My grandmother used to eat half a banana every day with breakfast. It fascinated me as a child, and rather than make bananas seem common place, it elevated them to something mysterious. Why only half? She would keep the other half to eat the next day. What possesses a person to eat half a banana? I now try to eat one banana a day, my own preference for the fruit borne out of the convenience of having a self packaged snack to keep at my desk at work. My grandmother wouldn't have been able to get away with her half a banana a day if she had lived not in a quiet unit across the road from a beach but in my glass box of an apartment. Bananas ripen so quickly during the warmer months that I must buy the greenest at the supermarket, and usually only two at a time. Whilst I don't like eating ripe bananas, they are of course best for baking so if I fail in my banana snacking all is not wasted.
Apart from her penchant for bananas, another strong memory I have of my grandmother is her teaching me how to cream butter and sugar while I stood on her brown stool in the kitchen. She said it was done when it didn't feel gritty. We were making shortbread, something I have never liked. But that is an aside to the whole point of this post - baking with bananas.
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Banana Muffins in Kitchen.
You will need:
- 2 very ripe bananas
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 2 eggs
- 100g dark cane sugar
- 225g plain flour
- 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 100g chocolate chips + extra for decorating
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork.
- Add the oil, eggs and sugar and mix with the fork.
- In another bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together.
- Mix this flour mixture into the bowl with banana mixture. When everything is only just incorporated, add the chocolate chips and mix quickly.
- Line a 12 muffin tin with paper cases and spoon mixture into each case. Dot the top of each muffin with extra chocolate chips.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
I have made this recipe before, exactly as it is in Kitchen, but here I have added more cocoa powder, the chocolate chips, and removed a banana. There's nothing wrong with a bit more chocolate. The muffins are moist and keep for days if kept in an airtight container.
