Double chocolate banana muffin/ almost cake sans eggs

I imagine if I had continued to live in the states, my blogging life would be a continuation of my social life.  The women I hang out with at/outside of work would also be the ones who blog along similar interests and share commentary on the blog.  Blogging hadn't quite taken off when I was living there, here, none of the women I know through work or mommy groups blog for fun.  Whenever I come across a local blog, by local I mean in any place in India I am familiar with, I always latch on and try to engage with comments on their blogs and trying to join their blogging-related endeavour.    Gayathri's blog was one such serendipity find.  She is the only ACTIVE blogger i have found so far.

She has a egg-less  baking group I promptly signed up for, then just like at work with my research, I promptly got lost in thoughts of what to make, why is egg used etc... and didn't quite get down to baking until today.  I even planned enough to save browned bananas in the fridge (looked like a dead rat after 2 weeks, threw it out today) bought palm sugar and replenished my chocolate chips  stock (which my son decimated in his custard).  I am excellent at planning but miserable at falling through, in fact the Indian govt begged me to join their planning commission given my excellent track record, but my kids don't want to leave Chennai ;)

Egg binds.  My genius dad got a couple of bananas with him by bus from Pondicherry, I added his browned bananas to my 2 text-book correct selection for banana nut bread - yellow  with brown spots, to prove, banana can bind just as nicely.

Egg helps the cake/bread become airy and light (Cholesterol heavy egg makes cake light).  I decided a judicious combination of Baking Powder and Vinegar should do the trick, after all they make Volcanoes with the combination, so it can definitely work on my muffin.

Egg adds a richness to the cake with its fat.  I used a combination of yogurt and sunflower oil. One could use coconut milk instead of yogurt, but ready made costs 48Rs and I was not in a mood to buy coconut, break, shred and then make the milk in my excellent Morphy-Richards blender's juicer attachment.

I had discovered the benefits of blending the bananas in my mixer as opposed to using a potato masher, but I forgot to do it that way and my hubby winced when he got a small banana piece in his mouth, otherwise excellent Nosh.

This recipe is adapted from Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini's excellent coconut-chocolate yogurt cake. This has become my base for any Riff in the world of cakes and cupcakes/muffins.

  1. 1 1/2 cups Atta
  2. 1/4 cup maida (ran out of atta)
  3. 2 tsp baking powder
  4. 1 tsp baking soda
  5. 1/4 cup cocoa (I used cadbury's)
  6. 4 bananas
  7. 1 cup yogurt
  8. 1/3 cup oil
  9. 1 tsp vanilla
  10. 1 cup palm sugar
  11. 1 cup fresh shredded coconut toasted
  12. 1/2 cup chocolate chips
Blend items 1 to 5 together with your finger tips until the mix looks a pale brown.  Atta precludes sieving the mix together to ensuring the baking powder is mixed properly with the flour.

In another bowl, mash the bananas together, add the yogurt, oil and vanilla and mash a bit more.  Then mix in the palm sugar.  The oil is optional.  I wanted to ensure the muffin doesn't dry out before my son gets to it, so this was my insurance.

Add the dry ingredients mix to the wet and mix until just combined.

Fold in the toasted coconut and chocolate chips.

Pour into pre-greased  muffin pan (3/4th full) and bake in a preheated 175 deg oven for 20 - 25 minutes.

I got 24 muffins out of it.



This is also my entry to the cakes, cookies and Desserts event.

Comments

Gayathri Kumar said…
Nice variation of a coconut cake. The chocolatey flavour must have been great. Thanks for joining the group...
Wow! That's a lovely one. :)
Thanks for linking.

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