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Banana bread muffins

Banana bread muffins

Prep time:  15 mins
Cook time: 25 mins
Total time: 50 mins

Makes: 6 muffins

Ingredients

  • 2 medium ripe bananas
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp  oil (rice bran, etc.)
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
  • 100 ml vegan eggy milk (see below)
    • 100ml water
    • 1 tsp flaxseeds
    • 1/2 tsp chia seeds
    • a sprinkling of oats
    • a few cashews
  • 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 cup (112 g) gluten-free oats

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.  If not using a silicone muffin tray, line the metal with paper muffin cases.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, add the bananas, baking powder, and baking soda. Mash until only small chunks remain.
  3. Add vanilla, oil, sugars, maple syrup, sea salt, and cinnamon and mix vigorously to combine.
  4. In a high power blender (nutrimix or similar), separately make the ‘vegan eggy milk’:
    1. Put 100ml water, 1 tsp flaxseed, 1/2 tsp chia seeds, a sprinkling of oats, and a sprinkling of cashews.  Pulverise for about 30 seconds
  5. Add the ‘eggy milk’ to the mix, and mix once more to combine.
  6. Add flour and oats, and stir until just combined.
  7. Divide the batter between the silicone muffin tins, filling all the way – this should make about 6 muffins.
  8. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean and the edges are dark golden brown.
  9. Remove from oven and let cool in the tin for 5 minutes (they’ll still be lovely and warm for eating for a while yet).
  10. Finally remove from the tin and let them cool further on a cooling rack.
  11. Serve with butter, or as is.  It’s delicious either way.
  12. Store leftovers in a sealed container for up to 4 days, or in the freezer up to 1 month.
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Choc Oat Chewies

These are based on a ‘Special Oat Chewies’ recipe I picked up from somewhere many years ago.  So when a friend asked for some chocolate chip cookies with oats this morning, this recipe came quickly to mind.  Because of some new dietary restrictions amongst friends, I was able to modify the recipe accordingly below, and they’re delicious!

This makes a good 24-36 ‘biscuit’ sized treats (as I tend to cook them in baking trays of 12 at a time. Smaller is normally better)

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup     rice bran oil (or vegetable oil)
  • 1 cup        white sugar
  • 3/4 cup     agave syrup (honey, or golden syrup)
  • 1/2 cup     non-dairy milk (soy, rice, etc.  or regular dairy if you prefer)
  • 2 tsp          vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups buckwheat flour (or wholemeal flour if you’re not worried about the Gluten Free aspect)
  • 1/2 tsp       baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp       salt
  • 3 cups       rolled oats
  • 3/4 tsp       cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup      sultans or raisins
  • 1/3 cup      hazelnuts
  • 1 cup / 125g         large chocolate chunks (such as 1/2 bar of Whitaker’s Dark Ghana, chopped roughly into half the regular sized chocolate squares)

Method

  • Preheat your oven to around 180 degrees.
  • Blend the oil, sugar, syrup/honey, milk and vanilla extract until smooth.
  • Add the powdered ingredients slowly (mixing in well to the liquids as you go along).
  • Finally add the raisins, whole hazelnuts, and chocolate chunks, and mix in well.
  • Place large spoonfuls of the mixture onto baking parchment, around 12 cookies per sheet.
    • They largely keep their shape, so will look pretty rugged even after baking.
  • Bake them for around 11-14 minutes until just going golden on the peaks and base (rotating the baking trays as necessary).
  • Remove from the oven, and leave to cool on the baking tray for a couple of minutes (to help keep their shape).
  • Then remove carefully from the baking parchment, and allow to cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes or so.
  • Enjoy slowly!

Storage:

  • You can store them in an airtight tub for up to a few days easily.
  • I haven’t tested them beyond 4 days yet, because they always get eaten up by then!
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Vegan pancakes

Vegan pancakes

A few years ago, whilst single and working from home, I intentionally didn’t buy chocolate, sweets, or similar.

Pancakes were therefore my ‘go to’ option for those times I really wanted a sweet fix.  I’d always keep powdered milk, lemon juice, and the like in the cupboard ready (I can’t eat eggs, so I modified my own version with mainly just equal volumes of milk to flour, which worked pretty well by itself).

This is the latest incarnation of the recipe, that’s now vegan.  It also recently proved particularly popular to the build crews at kiwiburn, where there were a good dozen or so vegans (hence the group measurements).

Vegan pancakes

This makes those smaller, slightly thicker, American style pancakes.

If you’d like to make them more like the French Crepes style thin large ones, add a little more oil, a bit more ‘milk’ liquid, and use something to spread the mix gently around your pan as it starts to cook to help it get nice and thin.

Ingredients (to feed four, or there abouts):

  • 1 cup (250ml) plain flour
  • 1 1/3 cups (330ml) soy milk (or other milks)
  • 2 level teaspoons baking powder
  • about 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
  • 1 tablespoon rice bran oil (or other oils)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • A little oil for frying (depending on your non-stick pan)

Ingredients (to feed around 12-15 people):

  • 3 cups (750ml) plain flour
  • 3.5 cups (875ml) soy milk (or other milks)
  • 4 heaped tsp baking powder
  • 1.5 heaped tsp bicarbonate soda
  • 3 tbls rice bran oil (or other oils)
  • 1 large pinch salt
  • A little oil for frying  (depending on your non-stick pan)

Method:

  1. Combine all the ingredients into a large bowl
  2. Whisk thoroughly with a fork (or an egg whisk if you have one).
  3. The consistency should be similar to double cream.
  4. If you can, leave the mix to stand for 20 minutes (or ideally much longer like a few hours, for the best results leave the mix overnight. This helps the mix gel together better).
  5. Have a pre-heated non-stick fry pan, medium hot.
  6. If it’s not that good a non-stick pan, add about a teaspoon of oil before cooking (you don’t need much).  Otherwise ideally no extra oil in the pan.
  7. Pour a little of the mix into three ‘corners’ of the pan (a couple of tablespoons per pancake).
  8. Fry until the bubbles burst on the uncooked top, and the base is a nice brown cooked colour (if the bubbles burst before the base goes brown, turn the heat up.  If the base goes brown before the burbles burst, turn the heat down).
  9. Flip over, and cook for about 30 seconds to a minute more.
  10. Stack on a plate, put in a pre-heated oven at about 70 degrees Celsius, and eat with whatever you like!

Some great toppings:

  • Maple Syrup (the genuine stuff, not ‘maple flavour syrup’)
  • lemon juice and sugar
  • Toffee sauce
  • bananas
  • chocolate spread
  • bananas and chocolate spread
  • chocolate spread and cream
  • fruit purée / compote
  • frozen berries
  • finely sliced apple & cinnamon
  • slices of butter
  • everything  else you can think of!

Other Variations:

You can also use Buckwheat flour instead of the regular flour (although baking powder normally contains gluten too)  I’m still playing around with my favourite variations to the gluten free option at the moment.

chocolate drop pancakes
You can also add chocolate drops to part of the mix, for a delicious sweet variation.
You can stack a bunch of crepes together, layered with whipped cream, syrup, fruit, and whatever else you like.
You can stack a bunch of crepes together, layered with whipped cream, syrup, fruit, and whatever else you like.
You can fill your thinner pancakes with a savoury filling too. This was a chickpea salad mix topped with finely grated cheese.
You can fill your thinner pancakes with a savoury filling too. This was a chickpea salad mix topped with finely grated cheese.  Delicious 🙂
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Banana Bread

Ingredients:

  • 225g plain flour
  • 3 heaped tsp baking powder
  • 100g brown sugar
  • 3 tsp cinnamon or mixed spice
  • 3 large ripe bananas, mashed
  • 75g Vegetable or Sunflower oil (by weight, not volume)
  • 50g Dried fruit or nuts (optional)

Method:

  • Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celcius.
  • Mash the peeled bananas with a fork. Mix well with oil and sugar.
  • Add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon, and combine well.
  • Add any additional ingredients.
  • Baked in a greased and lined 2lb loaf tin for 20 minutes, before checking. Cover with foil, if the loaf cake is browning. Bake for another 40 minutes (approximately).
  • Allow to cool a little before slicing. It’s delicious freshly baked but even yummier when it goes gooey the next day!