The Baking Medic

Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins with Crumb Topping

Let me start out by saying these muffins are amazing! Sorry — no modesty on this one.  These are without a doubt the best banana muffins/cake/bread/whatever I have ever made.   I always have problems with banana bread – it’s too gooey in the centre but burnt on the outside.  Baking these as little wee muffins solves that issue and they’re done in 20 minutes! And the texture is perfect — not too cakey but not dry or gooey.

Now, what else sets these muffins apart? For a start, they are crammed full of big chocolate chunks — delicious cold but even better slightly warm and melted.  Secondly, they have a strong sweet banana flavour.  I added a dash of banana extract and it really strengthened the intensity of the banana.  Nom.  Lastly, just before baking a crumb topping of brown sugar, flour and butter is sprinkled on top.  It is a sheer delight to bite through the crispy sweet topping before sinking your teeth into the soft banana and chocolate muffin that waits beneath.  I could go on and on about these muffins.

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Enter the White Chocolate Coconut Muffin

So I think this is my 3rd variation of that brilliant original buttermilk muffin recipe — and it has yet to fail me! That being said, these muffins turned out slightly differently from how I expected them too.  At first I wanted them to be lemon white chocolate coconut muffins, but alas, Aldi was shut for Easter! So they became White Chocolate Coconut muffins.

As ever, I am a big fan of using up ingredients (waste not, want not) so the coconut and white chocolate were both left over from my Cookie Monster cupcakes.  When I was buying ingredients for them, I waaay overestimated the amount of googly eyes I would need! So I had 2 packs of white chocolate buttons left, just waiting to be thrown into some tasty muffins.

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Variation #2: Bakewell Muffins

Freedom! Well, freedom-ish.  I just had my midsemester exam yesterday… but that’s all I’m going to say about that. However, since my Easter break saw me working harder than I do in term time, I decided to take today off and play a round of golf.  It was a blustery day, but the sun was out and I was happy to be doing anything other than revision. And my best score yet!

This is the second variation on the original Pear & White Chocolate Muffins.  The first variation was the Jaffa Muffins, in which I substituted the pear and white chocolate chips for orange zest and chocolate chips.  In this variation, I experimented a bit more and replaced 1/2 cup of flour with a 1/2 cup of ground almonds.  I also added a dollop of jam in the centre. I’m sure you’ve guessed what the varation is (if the title of the post didn’t give it away anyway) — they’re Bakewell muffins!

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These muffins are the first variation on the muffin recipe that I posted earlier this week, the Pear & White Chocolate Chip Muffins.  The recipe once again uses oil instead of butter, comes together so quickly and gives you delicious muffins with generous muffintop (the best part!).

These muffins are Jaffa Muffins! If you don’t know what Jaffa cakes are, you’re missing out.  They’re a UK cookie/cake covered with a layer of orange jelly and topped off by a coating of chocolate.  Whether or not they’re a cake or a biscuit is a source of great debate, but these are without a doubt muffins. :)

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Pear + White Chocolate = Delicious Muffins

It’s the Easter break here in St Andrews and most students are off cavorting away somewhere on the Continent. Alas, for medics, the 2 week break finds us at home or still in the Bubble looking longingly outside as we get our first days of spring.  Such is the lot of people who have midterms the first day back from the “break”.

But I still found some time to make these muffins.  A few months back, I made a Glazed Pear & White Chocolate Bundt cake.  I loved the combination of pear and white chocolate, two soft sweet complementary flavours.  So this past weekend, I was running low on a few ingredients and was looking for a recipe to use up a couple of pears that I had sitting around.  See I was butter-less, which pretty much rules out 75% of cake and cookie recipes.  So I decided to go looking for a muffin recipe and I found a great basic buttermilk muffin recipe.  The recipe originally called for berries, but I substituted the same volume of chopped up pear and white chocolate chips.

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Every year since my early childhood, my family travels to our cottage in northern Manitoba, known simply as “the Lake”.  Some of my fondest memories are of the (mis)adventures my brothers and I got ourselves into as we whiled away the long summer days of the north. Of course, things have changed a lot since then.  Gone are the days when we had to jump off the front porch because the stairs had rotted away.  Gone are the days when we spent hours on the neighbour’s trampoline, laughing when one of us accidentally bounced off. Gone are the days of doors that didn’t quite fit their hinges, as the cottage foundations succumbed a bit more each year to the soft muskeg below.   Gone are the days of mismatched furniture, orange curtains, and peeling lino. But the memories remain and I must admit I don’t miss all the mosquitoes buzzing around my ears!

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Before we get to the baking, I’d like share a few photos from the cottage so far. A few days ago, the lake was like glass again so we took the boat out to go fishing (alas, no trout) and then across the lake to Hugo Bay.

I can’t get over the brilliance of the colours of this lake.

Then, yesterday we “kids” took the car out to the Caves, out near Mile 25. There we hiked around the crevices on the rocky shore of the lake. I’d always just taken the clearly marked path, but it was beautiful to step off it and do a bit scrambling! » Read the rest of this entry «