Coo King - a town in China?

I can't remember who told me that joke, but I remember liking it. A lot. Especially since, at the time, I had no inclination toward my kitchen.

Don't get me wrong, I still don't consider myself as a gifted cook, but I've recently started using a few of my kitchen appliances for another purpose than storing my cereal boxes.

While researching some healthier foods - one of the things I'm trying to do for myself this year is changing my eating habits - I have found a wide range of information about cooking and baking. Most of it is to be found on blogs, and most of it is so easy to use, one could mistake them for an 'Idiot's guide to (...)'.
The first I found and used was Teo's kitchen (in Romanian). It helped me bake a Chocolate Cheese Cake as a birthday present for my mom last November. While it took some time, I followed all the steps to the letter and the result was beautiful and delicious.

After that first success, I decided I really wanted to try baking some muffins. There aren't many places that sell muffins in Romania, and I haven't actually really liked any of the ones I tried. But I know there are better recipes out there, and some of the ones I read on Teo's blog sounded really good. I can usually tell whether I would like or not the end result by knowing the ingredients beforehand, so this was a no-brainer.

A few weeks ago I had plans, together with some friends, to meet up and discuss some project. I thought it would be the perfect time to try and test the muffin recipe I had chosen - Honey Muffins. The first attempt was a delicious, though not very good-looking: I didn't use any baking powder, so they weren't as light and soft as they were supposed to be, then I didn't use enough butter to grease the muffin paper cases, so they were welded to the muffins, and the decorating was unsuccessful. All in all, however, the reviews were favorable :)

So, last week, when we took a trip to the mountains, I decided on repeating the baking experience. The photos following photos show the ingredients of the TP (technological process, like my friend Claudia likes to call it) of the 2 types of muffins I baked, the Honey Muffins

and the Poppy Muffins. These were quite liked too, but I personally found them to be a bit too heavy. I don't agree much with walnuts.

To add to the sweet count of the weekend, I threw in some biscuits as well. In the following the common ingredient was peanut butter. I have found the recipes on various blogs and sites - Peanut Butter Biscuits 1, Peanut Biscuits 2 and Peanut Butter Biscuits 3. The third recipe got the most votes, followed closely by the first one.

Photos from my kitchen corresponding to the recipes above: