Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

I apologise for the delay in this post.  With the wedding being less than a week away now I've been caught up in all the last minute preparations, including baking 480 mini shortbread biscuits.  If you've seen the updates on twitter or facebook, you know I'm still not finished yet.  And of course there is still the cake to do as the absolute last minute thing to guarantee freshness on the day.  But there will be more about that in the wedding post when it comes.  For now, let's focus on delicious muffins!

As you may be aware I went to Glasgow a little over a week ago to see the lovely Rainbow Rowell.  All the gushing detail of said visit can be seen in the Pumpkin Mocha Brownie blog post.  I was not alone on said visit though.  I invited my very best friend Jess to accompany me.  Our last jaunt together had been just after I finished my final school placement back in May and just before the awful week I spent working on my e-portfolio.  She had then run off on holiday for 3 weeks so by the time the Rainbow Rowell trip rolled around we were well overdue for seeing one another.

Now that I am temporarily free of academic commitments I was actually able to find the time to bake her a gift, something I was unable to do last time and can feel awful about because she always gives me the cutest presents.  Last time it was a pig she had made and it is so adorable!  But I was devastated I had nothing to give in return.  I just had no time.  So this time around I was determined to bring something (other than that one birthday present that had escaped the package I sent).

The idea to use bananas is down to Facebook.  I'm still getting the hang of Facebook and have only recently started using my personal page (as opposed to the blog's page) for things.  Hence it needed some decoration and I used a picture of my banana cupcakes from last year for a header image, since it is nice and yellow.  Upon seeing it, Jess had remarked that she liked banana cake and thus I knew I would need to include it in whatever I chose to make.

I decided on muffins because it has been ages since I last attempted muffins, it was a bit different from making cakes and because I found a nice, easy looking recipe from Nigella to try out.  I added the chocolate chunks myself though to give it a little something extra.

Now, banana recipes often require really ripe bananas as they give a stronger flavour.  However, I don't keep bananas in my house because neither the fiancé or I eat them and I did not acquire bananas until the day I was needing them.  So of course they were not ripe enough.  So I ripened them myself!  A trick I learnt a while ago is that you can ripen bananas in the oven.  I put the oven on its lowest setting, put the bananas in a ceramic dish and 'cooked' them for about 20 minutes.  They turned completely black on the outside and beautifully soft inside, which made mashing them up very easy.  I would do this in advance of baking so they can cool down again before you use them.

And the final result? Delicious apparently!  They can be a little sticky around the edges after coming out the oven but all in all they are a good muffin.  Jess really liked them and so did the fiancé, and he's not really a fan of the chocolate and banana combination.

Recipe - adapted from How To Be A Domestic Goddess
Makes 12 

• 30g/1oz unsalted butter
• 60g/2oz honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 very ripe bananas 
• 150g/5oz plain flour
• 1 heaped tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• 100g/3.5oz chocolate chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
2. Put the butter, honey and vanilla extract into a small pan and then place over a low heat to melt.
3. Stir together, remove from heat and set aside for a few minutes to cool slightly.
4. Mash the banana in a small bowl.
5. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt.
6. Mix the honey butter mixture into the mashed bananas and then add it to the dry ingredients.
7. Mix until just incorporated (try not to overmix). 
8. Reserve some of the chocolate chunks to sprinkle on top and then add the rest to the batter, folding in gently.
9. Distribute the batter between the cases, filling them about two thirds full.
10. Add a few of the saved chunks to the top of each muffin.
11. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
12. Allow to rest in the tin for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

So Christmas has come and gone.  It was a good one.  I got some fabulous things, including a number of new additions for my kitchen (which I now need to find space for) and some photo editing software that I have been coveting for a while.  There was also great food and lots of rushing about visiting people.  Admittedly I did end up feeling a bit homesick.  It's been three years since I was home for Christmas.  It is one of the downsides to living so far away with erratic circumstances: planning anything is nearly impossible.  But maybe I'll get to go down next year.

Anyway, since me being at university means there is only one source of income at the moment, plus the fact that we are planning and paying for a wedding next year, funds are a bit low.  There was money for buying presents for immediate family but extended family that we would be seeing on Christmas and Boxing Day, not so much.  But I love giving presents to people so I decided I would make the presents!  Or bake as the case actually is.  So December 23rd and 24th were spent baking over 200 biscuits!  I've never made so many before.  It was exhausting but worth it!  The majority were my favourite chocolate dipped orange shortbread (cut into stars), which were for the grandparents, aunts, uncles and older cousins.  The younger cousins got chewy chocolate chip cookies.  I didn't think either of those would suit the last giftee though, since he is only 3.  So I made something new just for him: banana chocolate chip cookies.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide his verdict on the cookies.  However, the fiancé got to eat the spares and he says they are very banana-ry and there's lots of chocolate chips to compliment it.  They're also slightly crunchy.  Yum yum!

Recipe - adapted from Biscuit via Baking Heaven volume 2

Makes about 24

• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 100g/3.5oz golden caster sugar
• 100g/3.5oz banana (about 1 banana)
• 200g/7oz plain flour
• 100g/3.5oz milk chocolate chips

1. Mash the banana in a large bowl with a fork.
2. Add the butter and sugar and beat together until smooth and creamy.  If it starts to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
3. Add the remaining flour and the chocolate chips to the mixture.  Beat together until a soft, sticky dough forms.
4. Form dough into a rough ball and wrap in clingfilm.  Chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
6. Shape the dough into balls about the size of a walnut, place on the trays spaced about 3cm/1.5inches apart and then flatten them with a wet fork.
7. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the edges of the biscuits are golden brown.  The centres will still be a little soft.
8. Allow to rest on the trays for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

Banana and Cinnamon Loaf

I was not intending to bake today but as I was cleaning my kitchen it occurred to me that I still needed to use up the last of my bananas.  They were looking very ripe at this point and since I would be busy over the weekend making a cake and attending a party, today was really the only day I could do it.  Not like I had anything else to do aside from the laundry and this ended up being a pretty simple bake.

I had asked the fiancé what he would like earlier in the week, since he would be the one who actually be eating it.  He sort of shrugged and said, "Banana bread?".  Well, why not?  I know I made banana bread cupcakes quite recently but I thought it might be nice to make an actual loaf.  

My original plan was going to be to ask the fiancé's Mum for the recipe that she uses for banana bread, since I know he likes that one.  I never got around to it asking for it though.  Ah well.  Instead I decided to raid my books and see what I could find.  Mary Berry was my first pull from the shelf and ended up being my only one, since she had a nice, simple recipe that looked perfect.  I even got lucky with certain ingredients, like the flour, and had just the right amount needed.  Clearly it was meant to be.

I also decided to spice things up a little, literally, by adding some cinnamon.  I had read banana and cinnamon go well together and the fiancé does like cinnamon.  Admittedly, it is another one of those things he was a bit sceptical of when I talked about the idea but where's the fun in playing it safe?  Not that adding cinnamon is particularly wild but oh well.  I decided to do it as a layer of cinnamon sugar running through the centre of the loaf with more sprinkled on top, rather than mixing cinnamon into the batter itself.  So I guess it's a little bit like a cinnamon bun in a way.  I didn't have as much cinnamon as I wanted to put in but I've put what I would have used in the recipe.

The fiancé really liked it and is currently scoffing it down.  He says the cinnamon isn't very noticeable though, despite the fact that you can see it and smell it.  I put that down to not having enough in the sugar mix though.  Like I said, I've upped the amount in the write-up. 

Recipe - adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

• 2 ripe bananas
• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 175g/6oz caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 225g/8oz salf-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 75g/2.5oz granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease and line a 23x10cm/9x4inch loaf tin.
2. Mash the banana in a large bowl.
3. Add all the ingredients except the granulated sugar and cinnamon and then beat until smooth and there are no lumps of butter.  You can do this by hand but I would recommend an electric whisk.  It makes things much easier and the mixture ends up smoother.
4. In a small bowl, mix together the granulated sugar and cinnamon.
5. Spoon half the mixture into the loaf tin and use a spatula to smooth it over.
6. Cover the exposed batter with a layer of cinnamon sugar.
7. Spoon in the rest of the batter and smooth over.  Sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
8. Bake for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
9. Allow to rest in the tin for a few minutes before turning it out, removing the greaseproof paper and letting the cake finish cooling on a wire rack.

Banoffee Biscuits

Why yes, this is another banana based bake.  I have bananas left over from last week that need to be used up.  This recipe used one banana so I still need to find something to do with the other two.  Hmmm....

Anyway, I saw this really simple recipe in my 2012 summer issue of Baking Heaven.  I find a lot of things I want to try in that particular issue, though I rather enjoy flicking through the five other ones I own.  I wish I could afford to buy more issues but since I'll be off to university again after the summer I really need to reserve my money for important things like food and electricity.  And train fare.  So much train fare... 

I should stop side tracking.  Biscuits!  Right, so the recipe was for either banana biscuits or strawberry ones.  Obviously, since I had bananas I wanted to make the banana ones.  I decided to add to them though by including toffee chunks since banana and toffee is a common and much loved combination.  Plus it would make them a little more interesting.

I had to modify the recipe slightly because I used too much banana.  I didn't want to use just some of the banana because then what would I do with the other bit?  So I put it all in and of course the dough ended up very sticky.  It is meant to be sticky but not that much.  Hence I compensated by adding some extra flour.  It doesn't seem to have had any sort of negative effect.

These were fun to watch in the oven as all the toffee starts bubbling when it gets hot and it's like mini volcanoes.  You do get a fair amount of toffee spilling out of the cookies as they bake, which I removed after they were finish to keep the nice, rounded finish.  Plus the toffee that spilled cooked a lot faster and therefore burnt slightly and I'm sure most people wouldn't like burnt toffee.

The end result is a slightly soft biscuit.  The edges are crunchy, as is the toffee.  The fiancé isn't that keen on soft biscuits but he said the crunchy toffee makes up for the bits that are soft and so texture wise it is really nice.  You can taste the banana throughout and it goes well with the toffee.  He does recommend taking your time with them though and not trying to eat the whole thing in one mouthful or you'll end up gumming your mouth together.

Recipe - adapted from Biscuit via Baking Heaven volume 2

Makes about 20

• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 100g/3.5oz golden caster sugar
• 150g/5.5oz banana (about 1 banana)
• 240g/8.5oz plain flour
• 75g/2.5oz hard toffee sweets

1. Mash the banana in a large bowl with a fork.
2. Add the butter and sugar and beat together until smooth and creamy.  If it starts to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour.
3. Crush the toffees into small pieces and add them and the remaining flour to the mixture.  Beat together until a soft, sticky dough forms.
4. Form dough into a rough ball and wrap in clingfilm.  Chill in the fridge for about an hour.
5. Preheat the oven to180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-4 baking trays (I only own 2 but ended up doing 4 batches) with greaseproof paper.
6. Shape the dough into balls about the size of a walnut and then squash the balls flat so they are about 5mm/0.25inches thick.  Place on the trays spaced about 3cm/1.5inches apart.
7. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the edges of the biscuits are golden brown.  The centres will still be a little soft.
8. Allow to rest on the trays for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.  (Once mine had cooled I broke off any hanging bits of toffee that spilt out during baking).

Banana Cupcakes

Well, I did say I wanted to bake with bananas again.  I didn't think it would be quite this soon though.  Last week one of the lovely ladies I worked with at Markinch asked me if I would bake 24 cupcakes for her.  She quite liked the idea of having them be banana flavoured and with only a little bit of icing.  Obviously I said yes.  I love baking for other people.

I immediately settled on making a banana icing, or buttercream, for the cakes because I knew I could use milkshake powder to flavour it.  It worked so well for the strawberry buttercream after all.  And of course, I was asked to make them banana flavoured so in that case I just had to find a recipe that looked good.  I trawled through many and saw plenty of interesting combinations.  I disregarded all the ones used chocolate, as I wasn't asked for that.  A number included cinnamon, stating that it is an amazing pairing and it certainly sounded interesting but I didn't know if that would be appreciated so I decided to squirrel that idea away for another day.  In the end, I settled on a recipe from one of my cookbooks that I've not really used before.  It's actually for banoffee cupcakes, rather than straight up banana but the cake part contained banana with no extra spices and using brown sugar and melted but to add a slight toffee flavour to the bake seemed like a lovely thing to do.  So I did.

This bake doubled up really easily and I was able to divide it pretty evenly amongst my cases so I got very equal looking cupcakes.  I've found a good, secondary use for my measuring cups.  The 1/4 cup dealt out the perfect amount of mixture for each cake.  I got special yellow cases to go with the cakes and also decided to buy bananas sweets to sit on top of the little swirls of buttercream for a bit of extra decoration.  It's a shame I didn't check my packet to see exactly how many I had.  There were only twenty bananas in the bag, so I was four short!  Consequently I ended up cutting them in half lengthways and having skinny bananas on top of each cake instead.  Ah well, if that's the only thing I can consider going wrong, I can't really complain.  

My only other gripe is that the shop I usually buy my cardboard cake boxes from doesn't seem to sell them any more!  I went to town specifically to get some since it would make the cakes easier to transport only to find there were none.  I was so disappointed.  I did have some left, but only one 12 box so the rest ended up divided between two 6 boxes.  They are also all different patterns so it makes me feel like they should have different types of cake in each one.  I'm going to have to see if I can get more on eBay.  They were just such great prices at Home Bargains!  It's such a shame they aren't there any more.

So, taste?  Well, I made an extra cake for the fiancé to try and since his sister was over as well, she had half of it.  My main fear was that the banana in the cakes would not be very noticeable since there was only two bananas used in a batch of 24 cakes.  It is there, if subtle.  But that's okay.  They were clearly banana cupcakes and they said the subtleness worked with the buttercream because it might have been too overpowering otherwise.  They also said the cakes were nice and sweet.  The lovely lady that ordered them was very complimentary of their appearance when she picked them up today.  Hopefully they go down well at her party.  I will update when I get feedback from her.

Recipe - makes 24

Cakes - adapted from Good Housekeeping: Baking Book

• 200g/7oz butter
• 350g/12oz self-raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 300g/10oz light brown sugar
• 300g/10oz banana (about 2 bananas)
• 5 large eggs (or 6 medium)
• 150ml/5fl.oz buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line two 12 hole muffin trays with 24 muffin cases.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and then set aside to cool slightly.
3. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda and sugar into a large bowl and mix together.
4. Mash the bananas in a small bowl using a fork.
5. Add the buttermilk and eggs to the melted butter and beat together until combined.
6. Pour the butter mixture, along with the mashed banana, into the dry ingredients and beat together until just combined.
7. Divide the mixture amongst the cases and then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until cakes are risen and springy and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool in their tins for five minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Banana Buttercream:

• 115g/4oz butter
• 225g/8oz icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• 3 tbsp banana milkshake powder
• Yellow food colouring (optional)
• 24 banana sweets (I used Sainsbury's Foam Bananas)

1. Put the butter in a bowl and beat until creamy.
2. Sift in the icing sugar and beat until the buttercream is fluffy.
3. Add the milk and milkshake powder, plus a couple of drops of colouring if using, and beat until smooth.
4. Put into a piping bag fitted with a large, round nozzle and pipe small swirls of buttercream in the middle of each cake.
5. Top with a banana sweet.

Raspberry and Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Cupcakes

Due to the the new sports institute in town finally being ready to open, the fiancé will no longer be being sent off to other places for work with erratic shift patterns and will be settling in to a set schedule.  Unfortunately, this schedule has him working mainly in the evenings or late afternoon, which means he will no longer be able to make his weekly jaunt to Dundee (though hopefully they'll still be able to run their game over the Internet and he might be able to go up on the occasional Saturday).  Last night was meant to be his last night so I was determined to dish out one last batch of cakes to take with him.  Turns out his shifts are still going to be erratic for the next couple of weeks so he will at least be able to go next week.  After that it's all a bit nebulous really.

As has been the case lately, I did not think about what I wanted to do until after I'd gotten the weekly shop.  I really need to stop doing that.  My base idea came about on Saturday when the fiance had popped out to town and I was flicking through an old issue of one of my cake magazines.  The cakes that caught my eye were banana and chocolate fudge.  I was dubious about the fudge but decided that since I'd wanted to try baking with banana for ages why not do it now?  Besides, the local shop was bound to have bananas.  After some thinking I was originally planning to pair it with toffee and make banoffee cakes, but then discovered that I did not have any condensed milk in my cupboard like I thought I did.  I also knew that was something the local shop didn't sell.  So I had to rethink.  Then I remembered way back in February when I was looking for ideas for Valentine's Day that I had seen a recipe for a banana bread loaf that had raspberries and chocolate chips in it too.  I'd made a note to try doing it at some point since I know the fiancé loves banana bread and he also likes raspberries.  Plus I had a bag of frozen raspberries in the freezer, which was handy since the shop doesn't sell them either.  I thought a raspberry buttercream would make a nice finish and it was a great excuse to make more buttercream with jelly powder.

When I explained my idea to fiancé he pulled a bit of a face.  See, he's a little adverse to change.  If he really likes something, he's reluctant to alter it in any way.  That's not to say he doesn't like trying new things, he does.  He's just less keen on changing an established thing.  I pointed out though that part of the reason I make cakes for him to take is to experiment so I get to go wild with what I make.  He also didn't have any suggestions for what I could do instead.  So banana bread cupcakes it was!

Since I was working off a recipe for a loaf, I wasn't entirely sure how many cakes I would get.  My guess was 12 because there were two eggs but obviously the banana adds extra moisture and there was a lot of flour and turns out I got 18 instead.  Ah well, one can never have too much cake.  I was bound to find someone else to foist them off on since my carry case can't hold more than 14 at most.  I really need to get a bigger one sometime in the future.  I also had to alter the cooking time, since obviously smaller cakes take less time to cook.  Part of me is really glad I've gotten the hang of this.  I barely have to rely on recipe book times any more, which is great when something doesn't end up taking the time it should to bake for some reason.  Everything I bake out of Cake Days for example often needs about 5 minutes longer in my oven even though it's the right temperature (according to the oven thermometer).

I was really quite pleased with these when they were finished.  I've had a few bakes recently that feel sub par.  Plus there's been a complete disaster in trying to make baked doughnuts again.  Since they never made it to the blog you can probably guess they were bad.  Oh well, got to keep trying there.  But these were good!  I was happy.

Due to the face he'd given me when I mentioned the idea to him, I watched anxiously when the fiancé took his first bite.  It feels like ages since I heard that really satisfied 'Mmmmmm!' noise (but that's more likely to be down to not having baked a lot recently).  He approved, though he did say he could take or leave the chocolate chips.  Banana and raspberry goes really nicely together though apparently, and once again the jelly powder enhanced buttercream went down a treat!  His friends really enjoyed them too and actually jumped the fiancé when he arrived with them and ate some before dinner (according to him: they might just have been starving?).  So hurrah!  I'll definitely be baking with banana again in future.  I still want to make banoffee cupcakes.

Recipe - makes 18

Cakes - adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

• 280g/10oz plain flour
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 170g/6oz caster sugar
• 55g/2oz butter
• 2 large eggs
• 3-4 medium sized bananas
• 80ml/3fl.oz low fat natural yoghurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g/3.5oz milk chocolate chips
• 115g/4oz raspberries (you can use frozen ones that have been thawed)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 18 holes of two 12 hole muffin tins with muffin cases.
2. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
3. In a separate, larger bowl beat together the butter and sugar until it is smooth and creamy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating in after each addition until the mixture is smooth.
5. Mash the bananas into a pulp with a fork and then add to the batter, along with the yoghurt and vanilla extract.  Beat until well incorporated.
6. Fold in the flour mix into the rest of the batter until just combined, being careful not to over mix.
7. Fold in the chocolate chips.
8. Halve the raspberries and toss them in a little bit of plain flour (if you're using thawed and they a bit mushy, don't worry too much.  Just dry them off as much as you can and don't bother trying to cut them.  That's what I did).  Add them to the batter and carefully mix them into the batter until they are fairly evenly distributed.
9. Spoon the batter into the cases, filling about three quarters full.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes until risen and the tops are springy.  A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean.
11. Allow to sit in their tins for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Raspberry Buttercream:

• 225g/8oz butter
• 450g/1lb icing sugar
• 1 x 23g packet of raspberry jelly powder
• 1-2 bananas
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Beat the butter until smooth and creamy.
2. Sift in the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
3. Mix in the raspberry jelly powder fully incorporated.
4. Slice the bananas into 18 slices and use a pastry brush to cover each side in lemon juice to stop them browning.
5. Put the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe a swirl on top of each cake.
6. Push a slice of banana into each buttercream swirl.