March 28, 2006

Banana Muffins- A Pleasant Breakfast

(Click the above picture to have a bigger and better view)

Well guys its really a long time since I have blogged.Well I had been working on 2 recipes namely 'Victoria Sponge Cake' from Tarla Dalal's "Pleasures of Vegetarian Cooking' and the 'Thattai Murukku' from Priya's "Sugar and Spice". But both the recipes turned out a big flop for me.

Here goes the thattai murukku story. I was too enthu when I started to make this because the batter when put together tasted so yummy and I dint know that the frying part would pose such a problem.But after batch after batch of deep frying I got totally frustrated because each batch of thattai's came out soft , chewy and only a few came out crispy.I just couldn't think what was wrong.Well the only thing I could come up was the oil temperature.But Priya gave some very good tips too(Thanks Priya I will make sure I follow them next time). While deep frying its always better to use the right vessel. I used an aluminium kadai which was in a slanting position all the time and no wonder the heat from the coil did not pass thru to the kadai.So next time when I try this I want to buy a flat cast iron pot or I would love to hear suggestions from you guys!!

OK..ready for the next sad story(Well if you have forgotten.....iam talking about the cake!!!fellas!! )I made cake acc to the directions and I thought I would get a perfect cake.But the cake wasn't spongy nor hard.It was kinda inbetween.It had bits of baking powder here and there throughout the cake.The reason- I did not mix the dry ingredients properly and hence the above result. My friend Kay had dropped by and asked her to taste the cake and she said that it tasted eggy.Another thing was I did not use the center rack while baking the cake so it was baking all the while close to the bottom heat rods and it turned dark brown on the edges and the inside did not cook thru completely.So the tip here is "Always use center rack while baking cakes or muffins". Another tip learnt here is "Always mix the dry ingredients thoroughly before adding them to the wet ingredients".

Well today I wanted to give a last try for the Banana muffin recipe as it also had a couple of trial runs in my kitchen and I came to a point where I wanted to give up but just thought why not give one more LAST shot and then give up. So I did what I had to do and the result is STUNNING!!! Well before presenting the recipe I would like to say that I have reduced the recipe from original version to make just 7 large banana muffins.(the original recipe calls for 18 muffins)

OK now without much further ado I hereby present the AMAZING recipe that I have learnt from Food Network...

Ingredients

all purpose flr or maida- 3/4 cup
baking soda - 1/4 tsp
baking powder - 1/8 tsp
salt-1/4 tsp
ground cinnamon-1/8 tsp
ground nutmeg-1/8 tsp
sugar - 1/2 cup
safflower oil - 1/4 cup(the recipe calls for vegetable oil)
egg -1
vanilla essence - 1/4 tsp
banana - 1 ripe (mashed nicely)

Method

  1. Whisk all dry ingredients nicely in a med size bowl(flr,baking powder,baking soda,salt,g.nutmeg,g.cinnamon).There shouldn't be any lumps at all.
  2. Whisk (sugar,oil,egg,vanilla essence) in another large bowl just till blended.Now stir in bananas.
  3. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until blended. I repeat here do not overblend which will tend the batter to become fibrous and will result in a thick muffin.
  4. Preheat oven to 325 F.
  5. Divide the batter among muffin cups(Spray PAM on each paper muffin cup and dab throughout cup with a tissue paper)
  6. Bake the muffins in middle rack about 25 - 27 min.
  7. Now cool the muffins on a cooling rack and apply whatever frosting you prefer and enjoy to your heart's content.

(Note:When using a muffin pan if there are empty muffin cups with no batter to be filled, fill them with water just till halfway of each cup.)


I would love to contribute this recipe to
Sweetnicks ARF 5 a day Tuesday

17 comments:

Unknown said...

Very nice!! I love banana muffins.

Priya said...

My baking experience has been awful. But i love muffins and the banana muffin is too tempting. The procedure looks simple, shall try it soon. Hope atleast this truns out right for me :(

Luv2cook said...

Glad to see you are back...

I love anything with bananas in it :)

Thankfully, I have never had big huge baking disasters yet...touch wood..

Like SH said, I always sift together my dry ingredients and add them in batches to my wet ones and not in one big batch.

Ashwini said...

You go girl :-)
Re: the deep frying part - use a deep bottomed kadai (oil does not pool); use a generous quantity of oil (I have been stingy before to get BAD results. if you are deep frying do it well!) and drop the batter at the right time (this is the most imp one. If you fry anything at the correct temp it also absorbs v little oil. So wait until the oil is practically smoking, which means you have to use an oil which smokes well). hope this helps...

BDSN said...

Hey Pushpa,SH,Priya,L2c,Ashwini...
Thanks all for dropping by....

Sh,L2c:Thanks for letting me know this beautiful tip of 'sifting dry ingredients'..I have read them so many times but today it makes lot of sense..

Priya ..U gotta try it...my hubby loved it..(just make sure u follow all the tips i have given in the recipe and u will be very happy that u tried..)

Ashwini:Thanks for your suggestions....Hey btw sorry for not being clear..I really did want suggestions on a good deep fryer..but nothing wrong with the suggestions you gave..I will surely look up to these when i deep fry something next time...Well if you do have any suggestions for a good deep fryer vessel..(like aluminium,cast iron or steel..just let me know which i can go for...)

lost in thoughts said...

Thats one good breakfast !

BDSN said...

Hi Spicehut,Santhi..

Thanks for droppin by and thanks for the nice comments..

Vineela said...

Hi BDSN,
Muffins r great and Yummy.I am going to try.I bought deepfrying pan"calphalon" from Linenthings.
Vineela

BDSN said...

Hey Lera...good to see u..i lov banana muffins..next iam planning to try an eggless version..

Anjali- Thanks!!well iam so happy i followed this recipe bcoz it has no BUTTER!how gr8 is that?

Ashwini:Hey i was also thinking abt a wok but was a lil unsure but now its cleared...

KM: Sure!!!Hey i tried ur ven pongal with basmati rice and same amount of water...and it tasted great!!Thanks a tonne!!!

Vineela: I lov all calphalon products...a lil expensive but iam waiting for a big holiday to buy them on sale...hopefully

sailu said...

Banana muffins happen to be my son's favorite.Your picture looks so good.

KA said...

Banana muffins look appetizing!!

BDSN said...

Thanks Sailu and thanks KrishnaArjuna...

GourmayMasala said...

BDSN - Here are my two cents to the discussion. I also have similar trouble deep frying on my electric stove. I have been looking into electric deep fryers. You should be able to find one under $30 on Amazon.

From what I have heard about them, you need to fill oil upto a certain level, so you may use up more oil than usual. But, the temperature is well maintained, so the oil doesnot smoke excessively spreading odors throughout the house. So this sounds like a great option for deep frying in bulk!

BDSN said...

Hey GM:Thanks for your suggestions..Now i have plenty of options..wok,cast iron deep fryer,deep fryer from calphalon and an electric deep fryer...I just gotta do some price comparison,product research and iam set to buy..

Thank you all...

Vaishali said...

Hi BDSN,
I am at your blog for the first time. Landed here through SpiceHut. What I loved in this post was your tip on filling empty muffin moulds with water. It will sure come in handy when I am baking next, especially when I too scale down the recipes to make fewer muffins than stated.
Btw, I am adding you to my favourites on my blog
www.happyburp.blogspot.com.
Hope you don't mind.

BDSN said...

Hey Vaishali...

Thanks for your kind comments.I love your blog's name..It's quite unique and very interesting..Please feel free to add my blog to yours and well i would also love to add your blog to mine...

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