies

2011 has indeed been an eventful year for me. I did a few things I'd never dreamt of doing - wrote the 100th post in my blog, drove hundreds of miles on the freeway, ran a half marathon, learnt (a bit) of swimming, indulged in some water activities. If you ask me whether I want to live 2011 all over again, I'd say, hell yeah! But 2012 is already here bringing with it some new promises, a few challenges and lots of aspirations.

One more development that happened the previous year was I got a very good camera (thanks to my husband), so my pictures are getting better. I have started liking photography and love taking pictures of food. Previously, clicking pictures at night proved to be a challenge since taking close-up pictures meant having to tackle unnecessary shadows.

Coming to the cookies, these are a crispy crunchy lot with a delicate tinge of almond and a subtle flavour of coconut. These were actually supposed to be almond nankhatais. I was experimenting by adding almonds and coconut, with a few changes and substitutions (butter for ghee, sugar for powdered sugar). But the top did not crack like a good nankhatai's should, so I prefer calling them eggless cookies :).

Ingredients: 
1 cup almonds
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup grated coconut (not sweetened)
1 cup all purpose flour or maida
1/2 tsp baking soda

Method:
Grind the almonds (without water) for 15 to 20 seconds till they are powdered. [I did not soak them or skin them, so these are almonds with the skin].

In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar with a fork or spoon. You can very well use your hands. The butter should be soft (need not be completely melted) so that you can mix it easily with the sugar. Add almond powder and coconut and mix well.

To this add the flour and baking soda and knead very well with your hands till you get a soft dough. Leave aside for 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Scoop out tablespoon measures of the dough. Roll into a ball, flatten and place on the baking tray a couple of inches apart. Using a tablespoon each time will give you cookies of the same size.

Bake for about 16 minutes or till the edges turn brownish. The center will be soft. Allow to cool for a few minutes. The cookies will harden once they cool completely. This recipe yields 30 to 32 cookies.

More eggless cookies-
Nankhatai
Eggless Chocolate Chip Cookies
Eggless Oats Dates Cookies
Jeera Biscuits

My Baby Turns Three!! Celebrating with Train Cake

Happy B'day Vineet!!

My li'l baby is now three years old!! This year I made a train cake for him which we took to his school. I followed this video to make the train. For the cake I used this recipe - baked the batter in a 9" loaf pan (for about 60 minutes). I made two batches for two loaf pans.

I did not take step by step pictures because the entire process was time consuming and I had a lot of buttercream all over my hands!! I used Wilton's store-bought icing to ice and decorate the cakes. All the steps are clearly given in the video. I more or less followed the video, making a few changes here and there.

I finished decorating the cake at 3am what with the crumb coating and all. My son was up till about 10 pm, wondering when I would finish making the cake, after which he went off to sleep. I had just finished making the loaves when he slept so he had no idea what was happening next. Until the next day when he woke up and saw the train cake. The look on his face was priceless!! :)

Gingerbread Men / Gingerbread Cookies

It's that time of the year again when the streets are lit beautifully. Every store you go, every place you visit, the spirit of the season is unmistakably infectious. It's the most wonderful time of the year is played almost everywhere and you cannot help but feel wonderful.
My (almost) 3 year old has now started understanding several things around him. And this season seems to be his most favourite yet. (Oh that is what I felt about Halloween too). His vocabulary nowadays has been widened with 'snowflakes', 'snowman', and of course, 'Santa Claus'.
The whole of yesterday, he was insisting that it was gingerbread boy and not gingerbread man while, to humour him, I was telling him otherwise. Kinda reminded me of the 'coffee - toffee' ad I heard growing up. Boy or man, these gingerbread cookies sure made our day so much more 'wonderful'. From the time I told him - 'let's bake some gingerbread cookies' to the time those cookies went into his little tummy, my restless li'l boy, though still restless, was the most well-behaved! He patiently waited as I was browsing for a recipe, was very careful when I was measuring the ingredients and used a lot of "please" when he wanted to help me cream the sugar and butter - something which he considers his job now! The two hours of wait time when the dough was in the refrigerator was the toughest for him but Dora, Diego and Team UmiZoomi came to his rescue. A couple of times, I did hear the fridge door opening but I blame myself for forgetting the safety lock.
When it was finally time to roll the dough, there he was, standing on his little chair, holding the little cookie cutter with a big smile on his face. His joy on my letting him cut a couple of gingerbread men left me so happy.
When the cookies were finaly done (he brought my attention to the beeping timer), "Amma, where are your oven mittens" took me by surprise.
When I was decorating the cookies he sat next to me instructing me where to put the eyes, the smiley etc - something he remembered doing in his school where they had to decorate a foam cut-out of a gingerbread man. Thank you gingerbread man, you sure made my day!

Recipe from here (with minor changes)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup mollases (I used Grandma's brand)
1 egg
2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (maida)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder (I used only 1/2)
1 pinch nutmeg powder

Icing
1 cup Powdered sugar, 1 tbsp juice of lemon, water

Method:
Bring the butter to room tempertaure. With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar. To this add molasses and egg and beat further. Scrape the sides as you beat .
In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and the spice powders.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Beat with the electric mixer for a few seconds till they combine well. The dough will be sticky. Knead a bit with your hands and refrigerate covered for 2 hours. [The dough may smell strongly of molasses but will be ok after baking. Also, make sure you refrigerate the dough for 2 hours otherwise it will be sticky when you work on it.]

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line a cookie sheet (baking tray) with parchment paper. Remove a small portion of the dough from the fridge (about 1/3rd).
Spread some flour on a clean countertop. Roll the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Spread some flour on top. With a cookie cutter cut into the desired shape. Arrange on the cookie sheet a couple of inches apart. Bake for 9 to 10 minutes. If the cookies are thinner, bake for a shorter time. The edges should look done. The centre will be soft but will  harden as the cookies cool.
Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Here's a simple icing that you could make in seconds. Just mix 1 cup powdered sugar with 1 tbsp juice of lemon and approx 2 tbsp water till you get a thick but flowing liquid. If it becomes too flowing, just add some more sugar.

Transfer the icing into a piping bag or ziploc. Snip off a very small portion. Decorate the cookies.

Mini Banana Muffins

I find mini muffins cute. Very very cute. Specially when they are held by tiny little hands. Like my son's. He absolutely loves mini muffins. I first baked these when his friends came over for a playdate. I baked these again today. Thought I'd share them with you. I found the recipe in Sweet Oven Lovin' and made a couple of minor changes. Both times these have turned out pretty good. 

I made these today specially for my son's Halloween parade at school. These are the shots taken before decorating. If the decoration comes out good, these will probably feature in my next post too.

Ingredients :

2 medium or large ripe bananas

1 2/3 cup all purpose flour or maida

1 tsp baking soda

1 pinch salt

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Method :

Peel and mash bananas.

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Line mini muffin pan with liners. If you don't have liners, grease them well.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, with a hand held electric mixer, beat sugar and oil. Add eggs one at a time and beat. Add vanilla and beat further.  To this add the mashed bananas and beat well.

Add flour mixture little by little and beat at low speed. [Don't add all at once as the flour will fly all over]. Do not over mix. You can even mix with a fork or large spoon. A few lumps are ok.

Pour the batter into the muffin liners, till each liner is almost full. The muffins will expand so leave some room. [ I used two spoons to fill the liners. One to scoop out the batter from the bowl and the other to scoop out the batter from the spoon and scoop it into the liners].

Bake for 11 to 12 minutes or till fork inserted in the muffin comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely. Tastes better after you refrigerate for sometime.
Makes 24 to 28 mini muffins.

Yellow Cake

Here is a recipe for a basic (two-layer) yellow cake. I was happy with the texture of the cake - it was soft and moist, so I thought of sharing it with you all. You can choose to serve the cake as it is, or frost it with your favourite icing.
This is Betty Crocker's Starlight Yellow Cake  recipe and is very easy to execute - just dump all the ingredients in a (very) large bowl, beat the heck out of them and you have your cake batter. I made one minor change - the original recipe called for 1 tsp of salt which I found a little too much. Go ahead and add 1 tsp salt if you like saltiness in your cake. However, if you are planning to frost your cake, you may not want to add too much salt.

Ingredients :
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup milk (room temperature)
3 eggs

Method :
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180C).
Grease the insides of two 9" round pans liberally with oil or cooking spray. [Or line with parchment paper].
In a large bowl, pour all the ingredients. [Pour the dry ingredients first so that they are at the bottom of the bowl, otherwise they will fly all over when beating].
With a handheld electric mixer beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Increase the speed to high and beat for 3 minutes. Make sure you keep scraping the sides with a spatula as you beat, so that all the ingredients are mixed well and lumps are not formed.
Pour the cake batter equally into the two pans.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until fork inserted in the center comes out clean. [Mine took 25 minutes].
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for 20 to 30 mts. Invert the cake onto a cake board. Frost if desired. [I used flour frosting]. Refrigerate before frosting so that the crumbs don't show up. Refrigerate after frosting so that it sets well on the cake.

Hershey's 'Perfectly Chocolate' Chocolate Cake

The first chocolate cake I ever made from scratch was the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake. It is what they call it - perfect. Easy to make, tastes great and it has never failed me. I have made this cake so many times, I've lost count - son's b'day, bro-in-law's b'day, friend's b'day, potluck parties, cake decorating classes.
I have toyed with several kinds of frosting on the cake - Hershey's ''Perfectly Chocolate'' chocolate frosting, buttercream icing, whipped cream icing, whipped cream mixed with oreo cookie bits. Tastes great without icing too. This recipe is definitely worth a try and before you know it, it may become your favourite dependable chocolate cake recipe.

Ingredients :

2 cups sugar 

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour (maida)

3/4 cup cocoa 

1 1/2 tsp baking powder 

1 1/2 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp salt 

2 eggs 

1 cup milk 

1/2 cup oil 

2 tsp vanilla extract 

1 cup boiling water 

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350ºF. Liberally grease two 9" round cake pans with oil or cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. With a handheld electric mixer, beat on medium speed for two minutes. Add water and beat for a few seconds till it mixes well.

Pour the cake batter evenly into the two cake pans.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until a fork inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Here are some pictures of the cakes I made using this recipe - some when I just started baking and a couple in my cake decorating classes. More on that some day.

A couple of eggless chocolate cake recipes:
Eggless Chocolate Cake
Eggless Microwave Chocolate Cake

Sending this to Bookmarked Recipes and Hearth and Soul.

Baked Potato Chips

Oh well, these may not be as crunchy as the fried ones, but atleast you can eat 'one more' without guilt.
I've been wanting to bake these chips for a long time - ever since my cousin-in-law asked me to make 'healthy lays', but what kept me from making them was a mandoline slicer. I did not have one.
Finally I bought one this weekend, tried these chips out today and wondered why I didn't make these earlier. My husband and son both love chips. I'm hoping my husband likes these (he hasn't eaten them yet) and if he does, well, one more reason to don the apron.

Ingredients :
1 large potato
1 tsp oil
Salt to taste
Chilli powder or any other spices of your choice

Method :
Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
Wash, dry and slice the potato into very thin slices [I did not peel mine]. It will help if you have a mandoline, you can get equally thin slices. If not, try to slice them as thin as you can with a knife.

Transfer them into a bowl. With a paper towel remove all the excess water. Pour oil [I used olive oil] and mix. Just before baking [otherwise the potato slices will release water], sprinkle salt and chilli powder and mix till all the slices are coated well.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place potato slices in a single file, so that they don't overlap. [You will be doing more than one batch, so don't try to squeeze all the slices on one sheet].

Bake in the preheated oven. The baking time depends on how thin the slices are. Mine were this thin -

- and they took 12 minutes. If your slices are thicker, they can take much more (even upto 20 minutes) and you may have to flip them halfway. Keep checking on them. They can burn easily.

Allow to cool and crisp up.

Give me a bag of fried potato chips any day, but hey, these aren't bad either.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

A few weeks back, I purchased some beautiful cupcake liners from Michael's (did I ever mention I love that store?) and have been waiting to put them to use. A friend of mine had asked me for a good chocolate chip muffin recipe long back, so I thought of putting the two together - the yummy muffins in these pretty liners.

These muffins are easy to make and are hassle-free since you don't need an electric mixer and can use a large spoon or a wire whisk to mix the ingredients. I referred to this recipe and made a few changes as suggested by some reviewers - I increased the quantity of milk, sugar and oil, added vanilla, sprinkled some topping and got some pretty decent chocolate chip muffins.

Ingredients :
2 cups all purpose flour (maida)
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup oil
1 cup milk

Topping:
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tbsp brown sugar (or regular sugar)

Method :
Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
Line the muffin tray with muffin liners / baking cups. If you don't have muffin liners, grease each cup with oil, butter or cooking spray, so that the muffins come off easily. I definitely prefer using liners since they are more convenient. If you get pretty liners in the market (Michaels has some great ones) use them to package your muffins. They will look lovely specially if you are making them for a birthday party or any special occasion.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour chocolate chips, mix well and keep aside.
In a large bowl beat egg. Add vanilla and oil and beat further. Add milk and whisk till the mixture becomes smooth.

To this, add the flour mixture and mix gently for about a minute. Do not overmix, if the batter is a little lumpy, that's fine.

Fill each muffin cup with the batter till it is 3/4th full. I used a 12-cup muffin pan (diameter of each cup being 2 3/4  inches). This recipe yields 12 muffins (unless you like good things like uncooked cake or cookie batter, in which case you may get just eleven. I got eleven and a half, I'm on a diet).

Mix 1/4th cup chocolate chips with 1 or 2 tbsp brown sugar and sprinkle a little bit of the mixture on each.

Bake for 18 to 20 mts, till a fork inserted in the muffin (not the chocolate chip) comes out clean. [If you are using a mini-muffin tray, bake for a shorter time].

I baked for 20 minutes so I got a slightly crispy crust with a nice golden brown colour. Also, the brown sugar on top makes the top of the muffin slightly sweeter than the inside.

Gently remove the muffins from the tray along with the liners and allow to cool completely. Arrange them in whatever way you want. And just look at them. Say 'to hell with my diet' and eat one.