Banana Oat Muffins

I’m never very inspired to eat breakfast. No matter how much I hear that it is good for you, that it is bad for your health to skip it, that it gets your metabolism going…something in me would really just prefer that extra ten minutes sleep. My morning routine is often pretty rushed and breakfast is the thing I always skip – making an exception at the weekends for toast. Its not just a time issue, I’m rarely hungry at that time of day and standard breakfast options – cereal, bread, yoghurt – fail to motivate me. This recipe, however, might be just the thing to make me change my ways.My sweet tooth means that I can pretty much cope with something sweet any time of day. These banana muffins make me feel like I’m eating cake for breakfast, but in reality I’m safe in the knowledge that the muffins contain fruit, oats, wholemeal flour and no butter. All the more reason to have another one then…These were super simple to make. It’s a classic muffin recipe in that you mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, all the wet in another and then you introduce the two bowls  to each other and mix everything together! Gathering all the ingredients from around your kitchen probably takes as long as making the muffin mixture itself. One tip: I forgot to mash the bananas before adding them to the wet mixture (smooth one, excuse the pun) so I used a hand stick blender to whizz  them and all the wet ingredients together and it worked really well. The full batch of twelve muffins costs just pennies to make as well, so there’s no excuse not to give them a go.The results were a really moist muffin with a crisp topping, full of banana flavour, some extra sweetness from an icing sugar covering – quite moreish! The recipe was from English Mum’s blog here – enjoy :)

Banana Cake

Bananas are a divisive fruit in my family. My Mum and I like them, my Dad and my sister don’t. When my sister was little, my Dad told her bananas were horrible and so she’s grown up not liking it. Be careful what you tell 3 year olds! Even at school, bananas get strong reactions. They seem to be like Marmite: you either love them or hate them. For this reason, we don’t have bananas much at home. With only two ‘eaters’ it seems a bit excessive to buy lots even before we get to the idea of baking with them. But, with my Mum’s friends coming round and my Dad away (and therefore unable to moan about the bananas) – an exception was made. This banana cake is sort of a jazzed up banana bread – the addition of some dried fruit and bright glace cherries makes it a little more luxurious than a bread. This cake also has a sweet honey glaze, giving your kitchen a bit of shine on a dull October afternoon. The recipe is an old favourite of my Mums, and is easy to make up. The key factor with this cake is really careful baking: my oven is quite hot and so after only 1hour out of the 1.5hours specified the cake was already slightly overdone. I’d start at 50 minutes and check it accordingly – as when it is still moist and slightly sticky. If I were to bake it again, I might use slightly riper bananas and up the sultana content to give it a punch more flavour :) Banana Cake (makes one 9x5x2inch loaf )
Ingredients: 225g (8oz) self raising flour
1tsp salt
100g (4oz) butter, cubed
175g (6oz) caster sugar
100g (4oz) sultanas/dried berries
100g (4oz) glace cherries, halved
2 large eggs
500g ripe bananas
50g honey (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/350’F/Gas Mark 4 and line your loaf tin with a strip of parchment paper.
2. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour until crumbly/pea-sized pieces. Add the sugar, sultanas/dried fruit and cherries and create a hollow in the centre of the mixture.
3. Crack the eggs into the hollow. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork, or whizz in a food processor, until fairly smooth. Add the banana to the flour hollow.
4. Fold the mixture all together into a smooth cake mix, and pour into the prepared tin.
5. Bake in the centre of the oven for 50mins, then check. The top should be golden and a skewer should come out mainly clean (provided you didn’t go through a sultana). It may need up to 1hour15mins, depending on your oven.
6. Melt your honey in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, spread over the top of the cooled cake. Cut generous slices!