Eggless Banana Walnut Chocolate Muffins

So my frivolous love for bananas continues with this post….

Hope you don’t bog me down for this one. It’s not that I am head over heels for bananas in desserts, but the bananas and chocolates go together so well, the twosome combination is a pair made in heaven. That probably is my opinion alone. In fact my husband thinks its otherwise. He abhors bananas in desserts, to his taste it ruins the dessert entirely.

We were out at Swenson’s on a recent weekend to enjoy some goblets of ice cream. Their colossal menu in lanky brochures are sure to instigate sundae cravings in anyone. Earlier the week, my husband picked up a Times daily deal that randomly caught his interest while flipping through a newspaper ad.

The deal didn’t go down well with us, given the fact we were offered limited choice to pick from. It wasn’t just worth the penny saved on discount. Every option we were allowed to choose from had bananas in it, not certainly my husband’s choice. With puckered brow and frown on his face, he beheld a manifestation which Swenson’s wouldn’t like to envisage, I am sure.

While I made my choice for a Fruit n’ Nut Sundae, given his weakness for chocolates, he finally ended up indulging in a Chocolate Sundae, with loads of chocolate ice cream, gooey chocolate sauce, cream, nuts, and of course banana chunks (that according to him would have been decadent minus the bananas).

Bananas apart ;), that made up for a nice romantic evening we spent together. Of course with a baby around, you can never make it romantic, can you? May be the song Paani da rang vekh le currently playing on my iPod would have conjured up for that romance. :) I am so much in love with this number from Vicky Donor (wish I got to see the movie too…) that I have it playing in loops! Good job Aayushman, love your voice.

Ironically, despite the dislike of bananas in desserts, one of our all-time favorite still remains the Banana bread. For the chocolate lover boy I have at home, I made these Banana Chocolate Muffins with walnuts and it turned out that from the small batch of 6 large muffins that I got, I was left with none the moment they were out of the oven. I got to click these snaps in less than 5 minutes I was given for the countdown, so please bear with these photographs shot in the evening in low light conditions.

Eggless Banana Walnut Chocolate Muffins

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup mashed bananas (about 1 large over ripe banana)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter (replace with vegetable oil for low fat)
1 tbsp. cocoa powder (add a tsp. more for a denser chocolate flavor)
1 scant cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fine sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
Handful of chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Line the muffin tin with paper cases.

Mash bananas along with milk in a food processor. To this, add melted butter and whisk well. Set aside.

In a separate glass bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, cocoa powder and sugar along with baking soda.

Make a well in center of sifted flours. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients. Fold gently. Few lumps are perfectly fine, they give texture to the muffins. Finally fold in the walnuts. The batter should be thicker than the regular cake batter.

Scoop out spoonful of the muffin batter and dollop them into the lined muffin tins. Scatter a handful of walnuts and brown sugar for a good crusty, crisp topping. Very optional, but rest assured you will love biting into that crunchy topping, also rendering caramelized butterscotch flavor to the cake. Bake for 20 minutes at 180ºC or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool before removing from pan.

So what differentiates muffins from cupcakes? Traditionally is that muffins are meant to be denser with lower fats and sugars, usually left without frosting. They are supposed to have drier texture than cupcakes, however most bakeries replicate the recipe for cupcakes with high fat and sugar content in them, making them unhealthy and unfit for regular consumption. With this recipe I used butter, but for low fat version use vegetable oil instead of butter, also replace all-purpose flour to an equal mix of all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour for a healthier option.