Banana and Butterscotch Muffins

We all have them - those bananas that we forget to eat, and so they sit in the fruit bowl and slowly turn black. Rather than throwing them away, you could try this delicious little Nigella Lawson recipe.

I used butterscotch chips (from Sainsburys), and I only used 100g rather than the 150g in the recipe. I actually found this to be enough as the chips became nice and melty, giving the muffins a satisfying gooeyness. Personally, I think any more butterscotch may have made them a little too sweet, but it's all a matter of your preference.

I found that the mixture produced 12 lovely big muffins with enough left over for 3 smaller cupcakes. I baked them all for 15 minutes, and this was ample time for the muffins to become nice and golden. They smelt so delicious that I ended up eating one straight from the oven and it tasted like a lovely sponge dessert. They are also yummy cold, with a strong banana flavour and the butterscotch cutting through for that sugar hit.

Rocky Road Muffins

If anything can brighten up a dreary Monday, it's chocolate. And gooey marshmallows. And more chocolate. This is a really easy recipe, and one that would probably be quite fun to do with kids too.

Ingredients

225g/8oz Plain Flour
55g/2oz Cocoa Powder (I used Bournville)
1 tbsp Baking Powder
Pinch Of Salt
115g/4oz Caster Sugar
50g/1 3/4oz Plain Chocolate Chips
50g/ 1 3/4oz White Chocolate Chips
50g/ 1 3/4oz White Mini Marshmallows (or big ones chopped up)
2 Eggs
250ml/ 9 fl oz Milk (I used skimmed as that's what I had in the fridge)
85g/3oz Butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (or 180 if using a fan oven like me) /400 degrees f/ gas mark. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin (either grease it, or line it with paper cases). 

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and then stir in the sugar, chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Lightly beat the eggs in another bowl before beating in the milk and the butter.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the beaten liquid ingredients into it. Gently stir until just combined. If you over mix it, it will become tough. I prefer to do the mixing by hand.

Spoon the mixture into the cases. An ice cream scoop also works brilliantly for this. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a cake tester (or cocktail stick!) can be pushed into the cake, and comes out clean. Leave in the tin for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

When cooled, DEVOUR!!!

Although this recipe should make 12 muffins, I actually got 12 muffins and 6 smaller cakes out of it. Sadly, this means I have some extra cakes to eat. I shall be enjoying mine with a mug of Whittards Rocky Road hot chocolate.