These soft and lofty muffins were adapted from Nigella.com. The first time I made them I could only get 7 descent sized muffins. I don’t like small muffins; they are drier than the large ones. Just think about it! Proportionately there is more surface area than soft inside in a small muffin. In any case muffins don’t qualify as health foods. A doughnut has actually less calories than a muffin or a bagel. If you want portion control, have half a muffin. If you want healthy, have a banana. I also replaced the oil with shortening.
I really dislike paper liners. They stick to the muffins and make them fall apart when the paper is removed. I only use parchment muffin liners. Buttering and flouring the cupcake tins is an equally bad idea. It creates a white pasty layer on the surface of the muffins and this looks especially bad on the dark ones. Use unflavoured cooking spray instead. The muffins slide out and cleanup is a breeze. If I run out of cooking spray, I generously butter the muffin tins, but I don’t dust with flour.
CHOCOLATE BANANA MUFFINS
4 overripe bananas
2/3 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
2-3/8 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, sifted
1-1/3 tsp baking soda
unflavoured cooking spray
• Preheat the oven to 400F.
• Mash the bananas with a potato masher or with a freestanding mixer.
• Still beating and mashing, add the shortening followed by the eggs and sugar.
• In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder and the baking soda.
• Gradually fold into the banana mixture.
• Spray a large muffin tin with unflavoured cooking spray and spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and lift up the muffins on one side and let them slightly cool in the muffin tin.
• Serve warm with butter.
• When cooled down, pack remaining muffins in a plastic container and freeze for use later.
