Some people crack open the champagne when they win an award - I crack open the flour and sugar.
I was recently named Writer of the Year (I know, right?!) by the Institute of Internal Communications (that's my day job in case you didn't know - Senior Writer in a bank's comms team) and as my fiancé was still too tired to go out in the evening - after weeks of working through the night and weekends on a big project - I decided to celebrate by throwing together some cakes to take into work the next day.
I had a few overripe bananas to use up and wanted something quick and easy to make, and my eye fell upon a cookery book called Muffin Magic by Susannah Blake. I found a recipe for nutty banana muffins and decided to adapt it to make it gluten-free as the lady I sit next to at work is gluten intolerant and I wanted her to be able to enjoy them as well. So here's what I did:
White Chocolate, Banana and Walnut Gluten-Free Muffins
300g gluten free self raising flour (I used Doves farm)
90g soft brown sugar
150ml skimmed milk
1 egg, beaten
100ml sunflower oil
2 ripe bananas, thinly sliced or mashed
85g walnut pieces, chopped
100g white chocolate chips - I used Dr Oetker
Preheat the oven to 200C. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Beat the egg and add to the sunflower oil and milk and pour onto the dry ingredients. Mix well.
Spoon into paper muffin cases and bake for 20 mins at 200C.
Allow to cool; I put some of them into tulip muffin cases - these are the kind you typically see in coffee shops - as I think it made them look nice.
The muffins were great - I couldn't tell any difference with using the gluten-free flour. They weren't too sweet so I actually had one for breakfast, and the rest of the muffins which I took into work disappeared pretty quickly!
I'm sharing these muffins with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is M.
I'm also sending this to We Should Cocoa, hosted by Tin and Thyme, as the ingredients to use for the challenge this month are chocolate and bananas.
