Banana-manana Muffins

I love a banana muffin. I love one for breakfast, even though there's probably too much sugar in it for early in the day. Sometimes, it just doesn't matter.

I found this great recipe on Taste.com.au, for Warm Banana Muffins with custard, but I was just looking for a plain banana muffin recipe. This one looked great, so I just ignored the "add custard after they've baked" part. And what a great recipe. Simple, easy to put together, and the result? I tend to eat more than one when they come out of the oven. What could be a better recommendation than that!

Banana-manana Muffins! (OK that's just my name for them!)


Combined 1 1/4 cups of self raising flour (or, like I do 1 1/4 cups plain flour & 2 1/2 tsp of baking powder) and 1/2 cup brown sugar in a bowl.



Mash up two ripe bananas.


Mix into the mashed banana, 40gm butter, melted, 1 egg and 1/3 cup milk.


Add it to the dry mixture.


Mix it all up until combined. Spoon into greased muffin tins, or muffin cases in the tin. It should divide well between 4-6 jumbo/Texas muffin tins. I like to make big muffins with this mix, but making smaller ones (more cupcake size) works really well too, and you end up with about 8 muffins. Bake them @ 200C for 25 minutes until browning and cracked on top. Cool in tin for 5 minutes, and then turn out.


Devour!

Because it's a relatively small muffin batch, and due to the fact that you use 2 ripe bananas, the muffin is deliciously banana-centric and really moist.

Kept in an air-tight container, they last well for 3-4 days.

I can't recommend this recipe enough. It is SO good, wonderful, easy and what a result!

Warm Banana Muffins

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 1/4 cups self-raising flour, sifted
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 40g butter, melted and cooled
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 1/2 cups prepared custard

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease 4 large muffin pans. Combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre.
2. Using a fork, whisk butter, egg, milk, and bananas together in a jug. Add to flour mixture and fold together until just combined.
3. Spoon into prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to serving plates.

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As an aside, I would like to make a quick apology for the lack of updates. I was so excited when I moved my food blog, and then suddenly Real Life took over in a nasty way. Now that it's settled down somewhat, I'm back posting.

Other things I'm posting in the near future:

• Quick and Easy Chocolate Sauce
• ANZAC Biscuits
• Macaroni Cheese with bacon & mushrooms
• "Glick's Bakery" in Balaclava, Victoria
• "The Chokolait Hub" in Melbourne, Victoria

I can't wait to show you The Chokolait Hub! It's one of the best Chocolaterie's in Melbourne and it's simply delightful.

Cheese & Chive Scones

Originally posted: 10 May 2008:

Sundays mean scones to me. In my childhood, my Mum would often whip up a batch of fluffy scones for morning or afternoon tea on a Sunday, and they would be served hot, the batch wrapped up in a tea towel to stay that way, with whipped cream and jam. I learned how to make scones at my Mum's side, so it's been one of the recipes that I've always understood how it works, and how to put it together. I've never managed to have a flat, hard rock instead of a scone (instead of that one time that I put in plain flour and forgot the baking powder required to make it self-raising, but this is the last time that I shall mention this!). To me, a scone is made with flour & butter & milk, not flour and lemonade and something else. It puzzles me that there are recipes that include a fizzy liquid, however I can understand them. I've had family members that couldn't make a scone to save their life, and their results are hard enough to bounce off the floor and stay in one piece.

The feathery texture of scones are reliant on rubbing the butter in to the flour well, and not over-mixing or kneading the dough. However, it's not a disaster if you do - simply let the mixture sit for a while. Wrap it in plastic and pop it into the fridge, then let it come back to room temperature after 15 minutes or so. It's also a recipe that you perfect if you make it often enough. You wont need a recipe for them. My Mum doesn't need her recipe for them, and whilst my recipe is very water stained and flour covered, I now am almost at the stage of not needing the recipe either. And I am definitely AT the stage of knowing the mixture well enough - how it mixes, and comes together - to know how to add things. In fact, my excels-at-scone-making Mum now calls me for my Spinach & Cheese Scone recipe!

For a recent themed competition on another site, I produced these scones. The theme was cheese, and as soon as I saw it, I thought "Ooooh what an excuse to make cheesey scones!!" And they're so good. By themselves spread with butter than melts when they're still warm from the oven, or slightly toasted and eaten with soup the next day, you can't go past Cheese and Chive Scones!