Fully Loaded Banana Chip Muffins

Can a muffin ever be a cupcake? Can a cupcake ever be a muffin?? Hmmm . . . food for thought here.




When does a muffin cross over into cupcake territory . . . and when does a cupcake cross back into being a muffin????


What if the two merge together . . . into some kind of cross breed?? Does it then become a muffcake???




This inquiring mind wants to know.

Plenty of for thought here. What do you think?



In my quest to bake treats for Todd that are not over the top filled with fat . . . in an attempt to get his cholesterol down, I baked some banana muffins today.

When you bake with bananas, you can turn out scrumptiously moist cakes and muffins without having to use a lot of fat. In this case I added some additional crunch and flavours in the way of crushed dried banana chips, chocolate chips and toasted pecans and lemon zest . . .



Did you know that if you rub the sugar you are using in a recipe together with the lemon zest you end up with a gloriously fragrant sugar that smells good enough to eat all on it's own?? I know!! Just a little tip I learned from my good friend Dorie. She's an expert baker and she knows lots of handy hints and tips to make your scrummy home-baked goods taste even scrummier!




In any case, these are fabulous . . . scrummily moreish even . . .

In fact . . . since they are so low in fat . . . you could probably eat two without any guilt at all . . . ahem . . . Why not treat yourself and bake some muffcakes today!




*Fully Loaded Banana Chip Muffins*
Makes 9
Printable Recipe

Deliciously moist, low in fat and filled with the added crunch and textures of crushed banana chips, white chocolate chips and toasted pecans.

3 ounces dried banana chips
(approximately 1 cup)
5 ounces self rising flour
(1 cup)
2 tsp baking powder
the finely grated zest and the juice of one lemon
(I use my microplane)
4 TBS light muscovado sugar (can use soft light brown sugar) packed
5 TBS milk
1 large egg, beaten
2 fluid ounces of sunflower oil
(1/4 cup)
3 over ripe bananas
50g white chocolate chunks
(1/4 cup)
50g chopped toasted pecans
(1/4 cup)
For the Drizzle topping:
4 TBS sifted icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/Gas mark 6. Lightly grease or line a muffin tin with deep paper cases.

Place the muscovado sugar in a bowl. Add the lemon zest and rub together until very fragrant. Break 3/4 of the banana chips into small bits. Reserve the rest to top the muffins at a later time.

Sift the flour and baking powder together in a large bowl. Stir in the lemon infused muscovado sugar, broken banana chips, chocolate chips and chopped nuts. Whisk together the 1 Tablespoon of the lemon juice, the milk, egg and oil. Add the bananas, and mash together well. Fold this into the dry ingredients, only stirring it in until the dry ingredients are evenly moist and no dry bits remain. Divide equally amongst the prepared muffin cases, filling not quite to the top.

Bake for 20 minutes, until risen and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven. Let sit in the pan for a few minutes before scooping out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Once cooled, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in enough of the remaining lemon juice to make a smooth drizzable paste. Drizzle this over the muffins with a spoon. Top each with a whole banana chip.

Psst!! Know what would make these even better??? If you chopped up some glace cherries and added them in with the nuts and choco chips!!