Chocolate banana muffins

I meant to make my Pear Surprise muffins the other day …. but it turns out that I didn’t have the stewed pears left in the fridge that I thought I did. Oops.

I did have extra overripe bananas frozen and a little miss begging me for chocolate muffins …. so this was the result. These are lovely, light and moist.

75g butter/plant based butter, melted OR light tasting oil
180g milk of choice (we use almond or soy)
1.5 medium overripe bananas
4 tbsp sugar (honey or rice malt syrup work well too)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 cups flour (half wholemeal)*
2.5 tsp GF baking powder
pinch salt flakes
2 rounded tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg**

*To make this one coeliac friendly: replace the spelt flour with 1 1/2 cups GF flour mix plus 1/4 cup almond/seed meal

*To make this one egg free: replace the egg with an additional 1/2 banana

*To boost the nutrients: replace the 1/3 of the flour with equal quantities of almond or seed meal.

Into your blender/processor/nutribullet/thermo cooker place the bananas, butter, vanilla, milk and sugar/syrup. Blitz until smooth (Speed 7, 10 seconds)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour baking powder, cocoa, salt and cinnamon (plus almond/seed meal if using).

Add the dry mix to the wet and mix to combine (Speed 4, 10 seconds, scrape down and repeat). Don’t over beat. I often just tip the wet mix into the bowl with the flour mix and combine by hand.

Line a standard muffin tin and spoon fill.

Place in a preheated moderate oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until well risen and they spring back when gently touched.

You can eat these as is, dust with pure icing sugar or ice them like cupcakes. And if you like a sweeter treat you could add a handful of choc chips to the mix.