Time is all over the place during lockdown. Without the routine of a daily commute, I struggle to know what day it is, let alone what the time is. Last night I even inadvertently stayed up to 11pm on a school night.
Anyway, we’ve heard on “the internet” that lockdown food culture apparently moves very fast and making your own sourdough starter now is SO last week. The thing all the cool… er… kids are now making is banana bread.
It’s unclear as to whether this is because there are hundreds and thousands of panic-bought bananas blackening in fruit bowls up and down the country as I write this, but I suspect it may be related.
Fortunately for me, this has conveniently given me new enthusiasm to type up my wife’s banana bread muffins recipe which has been sat on my backlog list for a number of weeks, as her looks in my general direction get increasingly frosty. I’m not sure how many weeks that is exactly but that must presumably be something to do with the whole lockdown/time thing.
Makes approximately 18
Plain flour 250g
Baking powder 2 tsp
Salt a pinch
Bananas 450g very ripe, that’s about 3 good sized
Butter 125g softened
Caster sugar 150g
Vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon
Eggs 2 large
Chocolate chips or chopped walnuts 50g (optional)
Cupcake/muffin cases
Line a cupped baking tray with cupcake cases (you may need to do this in batches) and heat the oven to 180’C.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Separately, mash the bananas and mix with the vanilla extract.
In a separate, large bowl mix the butter and together until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the banana and vanilla mix and anything else you may wish to experiment with, such as the chocolate chips or chopped walnuts. Fold in the flour and mix gently until evenly combined.
Spoon into cupcake cases and bake. They take about 10-15 minutes depending on your oven. Check by dipping a skewer in at around 10 minutes and it should come out clean. If not, they need a few more minutes. You want them as close to not quite cooked as you can get, whilst making sure they are indeed, actually cooked. Once done, put them straight in a large tupperware or on a plate covered with foil whilst hot and they’ll steam themselves a little and stay really moist.
Cheers, darlin’. X