Banana & Chocolate Chip Muffins

What a year it’s been.  Today’s bake is, to be honest, a guilt bake.  I feel bad that I have not posted much this year at all, but I feel I have to make an effort.  F for failure then!

Between having to rebuild my computer (thanks, Microsoft for destroying it with your update), scattering my mother’s ashes, being stuck in the middle of nowhere due to ice and snow, being completely felled by one of the seasonal viruses doing the rounds, selling the house, I could go on and on.  But I’m exhausted, I need sleep, I need a break, I need good things.  Don’t we all, though.  A year of good news, and happy events would do us all the world of good.

So I found myself wondering what to bake.  I had some over-ripe bananas, but I’ve done various banana bread recipes, how about cupcakes……no, how about muffins!  Of course the recipe I saw on the internet didn’t have the same ingredients as I remembered it having…..you can see where this is going now, can’t you!  I’d committed myself to baking, so there was no alternative but to tweak the recipe………but you all know by now, tweaking a recipe is something I do a lot of – not always successfully!  In this case I used two different recipes as a reference point.

Muffins are a fairly forgiving bake, the only thing to remember is not to over-mix, otherwise they end up rubbery.

This recipe was for 12 muffins.  Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan oven)

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas, mashed

125ml light oil (I used olive oil, but sunflower oil is fine too)

4 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

100g golden caster sugar

225g cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

220g chocolate buttons

Method:

Beat together the oil, egg, milk and vanilla extract.  Add the mashed bananas and the sugar and mix well.

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder, and add in the chocolate buttons, covering well with the flour mixture, in the hope that the buttons don’t sink to the bottom when you bake the muffins.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients, mixing gently to combine only. Don’t over-mix, it doesn’t matter if the batter is a bit lumpy.

Spoon into muffin cases and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.  Let cool on a rack before eating!

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I wish you a peaceful weekend 🙂

Double Chocolate Muffins (again!)

I made these muffins not so long ago, but each time I see the post and my photo I cringe. I don’t have the talent to take nice photos, but I felt there could be a better representation. Also, I have been craving chocolate, not just chocolate, but something deeply chocolatey!

Double chocolate muffins it had to be then! I have only made this recipe once before, and so without a second thought I happily chucked all the ingredients in, and mixed.  There seemed to be rather a large quantity of batter, which I didn’t remember before. But that just makes more muffins, so win-win! The other thing I noticed this time was the texture of the batter was very mousse-like. I guess this explains the volcanic result. The recipe made 15 muffins, bursting out over their cases (real muffin tops!).  Once I get the hang of posting links (you may regret this) I will eventually include recipes and links.  This recipe came from Good Housekeeping Magazine.

The resulting muffins? Deeply chocolatey and oh-so-light in texture. I’m happy 🙂