Baffling Bananas Batman!

(© ThistleGirl Designs)

My kids, evidently, do not like fresh bananas in their school lunchboxes. I can't remember a single day last week where there was a missing (ie, eaten) banana upon inspection of their bags. But I couldn't bring myself to toss out these well travelled bananas. Most were still okay to eat even if they weren't pretty anymore (six hours in a lunchbox will do that). So what do you do when you have about ten rejected bananas sitting mournfully on your bench?

You bake muffins, of course!

For 24 muffins (a double batch) you'll need:

4 cups self-raising flour (I used 2 cups white self-raising and 2 cups wholemeal self-raising)
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I halved this - too much spice and my kids won't eat it)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb soda (baking soda)
1 cup sugar
2 cups mashed bananas (4 large bananas should do it)
2 eggs, beaten
1 ½ cups buttermilk (we didn't have any on hand, so I used regular)
250g (a little over half a pound) diced canned apple (didn't have this either, so I omitted it)

Method:

First, preheat your oven to 200ºC (395ºF). Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tray (two if you have an extra). If you've got non-stick pans a light spray of cooking spray will work fine. Otherwise you might want to set out some paper muffin cases in the holes.

Next, sift your flour, cinnamon, baking powder and bicarb soda (baking soda) into a large bowl. Add the sugar and stir to combine.

I love this big bowl. It's supposed to be a salad bowl but it's awesome for making big batches of stuff.

Next, round up a small child (it doesn't have to be your own) and set them up with the chopped up bananas and a fork. This is Miss Moo trying valiantly to pulverize those banana chunks.

Does anyone else find it slightly unfortunate that mashed banana looks like vomit?

Measure out your buttermilk and crack a couple of eggs into it. Whisk. This was too risky to entrust to a five-year-old.


Carefully pour milk and egg mixture into smooshed banana, holding jug in one hand and your husband's chunky-and-ever-so-expensive-digital-SLR (ie, heavy) camera in the other. I tell you, I have me a set of skills right there. Mix everything up.


I take back what I said before about the vomit. This looks like vomit:


Allow your five year old to create a 'volcano' by pouring the wet ingredients into a well in the dry ingredients. Ignore that suspicious shadow down the bottom. That's just Martha Stewart looking over my shoulder and tsk-tsk-ing.


Give the five year old a spoon this time and tell her to stir. "No sweetie, a bit more. Just a bit more round the edges. No sweetie, you can't make mud pies out of it. Yes, you can lick the bowl later (I'd soon live to regret those words). Sweetie, you need to stir, not stab. Oh just give Mummy the spoon..."


Yes, this is my DELIGHTFUL daughter licking the bowl. All I can say is, thank goodness these weren't 'company muffins'... (Aerial photography by Daddy).


This would be the time you'd add the canned apple (or stewed fresh, or grated raw...that would work too). Since we didn't add that, we skipped ahead to the next step - filling the muffin tray.


For a decorative flare - because I'm all about the aesthetics of the food I cook - I sprinkled a few granulated nuts on top. Then you just bake these babies for 12-15 minutes, allowing them to stand in the pan afterward for 5 mins. If you can wait that long. Personally, I'm already putting the kettle on as soon as they hit the oven.

And now I present to you - The Banana Muffin.


Look, it's defying gravity.


I call this one "Still Life With Banana and Muffin".


And I'd just like to throw in this last photo just for the novelty value. When I first moved in with Hubs ten-odd years ago he'd just been given a set of these 'exquisite' orange pots by his mother, who'd been using them as her camping cookware in their caravan since Hubs was a boy. She'd gotten them from her mother, some eleventy-two years prior. I have no idea how old these are, but I'm guessing that bright orange colour harks back to the late sixties/early seventies, LOL. And these have been our main cookware (yes, we own duplicates in many sizes, sigh) for all of our married life.

I knew I should have registered!


Oh, and when I did the grocery shopping earlier, bananas were on sale for $1.99 per kilogram (AUD) - that's cheap for where I am. To put that into perspective for my US readers, that's about $1.84 per kg (USD). And to put that into further perspective, that's like paying about 84 cents (USD) per pound. Is that a good price for you guys? Average prices in my area are usually at least $3 per kilogram (the equivalent of $1.26 USD per pound) and usually more. The Australian Dollar is doing really well against the US buck these days - 92c. Good for us, not so good for you if you're planning a holiday here, LOL.

Anyhoo, happy cooking folks!

Cheers,
Lizzie