I came up with the idea of these muffins when I wanted to bake something as a little “Thank you” gift for a friend of ours who is helping us with choosing and buying a car. Of course the idea of banana chocolate swirls is not new, but I didn’t really follow any recipe except for using my Chocolate Marmalade Candy Muffin recipe as a reference for making chocolate batter. I generously complemented the banana batter with vanilla in order to enhance the contrast between the moist, sweet banana swirls and the dark, rich and dense chocolate swirls. The batter was very quick and easy to make, although of course adding mashed banana and melting the margarine involves some extra bowls. I haven’t actually tried to just cream margarine instead of melting it – I suppose the batter would be plastic enough with creamed margarine, so if you don’t want to wash an extra saucepan, try using creamed margarine at room temperature.
I was very content with the result and was happy to give these muffins away as a gift. I also gave a couple of them to my parents and left two for me and Stano to sample. I am trying to follow a healthier diet these days – five months of breastfeeding are making themselves felt and my skin and hair are starting to suffer (although I’m still getting off lightly I believe!). One of my latest hits is an easy salad made with arugula, baby spinach, canned cannellini beans, walnuts, and blue cheese (yes, blue cheese again!). I’ve also bought a pack of organic wheat, so soon I’ll be able to jazz up my salads with wheat sprouts.
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
70g margarine, melted
2 eggs
1 banana, mashed
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Pinch of ground nutmeg
1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Divide the mix in two and pour into separate bowls.
Add cocoa powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon to one bowl and vanilla sugar to another.
Add approximately 40g margarine (roughly more than a half) to the first bowl and 30g to the other bowl.
Mix and lightly beat milk and eggs with a fork and divide equally between two bowls.
Add mashed banana to the second bowl.
Stir batter in both bowls with a fork until dry ingredients are moistened. You now should have a bowl of chocolate batter with spices and a bowl of banana batter with vanilla.
Spoon two kinds of batter into muffin liners, alternating spoonfuls of chocolate and banana batter. Make swirls on top of each muffin.
Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean.
