Nigella Lawson, in case you don’t know, is a British Food Goddess.

Last week, I tried Nigella’s Banana Chocolate Muffin recipe. The muffins turned out to be lovely and moist, with a light texture, which was not too rich or overly sweet.

However, I found the banana flavour was pretty strong in this recipe, and it over-powered the chocolate. Maybe Australian bannanas are more flavour-some than British ones?

So I made it again and changed the recipe – less one banana and added chopped dark chocolate chips instead of the cocoa powder.

The result had the same delicious, light, moist texture, but more of a chocolatey taste with a hint of banana flavour.

Plus I used dark chocolate, so it had that deep, rich and slightly bitter taste to it. DIVINE!!!

Nigella Lawson’s Banana Chocolate Muffins (slightly modified by me!)

My changes are bolded!

2 very ripe or overripe bananas (not 3)
125ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
100g soft light brown sugar
225g plain flour
3 x 15ml tablespoons best-quality cocoa powder, sifted
60g of grated dark chocolate (in addition to the  cocoa powder)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 x 12-bun muffin tin

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and line a muffin tin with papers. Don’t worry about getting special papers: regular muffin cases will do the job.

2. Mash the bananas by hand or with an electric mixer. Still beating and mashing, add the oil followed by the eggs and sugar.

3. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, grated chocolate and bicarb together and add this mixture, beating gently, to the banana mixture, then spoon it into the prepared papers.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for 15–20 minutes, by which time the muffins should be dark, rounded and peeking proudly out of their cases. Allow to cool slightly in their tin before removing to a wire rack.

Serves: Makes 12

The un-Karen-Cheng-ified Original Banana Chocolate Muffin Recipe is HERE, along with a whole lot of  other excellent recipies.