Banana Muffins with Raisins

About a week ago I felt the familiar itch to bake something. After all, it had been over a week! Seriously, before I started this blog I didn’t even bake once a month (I think) and now I can’t go without baking something for a week. How quickly things can change…

I wanted to bake something nice and easy, so I decided to go for a muffin of some sort. I love muffins; they taste delicious, are easy to make and very easy to transport (I’m a practical girl). A couple of days before, I had bought some bananas, but they were already looking rather black, which made them the perfect core ingredient for my muffins. I also decided to add some raisins and a bit of cinnamon. Seeing as these ingredients are all quite sweet, I added some lemon juice as a nice contrasting flavour.

I’d already started the preparations for what I hoped would turn out to be some lovely muffins, when I came to the realisation I didn’t have any baking powder. I always have baking powder, so I forgot to check when I went out to the store to buy my ingredients… Good thinking, right? I didn’t have time to head back, so I just left the baking powder out. It did make the muffins come out rather dense and small, but they still tasted delicious, which is what’s it’s about, after all!

And they still look pretty cute!

You’ll need… (for 12 muffins)

– 140 g plain flour

– 140 g wholemeal flour

– 2 teaspoons baking powder

– 120 g white caster sugar

– 7 tablespoons sunflower oil

– 3 eggs

– 2 bananas

– about 100 ml milk

– a pinch of salt

– 50 g raisins

– 1 teaspoon cinnamon

– 1 tablespoon lemon juice

– a muffin tin (for 12 muffins)

– and an oven, of course! These muffins need to be baked at 200 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix the dry ingredients together First off you need to sieve the plain flour, the wholemeal flour, the salt and the baking powder (if you did manage to get some) above a bowl. Add the bran that’s possibly left behind in the sieve (from the wholemeal flour) to the bowl as well. Now you’ve got to add your caster sugar and the cinnamon, and mix everything together with a whisk.

2. Sort out the banana goo Next up you’ve got to mash your two bananas with a fork until they’re all gooey and, well, mashed. Put the mash in a measuring beaker, and add milk until you’ve got 250 ml (of the banana mash and the milk together).

3. Mix the wet ingredients together Get a second bowl and lightly beat the eggs. Now add the banana/milk goo, sunflower oil, raisins and lemon juice and whisk everything together until it’s evenly mixed.

4. Mix everything together Make a little hole in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture. Now gently mix everything together with a spoon. Don’t mix too long — it’s okay to still see littles traces of flour here and there. If you do over stir the batter it becomes quite tough. The idea is to just moisten the mixture. It’s okay if there are still lumps in the mixture.

5. Divide the batter over 12 paper cases Now put a paper muffin case in every hole in the muffin tin and divide the batter over these cases. I always just use a spoon to do this. If you want your muffins to rise nicely, don’t put too much batter in every case, just fill 3/4 of each case. I didn’t do this because I already had some batter left over, and I didn’t want to waste any more of it (and the muffins weren’t going to rise anyway, what with the lack of baking powder). If you don’t have paper cases, just grease the holes in the muffin tins and put the batter directly in the tin.

6. Bake the muffins! Put the muffin tin in your preheated oven (200 °C) and bake the muffins for about 20 minutes (maximum of 25 minutes). When they’re done, take the tin out of the oven and let the muffins cool in it for about 5 minutes, then take them out of the tin to cool completely. Or eat them while they’re still warm, which is always my favourite option!

And that’s all! Enjoy your banana muffins with raisins!

Note: Your muffins will probably come out a few shades lighter than mine — I only had about 70 g white caster sugar, and had to supplement it with dark caster sugar.