RECIPE: BANANA MUFFINS (WITH CARAMEL SYRUP)

You all must be wondering why I am making quite a lot of muffins these days. Well, it is because it is school holidays and the kids are forever complaining that there is nothing to eat at home and also, muffins are easy to make and don’t use as much butter as cakes (so bit less fattening). But secretly, I am actually quite partial to muffins and I like to take them to the office for morning tea or to share it with my team (a form of bribery??!).

Anyway, after the rich chocolate muffin, I thought I’d better tone it done a bit so I made these really simple banana muffins minus the caramel syrup. You could try the sauce if you like. It is actually quite nice (I made it pre blogging days so I don’t have a photo). Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients
2 cups self raising flour
½ cup caster sugar (I used normal sugar, as long as it is fine and not overly coarse)
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
75 g melted butter – cooled
1 cup mashed bananas – around three medium sized bananas
Caramel Syrup – 1 cup sugar and ½ cup water

Method
Preheat oven to 200°C and grease a 12 cup muffin tray.
Sift flour into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Mix well and make a well in the centre.

Whisk together the milk, egg and vanilla in a jug and pour into the well. Don’t mix the ingredients yet. Add the butter and banana and now fold the wet ingredients through with a METAL spoon, avoiding over mixing the batter. It should be lumpy.

Divide the batter into the tray and bake for 20 to 25 mins or until the muffins come away from the tin sides. Leave in the tray for 5 minutes then transfer onto wire racks.

Whilst the muffins are cooking, make the syrup by cooking the sugar and water over medium heat. When the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat and cook for 8 minutes or until the syrup is golden. Remove from heat and stir in 1/3 cup of water. Be careful as the syrup will spit when you add in the water. Leave to cool then pour onto the muffins when the muffins have slightly cooled.