Dragon Eye...

My brother has bought some dried longans from Taiwan and there's a place in taiwan selling longan muffins that is famous among the local people. I have tasted it, when my collegues bought some back for us to try.

Taste still lingers and my hands are itchy to try it out. Surf the website and came across this blog and I bake this today.

It has a fragant smell, when baking and I found my muffin is a bit sweet despite of lessing 10gms of sugar (in true fact, this is what I have..ha!ha!). In fact, I put in more dried longan flesh that might contribute to the sweetness but it's still ok.

Tasted again this morning for breakfast, the combination of brown sugar, walnuts and dried longans are perfect, except that I found the muffins a bit dry, next time, I will twitch the recipe and see..

Recipe from the blog

Longan Walnut Muffins
Ingredients
150g Top flour (I uae cake flour)
2 tsp double-acting baking powder (I use 1 tsp baking powder and half tsp baking soda)
1/2 tsp fine salt
110g dark brown sugar
70g dried longan
3/4 cup hot water
2 eggs
70gm butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup longan water
75g walnuts, roasted and chopped coarsely

Method
1) Hydrate the dried longans in the 3/4 cup of hot water for 20-30 minutes. Strain the hydrated longans and squeeze lightly to remove excess water. Reserve 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid.
2) Sift top flour, salt and baking powder together.
3) Combine cooled longan water, melted butter and vanilla together
3) Whisk eggs and brown sugar till creamy. Add the butter/water mixture and whisk till just combined.
4) Fold in the flour lightly, add 50g of the chopped walnut and the dried longans.
5) Mix well and spoon batter into muffins/cupcake cases, top with the balance chopped walnuts.
6) Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree C for 30-35 minutes for medium sized muffins and 20-25 minutes for mini muffins. Skewer test for doneness.

Note:
1) The batter is quite runny.
2) Pulverize your brown sugar if necessary to remove any big lumps.