Chocolate and banana muffins

The good thing about this blog is that, apart from the quick write up and even quicker picture taking, it kinds of creates itself, insomuch as I simply document what I do every day, which is cook and eat. Granted, only a select few recipes make onto here, for obvious reasons. But the reason I stick at it unlike so many other hobbies and pursuits in my life that have fallen by the wayside is that it happens naturally; I don’t have to force myself to do it. Especially at the moment, baking is a fun, practical activity that I can do at home which occupies, nay enthralls, my toddler and that my 3 month old will tolerate. And, it usually results in something yummy to eat for me! Win win, I think is the phrase…

The toddler wanted to bake something yesterday. So, with the ripe bananas languishing in the fruit bowl and the bag of dark choc chips in the sweetie tin at the forefront of my mind I set off online to do a bit of quick recipe research. I found the Nigella recipe that this is based on. That’s very often how I cook: I start with one or two items that I have in the house, then I Google and bit or flick through a few books and hey presto I find something that either inspires an idea or that I can adapt to make my own.

I like this recipe because it’s stupidly easy to make. The toddler practically made them on his own! Well, apart from the measuring, he tipped and mixed which is pretty much all that’s required. I also like it because it has very regular ingredients that you are likely to have in: it’s realistic baking. The mixture also provides excellent spoon licking opportunities.

We used very dark, very high cocoa content chocolate chips, which made them taste grown up but actually, surprisingly, my son loved them. You could definitely change this up a bit: I thought next time about replacing choc chips with chopped up fudge bars; perhaps you could throw in a few walnuts; swap the cocoa with peanut butter; even some sympathetic frosting wouldn’t go amiss – any other ideas welcome…

Make: 12 muffins
Prep time: 2 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 22 minutes

Ingredients: 
3 ripe bananas
125ml sunflower oil
2 eggs
100g sugar (I used golden caster sugar)
225g plain flour
45g good quality cocoa
50g chocolate chips (I used very dark chocolate but milk would be fine)
1 teaspoon of bicarb

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Lay out paper cases into a muffin tray. 
2. Mash the bananas. Add oil, mix. Now the eggs and sugar, mix. Tip in flour, cocoa, bicarb and choc chips and give a good old mix. 
3. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool on a wire tray. They keep for a week in a tin, or freeze them.