The Startup Cook – Queijadas 

I am not sure if this is a common occurrence in any other household, but sometimes my refrigerator would only have ingredients - not food per say. This proves to be a bit of an issue when you’re craving for that sweet at odd hours of the night. Thus due to a very urgent hankering and thanks to google that provided a solid answer for "dessert you can make with flour, eggs, milk", I came across this recipe on one of my favourite food sites – allrecipes.com.

Queijadas (Que (pronounced kay (like ok minus the o) – ja (there is a slight shz sound (like in meaSURE) there) – das (like Volkswagens DAS auto)) boast of Portugal origin. While its name might be a little difficult to say, the recipe however is in layman terms is “easy peasy”. The ingredients you need are at hand already and with some whisking and baking, you would have soft deliciously sweet little cakes in an hour.

My only warning is that these are wonderfully addictive. As Pringles say “once you pop you can’t stop” is solemnly true in this case.

Ingredients 

1/3 cup of flour
1/2 cup of milk
½ cup of sugar
1 tbs of butter
1 egg
¼ tsp of baking powder
½ tsp of vanilla essence

Directions 

Preheat the oven to 165 Celsius. Prepare a muffin tin and set it aside.

Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, whisk until it becomes light and fluffy.

Then whisk in the egg.

In a separate bowl mix the flour and the baking powder together, add it to the egg mixture and whisk for a few seconds.

Pour the milk in to the mixing bowl, add the vanilla essence to it and whisk until the ingredients have merged well together.

Pour the batter in to each case of the muffin tin (ensure its half full).

Bake for 40 – 45 minutes (Rotate in between).

Once it has baked, take it out of the oven and let it cool down for 5 minutes.

Then scoop each Queijada out of the tin, place it on a cooling rack and let it cool for about ten minutes.

Disasters, Warnings and Tips 

You get six Queijadas with this recipe.

Feel free to decrease the sugar level if you wish.

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Serve with some strawberries or have this with a cup of coffee. YUM!

Use a hand mixer only when whisking the butter and sugar together.

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Over whisking might result in cracking.

By Shazzana Hamid