Banana, Chocolate and Butterscotch Muffins for celebrating THE END OF OUR DEGREES

WE DID IT. I have no idea how, or what we'll get out of it (degree classifications don't come out for another month...), but in the meantime I'm catching up on sleep and all the things I've had to put off to write essays, like cooking and painting and walking and watching TV and BAKING! Fraser's calling it my rehabilitation, and I'm enjoying it immensely. So this weekend I made these...

Banana, chocolate and butterscotch muffins. They're based on a Nigella recipe - I first made them years ago with Andy, and they're sooooo good. You can vary the flavours however you like - I intend to try them with blueberries, or you could be super indulgent and go for a double chocolate chip variation.

Ingredients (makes 12):
- 3 ripe bananas
- 2 eggs
- 125ml vegetable oil
- 250g plain flour
- ½tsp bicarb. of soda
- 1tsp baking powder
- 100g caster sugar
- 100g Green&Blacks butterscotch chocolate
- 50g butterscotch pieces

1. Start by preheating your oven to 200°C, and lining a muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Mash the bananas (I find the best things for this are a fork and a casserole dish lid), or tell a friend if they'll do it for you they can have the first muffin. Works like a charm.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the oil 'til they've come together. Add the flour, bicarb, baking powder and sugar and stir well.
4. Tip in the mashed banana, along with the butterscotch and chocolate (chopped), and stir through.
5. Dollop the mixture into the muffin cases. Don't worry if you make a bit of a mess - I seem to be incapable of doing it without getting cake mix all over the tray/my hands/the cat...

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I recommend you check them after 20, and if they're not done turn the tray around to make sure they get an even final blast. Once they're out, they'll need at least 10 minutes to cool before you demolish them - if you can wait that long...

Super Seedy Flapjacks

Revision is mind numbing. 

But only two more weeks of drowning in post-it notes and going over things I've already done, and then it's summer, so can't really complain....

 

All this work hasn't made it particularly easy to get much cooking done, let alone blogging. I've been living off freezer food, toast and takeaways. 

The most exciting thing that's happened in my kitchen this term was Alex managing to set fire to some butter in the microwave. Apparently that's possible... I think it was the fact he put it in there still wrapped in metallic foil. Oh dear.

I did manage to bake myself some revision fuel though: 

Super seedy energy boosting flapjacks.

I made mine with gluten free oats, but you can use ordinary ones as well. This recipe is incredibly easy and very quick - you could probably make this in around an hour's revision break.

Here's what you need:

150g Rolled Oats

50g Pumpkin Seeds

50g Sunflower Seeds

100g Sultanas

3 tablespoons Golden Syrup

100g Butter

2 Bananas, peeled and chopped

75g Dark Chocolate, broken or chopped into small pieces

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and use greaseproof paper to line a small roasting tray, or a square baking tin, or even a round cake tin if you don’t have anything square.

2. Weigh out the oats, the pumpkin seeds, the sunflower seeds and the sultanas, and mix them together in a bowl along with the sliced bananas.

3. Melt butter and golden syrup in a saucepan over a low heat – make sure it doesn’t boil or burn – until the butter is all melted and the mixture is completely combined. Turn off the heat.

4. Tip the bowl full of mixed ingredients into the saucepan and stir until they’re covered in the syrup-butter mixture.

5. Put the flapjack mixture into the lined tin and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden on top. Take it out of the oven and set aside to cool.

6. Now its time to melt the chocolate. I do this by putting a small amount of water in a small saucepan, placing a ceramic (non meltable) bowl on top, and placing the chocolate in the bowl. As the water starts to boil, the bowl heats up and the chocolate melts. Make sure the water doesn't boil too much or the water will boil over. 

7. Once the chocolate is melted, use a spoon to scatter the melted chocolate artistically over the flapjack (you can tell from the photos I’m really bad at this. But who doesn’t love big chunks of chocolate?) Leave the flapjack to cool completely, then cut it into even sized bars. Enjoy!

Chocolate and Banana Cake

This is without a doubt a childhood favourite. Many a year has it been my birthday cake, and it's particularly good for taking on picnics, or generally putting in a bag and taking anywhere due to the lack of icing/squidgy bits. Twice now Mum's made one and sent it down to London for me - that's how good it is!

Ingredients:

- 2 large, ripe bananas

- 1½ tsp vanilla extract

- 6oz/175g margarine

- 8oz/225g granulated sugar

- 10oz/275g self raising flour

- 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

- 3 large eggs

- 4oz/125g plain chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C, and grease your cake tin.

2. In a small bowl, peel and mash the bananas until smooth and mix in the vanilla extract.

3. Heat the margarine and sugar in a pan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

4. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Beat in the eggs and mashed banana.

5. Chop up the chocolate, then quickly (so it doesn't melt too much) stir it in to the mixture before spooning the lot into your cake tin.

6. Bake for 1 hour, until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean.

Voila. This cake is great warm or cold: if you eat it when it's not long out of the oven the chocolate will be gloriously melty, and if you wait 'til it's cooled you'll be greeted with fantastic chocolate chunks (often at the bottom, as they tend to sink). Either way it's awesome.