It’s the end of the week and there are two sad looking bananas left in the fruit bowl. There is nothing nicer on a Saturday morning for the family to come home to the smell of something baking. Today it was healthy banana muffins.

You will need a muffin tray which has 6 large cases…or you can make 24 mini muffins for lunchboxes – they freeze exceptionally. This recipe can be doubled.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of sugar (140 grams / 5 oz) – I use golden granulated
• 125 grams of butter (softened)
• 2 eggs (at room temperature)
• 2 very ripe bananas
• 2 cups (230 grams) wholemeal flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons milk (hot)
• 50 grams of chopped dark chocolate  or cacao nibs (optional)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder

Turn your oven on to 180°c and grease your muffin cases with a little butter. This is to ensure they don’t stick and you can get them out!

Put the softened butter and sugar into a large bowl and mix together. You can do this either in a cake mixer or by hand (until your hand drops off…) You won’t get a completely light & fluffy texture when using golden granulated sugar but don’t worry about it – it doesn’t impact the final result.

When the butter and sugar are well combined add one egg at time, mixing well between. If it looks like scrambled eggs – it has curdled. Again, don’t worry about it, just carry on with the recipe, mixing well with each new ingredient added.

Now mash the bananas – they may look past their best on the outside but they are now ripe and full of flavour – perfect for baking.

Add the mashed banana to the creamed mixture and stir well. Now heat the milk until it is hot and add the teaspoon of baking soda to the milk, stir it well and add to the mixture. Now add the flour and baking powder and mix well. I prefer wholemeal four, but if you are using plain (cream flour) sieve it first.

You can add in a handful of chocolate chips …not too much though as the bananas make these muffins sweet.

Now poor the mixture evenly into the muffin cases, bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes they should be golden brown and springy on top. Take them out the oven, leave them to cool in their cases for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

This recipe can also be used for banana cake – which is extra good when iced with chocolate frosting…if making a big cake using a 23cm tin you’ll need to increase the quantity of the ingredients:

Ingredients for a large banana cake (23cm tin) 

• 1 cup of sugar
• 175 grams of butter (softened)
• 3 eggs (at room temperature)
• 3 ripe bananas
• 3 cups wholemeal flour
• 1 heaped teaspoon baking soda
• 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons milk (hot)
• 100 grams of chopped dark chocolate

Cooking time for a large cake is 50 minutes.