Banana breakfast muffins

Facing a long journey to France with the boys in the car is a daunting prospect. While Sam is happy to sit and watch DVDs on his little screen, Arlo cannot bear being in the car for very long and bellows in THE most distressing way. When you’re trapped in a fast moving vehicle with hundreds of miles still to go, this is not good, not good at all.

My approach – be armed with many MANY items of food. Breakfast is the first hurdle, and for a bit of a treat I baked up some delicious muffins to kick the day off in a holiday mood. Who can be grumpy when eating cake first thing?! (That’s not a challenge Arlo)

I made them a few days in advance and whacked them in the freezer, taking them out the night before when I was getting the bag of food packed up for the mammoth journey.

I adapted a recipe from Nigella.com but given it a healthier spin by using half wholemeal flour and half white and scattering some of the bran sieved out of the flour onto the top.

In a not-so-healthy flourish I finished off a small tub of dark chocolate chips into the mix – but there were hardly any left, so the muffins have about two chocolate chips in a piece. If you were feeling inclined I’d put about 50g in. You could put dried fruit in, but if I’d done this Sam would have spent the journey removing them and scattering them all over the footwells of the car.

These muffins are great for breakfast, but equally brilliant for a wholesome after school energy boost if you’re starting to think about the start of the new term.

They taste incredible fresh from the oven – the nutmeg and cinnamon wafts around the kitchen enveloping you in home baking heaven. If I ran a bed and breakfast I’d definitely have these on the go…

Banana Breakfast Muffins (Makes 15)

250g self raising flour (half white, half wholemeal)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
pinch salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
115g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp runny honey
75g butter, melted
125ml milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed

1. Heat oven to 190’C, 170’C Fan and line a couple of muffin trays with cases – I used 15 large cases but you could use more small sized ones to make the mixture go further.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a bowl, reserving a little of the bran from the wholemeal flour. Add the sugar and mix well.
3. In a second bowl beat together the eggs, vanilla extract, honey, butter and milk with a fork. Add the bananas to the egg mixture and stir.
4. Make a well in the dry mixture and add the egg mixture. Mix together roughly with a fork until well combined but not smooth.
5. Evenly fill your muffin cases with batter, scatter each with a little of the bran and then bake in the oven for 20-25 mins.
6. Once golden brown and firm remove from oven leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin and then 5 minutes on a wire rack.