Coffee and banana muffins

Today’s delicious offering was baked by the Offspring based on a recipe given to me by a fellow kindergarten mum, Diana. I won’t tell you how long ago she gave it to me. 😉

The thing I like about this recipe is that it’s very easy. It’s also very forgiving of variations. In the following recipe, our variations are shown in italics after the base recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup soft butter [we used Lurpak Slightly salted spreadable butter which contains a small amount of vegetable oil],
• 1/2 cup of white sugar [we used caster sugar],
• 1.5 cups of self raising flour,
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of plain yoghurt or milk. Yoghurt makes it rise more. [We only used 1/2 a cup of yoghurt so we could add more banana]
• 1 cup fresh fruit [we used 2 cups of bananas, chopped into decent sized ‘chunks’. NOT mashed]
• a little extra butter to grease the muffin tins [we used paper cupcake thingies? to save on clean up]

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 C [392 F]. If using fan bake, lower the temperature a couple of degrees.
2. Grease muffin tins [or use paper thingies for easy clean up].
3. With an electric mixer, blend the butter with the sugar until it changes colour and looks ‘creamy’.
4. Beat in 2 whole eggs. If the mixture starts to separate or ‘curdle’, add a tablespoon of the flour.
5. Beat in the yoghurt.
6. Remove from beater and fold in the chunks of banana. [This is a trick I learned by accident. If you mush the banana the flavour will be very bland. If you leave the banana in chunks, you’ll get a burst of strong banana flavour whenever you bite into a piece].
7. Fold in the flour [no need to sieve].
8. Spoon mixture into the muffin tin [or into the paper cupcake thingies inside the muffin tin].
9. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
10. Remove from the muffin tin and place onto a cooling rack

You can eat these muffins straight from the oven with a bit of butter, just watch out for the chunks of banana, they are hot! Or you can eat them plain, hot or cold. Either way they’re delicious with your beverage of choice.

Bon appetit!
Meeks