Guilt Free Banana Muffins

I promise you this is one muffin that you can eat as many as you want and not have to worry about the waist line.  The key is to get the base right.  Once you have perfected it, the options for add-ons are endless.

Since I'm not big on baking due to the tedious washing, i was really looking for a recipe for a base that would omit oil or butter and uses as few ingredients as possible WITHOUT sacrificing on the taste or texture. I love muffins that are moist rather than crumbly. After quite a bit of research and experiment, i finally decided this is THE one because:

1. The whole process takes only 15 min, from assembling the ingredients to popping the muffins into the oven

2. It only requires 5 ingredients for the base

3. Minimal cleaning - once you know how the whole sequence works, you can minimise both time and utensils required

4. Healthy - no oil or butter required (this also reduces the washing - I have no maid :P), and uses wholemeal flour and yogurt

5. Finally, yes it tastes good! I knew it passed the test because my little guy gobbled up four for his afternoon snack. 

Super moist muffins, thanks to the yogurt

and extra ripened bananas.

Guilt Free Banana Muffins

Ingredients

A

• 1 1/2 C wholemeal flour
• 3/4 C brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

B

• 5 medium size bananas, mashed
• 1 egg
• 1 small tub of plain yogurt (I use the standard 135g)

C 

• 40g of milk chocolate, roughly chopped (i use dove ready to eat chocolate, didnt even bother with cooking chocolate)
• 1/2 C nibbed almonds or walnuts
• 2 tblspn of milo powder 

1. Mix A and B respectively in two separate mixing bowls. Make a well in the centre of A, pour B into the well. Pour in C. Fold everything together, take care not to overmix, the batter should still be lumpy.

2. Preheat the oven at 190degrees celcius.

3. Spray non stick cooking spray onto paper cases in the muffin pan. Spoon the batter into the cases until 3/4 full.

4. Pop them into the oven and bake for 15 - 20min, test for doneness using a fork or toothpick. Once the time is up, remove from the oven and leave the muffins on the cooking tray for 10-15 min before serving.

Makes 18-20 muffins, using size 9 paper cases

Tip: for bananas, I find that pisang emas is the best because it has a very nice sweet flavour. However, it is getting harder to find pisang emas, I dunno why. The most common ones are the montle and pisang berangan, both of which I find quite tasteless. I think it is a case of commercialisation gone overboard, the bananas were probably plucked when they were totally green, and ripened under artificial uv light. Thats why they are bland and flavourless.