of milk, muffins, and kids

The past week had been pretty hectic, running to and fro the local children’s hospital. The second niece got admitted after running a fever, refusing to eat and drink the whole day. It turned out that she had some sort of virus, which left her immensely dehydrated, and reduced the oxygen level in her body. Three days later, the doctors and nurses bade farewell to a screaming 2-year-old, as the drip was removed from her left foot, and she went [quote] “whoopee!” [unquote] off the bed, climbing the sofas around the ward.

She got reunited with her younger sister for a day, only to have the latter being admitted to the same hospital the next day, for showing similar symptoms of the affecting virus. Thankfully though, the 10-month-old fighter regained her appetite soon enough, and the house is once again coloured by her frequent [quote] “mammamm…” [unquote] (a possible derivative of the Malay word ‘makan’, meaning ‘eat”) baby babbles each time she sees someone with food in hand.

Now that they are staying with us for the time being;– we’re helping my worn-out sister with two still-on-medication little kiddos;– I thought what better way to celebrate the return of their appetite than with their favourite chocolate muffins.

It is probably too presumptuous of me to claim that these are their favourite muffins ever, but I think it should suffice to say that these are their favourite muffins when they come over.

I remember the first time I baked these chocolate muffins, they were a hit when fresh from the oven, and the only gripe was that there wasn’t enough to go round. And last Sunday when I needed to prepare eighty for an order, I had two muffins extra, and while the second niece politely pointed that one was for her, and another for “adik” (younger sister in Malay), she soon realised that her adik was taking longer than expected to return (she wasn’t aware that her sister was in the hospital), and that one reserved muffin somehow became a reserved half-muffin, and then none.

Today I decided to bake the chocolate muffins especially for them, and since the adults were not big on chocolate chocolate chip muffins (there was an extended negotiation in the kitchen between the chocolate faction and the non-chocolate faction), I decided to try out a basic chocolate chip muffin recipe that had long been bookmarked.

I tweaked the recipe a little, adding in more milk, because I felt the batter was too dry, and added more chocolate chips, by default of course. The resulting muffins were soft and fluffy, with the quintessential crisp exterior that I absolutely love on my muffins. I love the domed tops on these, and while they may stick to the liners if you bake them for 18 minutes, I find that if you go the full length of 20, you won’t have that problem anymore. The father preferred the latter, whereas I didn’t mind the sticking to the liner part one bit, so it really is a matter of preference.

See that empty glass at the background in the last picture? Well I heard that chocolate chip muffins, like cookies, go very well with a glass of milk, and since I don’t drink milk, I thought I’d leave it empty for you.

Also, I’m sending this entry over to Linda for her ‘Got Milk?’ event, in view of World Breastfeeding Week in the first week of August. Now I may not be in the position to extol the merits of breastfeeding since I’m not there yet, but to put it simply, I am pro-breastfeeding, and as Linda had aptly put it,”… it’s the very best a child can get”. At the risk of sounding like an advertorial, for more information on the benefits of breastfeeding, do click on the link to Linda’s event, where she had recounted her own experiences, and provided useful links to share.

Chocolate Chip Muffins
(adapted from here)

2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Make a well, and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until just moistened. Add in the mini chocolate chips.
3. Bake for 18-20mins.

The kiddos with their other auntie

Oh, and if you’re wondering, the two nieces are much better now, and seeing their smiles, hearing their laughters, and watching them run/crawl around the house gleefully is a huge relief for everyone. And of course, going down the stairs and unknowingly stepping on a half-eaten muffin, hearing a cheeky “Uh-oh…” has got to mean that things are relatively back to normal again. I think it’s easy to see who’s the cheeky one from the photo above.

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