Catherine Kelly runs a very successful cake making and cake tin hire business. She has written a delicious, easy recipe for you to try at home. You can find out more about her business and ideas on her Facebook page
Banana and Chocolate chip (or blueberries, nuts…) Muffin Recipe by Catherine Kelly
We’ve had fruit and veg boxes delivered this week while we’re staying at home – with more bananas in! – but as only two out of the five of us eat whole bananas, but all of us eat banana and chocolate chip muffins, we thought we’d make some and show you the recipe! This is a great recipe for using up bananas once they’ve gone a bit brown on the outside – did you know you can even freeze them – cut them up or mash them and pop them in a container in your freezer, ready to use to make all sorts of things at a later date (we obviously like making cakes! 😉 )
1 – Wash your hands well for 20-30 seconds using soap or handwash. Pretend you’re making cakes for your birthday and sing “Happy Birthday” twice through to yourself while you’re doing it if you like!
2 – Get all your ingredients together (we’ll weigh them out in a minute).
You will need:
Caster or granulated sugar
Plain flour
Baking powder
Bicarbonate of soda
Chocolate or chocolate chips
Salt
Milk
Vegetable Oil (or melted butter)
Bananas
One egg
Equipment you will need:
A large bowl
Another large bowl or jug
Muffin tin & cupcake cases
Measuring jug
Measuring spoon (teaspoon)
Spoon for stirring
Potato masher
Knife and chopping board
Sieve
3 – Turn your oven on to 190-200 degrees C for an electric oven / about 180 degrees C for a fan oven / 375-400 degrees F / Gas Mark 5-6
Put the paper cupcake cases in the muffin tin – we ended up needing more than 12, but it’ll depend how big they are!
4 – Sieve the following ingredients into the larger bowl:
280g (10oz) plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 – Carefully chop about 100g (3-4oz) of chocolate if you’ve chosen chocolate ones, we like plain chocolate, but you can use any! You can also use chocolate chips, or walnuts or a handful of e.g. frozen blueberries instead
6 – Put the chocolate in the bowl with the flour
(If you’re doing walnuts or blueberries, don’t put those in now, pop those in later, will tell you when )
7 – Mash 3 large bananas in the jug or other bowl with a potato masher or fork
8 – Add the following ingredients to the mashed banana and stir:
110g (4oz) sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten with a fork
60-90ml (2-3 fl oz) of milk or water
90ml (3 fl oz) vegetable oil (alternatively you can use 85g / 3oz melted butter instead of oil)
9 – Mix these together
11 – Stir until the batter is evenly mixed and you can’t see any dry flour, but it will still be lumpy
12 – If you are adding walnuts or blueberries instead of chocolate, add them now
13 – Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases
We found there was enough mixture for 18 muffins, but it’ll depend on the size you’re making them!
14 – Pop them in the oven for about 20-25 minutes
15 – Wash up everything you’ve used while the muffins are in the oven, then you don’t have to do it later, when you want to be enjoying eating them! (But leave the muffin tins until they’ve cooled down before you wash those up). Then dry everything up and put it away, so you’re ready to make something else another time
16 – Make sure you wipe down the surface where you’ve been working…
17 – …and sweep or vacuum the floor so you don’t leave any flour or chocolate chips for people to tread around the house!
18 – When they’re lightly browned and the tops spring back when pressed gently, take them out of the oven, making sure you use oven gloves, and turn the oven off
19 – Take them out of the tin and put them on a cooling rack to cool down.
They’re delicious warm or cold – but be careful if you eat them warm as the chocolate will still be melted and hot!
Enjoy!