Banana Muffin

I finally managed to find time to bake again! We had a few ripe bananas sitting on the counter so I decided to make something with them. My mom is a muffin person so I ended up doing that.  Note that I haven’t made muffins before, at least not from scratch, and even that was 10 years ago or something.  Anyways, this was a fun experience although the muffins turned out a bit pale.  Being the experimenter I am, I decided to add some jam on the top.  So the muffins looked weird because the jam melted a tad bit and it made it look a bit flooded on some of the muffins.

 

Right out of the oven, appearance-wise was not too great but still, I gave it a bit time to cool down before I went to try one.  It tasted really good.  The texture was moist.  I added some dried cranberries instead of raisins (since I don’t have those at home) and it added a bit of more chewy taste and gave the banana taste something more. As much as the jam doesn’t look appealing, it also did its job in giving it just a little more fruity taste.  It was pretty much like a fruit explosion muffin.  I have a few ideas as to how to put the jam and not make it look so “messy”.

While eating I snapped a few pictures to show you what it looked like on the inside of the muffin, the consistency, etc.  Not too bad, eh?

I actually found this recipe in one of my books.  Apparently when making cookies, I had to change some of the ingredient quantities but with muffins, they were right on.  I’ll probably give muffins another shot when I skim through more recipes.

Here is the recipe extracted from “Cookies Biscuits & Bakes 500” by Catherine Atkinson for BANANA MUFFINS:

MAKES 12

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

3 large ripe bananas

1 egg

1/4 cup soft dark brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup raisins (if you want banana chocolate muffins, then replace with chocolate chips)

HOW TO MAKE THEM:

1. Preheat oven to 190C/375F.  Arrange 12 paper cases in a muffin tin (pan).

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.

3. Using a fork, mash the peeled bananas to a smooth consistency in a large bowl.

4.  Beat the egg, sugar and oil into the mashed bananas until fully combined.

5. Add the dry ingredients and beat in gradually, using an electric whisk set at low speed.  Mix until just blended.  With a wooden spoon, stir in the raisins until just combined.  Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins, filling them two-thirds full.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops spring back when touched lightly with your finger.  Transfer the muffins to a wire race to cool completely before serving.

SOME CHANGES!

It took me less than an hour to do from prep work to pulling them out of the oven.  Easy and quick! Some of the changes I did do. One was mentioned before was dried cranberries instead of raisins.  I just realized as I was typing up the recipe that I had added a bit more nutmeg than it said, but it didn’t do anything to the taste.  I also don’t like using electric mixers or anything of that sort but for this recipe, it didn’t make a difference or cause any problems because everything was already pretty soft in consistency.  If it was to become something more like dough, then electric mixer would’ve been recommended as they said.  Even by hand, this one was easy to mix.

It may not have turned out as the pictures in the book showed.  Mine was more pale but it still tasted great.  Now for more work on appearance, could it be affected by the ingredients?  For example, soft dark brown sugar would’ve been better, or maybe adding more of it.  I just used normal brown sugar, and perhaps there is another type.  Any suggestions?