gary the banana

It must be a week for people to realise that they have bananas over-ripening in their fruitbowls.  I did a couple of nights ago and so decided to make some muffins to deal with that.  And Laura, of Hungry and Frozen fame must have too, given her latest offering (that combined with lack of sleep and a very active culinary imagination). 

I'm not a big muffin-maker, if I'm honest, 'cause they just don't generally do a lot for me.  But banana muffins (and blueberry) can be different.  The key to wickedly good muffins, in my humble opinion, is increasing the amount of fruit, compared to the recommended amount.  I mean, a recommendation is like a yellow light right?  A suggestion, yes?  The bulk of this recipe is from the Chelsea Sugar site, but with a few important variations - the banana quotient was increased, as were the chocolate chips.  A light dusting of sugar and mixed spice will lift any baking, and for some reason (maybe the extra banana, or the size of my muffin tins) I ended up with 18 muffins, rather than the 12 which I was expecting.  Score! 

Apologies for the lack of photographic evidence of these muffins - all 18 are gone.  They went like hotcakes, so to speak.  But surely that's evidential proof of their tastiness?  And I'm sure you can imagine what a banana-choc-chip muffin looks like.  Anyhoo, in the absence of a photographic hommage, I have Gary the Banana, a Paul Rangiwahia original.  Kia kaha in the kitchen guys! 

2 eggs

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup oil (I used rice bran)

1 cup milk

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

c. 1 cup chocolate chips

white sugar and mixed spice, for dusting (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and grease/spray muffin tins. 
2. In large bowl mix the eggs, bananas, oil, milk and brown sugar together.
3. Mix in flour, baking powder and chocolate chips.  Don't over-stir it, just combine. 
4. Spoon into tins and bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden and a skewer comes out clean (in saying this, mine were still a little gooey in the middle, but that's just because of the amount of banana in there). 
5. Remove from oven, let rest in tins for a couple of minutes, then turn onto cooling racks.  They're really good warm, so make sure you eat one straight away!