White chocolate banana muffins

It used to be that I'd make banana bread once every four or six weeks-- usually when I found myself with fruit far too overripened even for me (the joke with my parents is that I won't touch bananas until all traces of green have been taken over by black spots and they won't eat bananas with any trace of spotted goodness).

Then all of a sudden I stopped. It's not that I stopped making banana bread--I just stopped buying bananas. I don't know why or exactly when, but I've not had a banana in the house for what seem like ages and ages.

Just as suddenly the bananas reappeared. The first bunch was courtesy of my parents--more spotted than green. I made muffins and they were good. Since then there seems to have been at least one banana in the house.

This week I just couldn't get through them all and they morphed into a gooey-and-slimy-on-the-inside and pitch-like-on-the-outside existence. It would almost be sad if they weren't finding themselves to a better fate. Well..okay, not better...just tasty.

My standard banana bread recipe is from Nigella's How To Be A Domestic Goddess. I've tried others and as good as they are, this one is the one I always come back to. Sometimes I add dried fruit or frozen berries, sometimes nuts, sometimes a combination. This time I decided to reach for my jar of white chocolate chippies.

I'm not a fan of white chocolate--I find it too sweet and even the smallest amount seems to leave me glugging water. I keep it in the house in case I need to make an emergency special cheesecake or I want a visual contrast in some midnight-like chocolatey cookies. But this time the chippies just called out to me from the cupboard (it's amazing how they do that).

The end result was sweeter than I'd prefer--a combination of the bananas, chips and brown sugar--so next time I'd probably lessen the amount of sugar. Friends who've tried them really like them. They're easy and relatively quick and are good with a nice hot cup of tea.

White Chocolate Banana Muffins
adapted from Nigella Lawson's Banana Bread in How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Yield 15 muffins

175g plain flour
1 dspn baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp salt
125g butter, melted
150g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
300g mashed overripe bananas
100g white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170C/325F; paper the bowls of a cupcake tin.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the butter and bananas with sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Fold in the flour mixture, then the chips. Pour into lined tins and bake for 20-30 minutes or until done.


cheers!
jasmine