Old bananas? Great muffins…

Stop!  Before you ask the question, no, this is not some crude play on words and if you read ahead you will only be party to the simple and honest pleasures in life: eating, cooking, more eating and more cooking, and probably more eating again!  I am bringing you this SCRUMPTIOUS and EASY recipe from my head in deep dark Africa because it really is so yummy.  So try it, when it is a wet, cold miserable day like it is here right now – get out those old stinky bananas going festy in the bottom of your fridge and put them to some good use, and get some fibre in to ya!  (oh, and don’t stress, I am not going to turn this in to yet another cooking blog, I’ll stick to just another travel blog)!

Erin’s Banana and Date Muffins

The yummy uncooked batter - just leave enough to make a few muffins!

Makes 12

1. 2 cups self raising flour (or if you live somewhere like me that doesn’t have that, add 4 tsp baking powder to plain flour)
2. Cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom to your taste (I like lots of fresh cinnamon – ok then, for the baking virgins or cooking inept, I would use about 1 tsp Cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of the other spices)
3. 1/2 cup raw sugar (you can also use demerara, brown or dark brown sugar – but avoid white sugar as it is not tasty enough)
4. 1/2 – 1 cup chopped dried dates (this is the fun part of making date muffins here, the dates come all smushed up together – seeds, flesh, caps, sticks)
5. 2 old smelly bananas, mushed up
6. 1/2 cup vegetable oil (strong flavoured oils not good, so steer clear of olive oils, and if you want a healthy body and planet I’d avoid canola or palm too!)
7. 2 eggs, beaten lightly

Method:

1. Preheat oven to somewhere in the middle (usually 180 C, but my last 2 ovens have their own idea of temperature – you’ll figure it out)
2. Add all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl – flour, sugar, spice
3. Cut up dates and smush up bananas (or what ever else you would prefer – dried fruits, nuts, spreads – peanut butter or nutella, fruit, vegetables – you get the idea) and add to the top of the dry ingredients
4. Add the oil and eggs to the bowl and using a wooden spoon, stir the mixture until there are still bits of flour showing – ie. don’t mix too well – the more unmixed the better it will taste, ie. less chewy!
5. Place the mixture in to greased muffin pan or cases.
6. Bake in oven for 12 – 15 minutes depending on size (the best way to tell when they are ready is press your finger on to the top of one and if it springs back up, then it is cooked).  See I am full of useful information!!
7. Take out of oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes and transfer to a wire rack.

The Muffin!

PS.  If you don’t like dates or bananas you can change the ingredients to almost anything you can think of in the recipe, you’ll just change the spices.  If you are lacking inspiration, just let me know and I will give you some suggestions.  If you are cooking muffins for my friend Tara, then add lemon rind and juice, she’ll love it!

So, now that you have read this blog and made your version of my muffins, comment here and let me know what used and how it tasted!  I have some dried cranberries to use on my next batch and still trying to think what to add to it, maybe lemon and polenta?