The last weekend has been a busy busy but fantastic one. It started with a day dedicated to cooking and baking and making everything look pretty and yet relaxed. My idea of entertainment involves very little effort once the guests arrive, I prefer everything to be laid out and let the guests have a little fun DIY-ing and playing around with different stuff, that may to may not work well together. But that’s all the fun! There was: mango feta crostini with red wine fleur de sel, paprika spiked hummus, valrhona cointreau cupcakes, layered lemon cake with lemon cream cheese topped with fresh cranberries and gaufres shards, as well as some mini-mosaic apple tarts. It was quite a day night! And, of course, when at 2am this and this (the British version, of course!) makes a debut, you know the entertainment has taken the best possible turn!
With a Friday like that, even the best of us couldn’t rise and shine from the wee hours into a domestic diva. The thing is, I love the idea of grabbing a weekend (or any day, really) breakfast/brunch/late lunch comprising of breakfast favourites. I love the concept of brinner too (breakfast for dinner, get with the lingo!). The only part which tends to evade this achievement is the fact that it’s usually in the morning, and mornings and me haven’t become quite that friendly yet. That’s kind of how I stumbled upon the idea of making Breakfast Banana Muffins with Coffee-Chocolate Chunks, Hazelnuts and Oats the previous day, so I wouldn’t have to rise and shine early (eek!) to made a hot breakfast treat, I’d just drizzle it with some homemade warm salted caramel, and breakfast is served!
I mean, it does contain coffee (chocolate), oats, nuts and banana — to me, that screams breakfast!
- 2 overripe bananas [or use 4 small bananas]
- 1/3 cup coconut sugar
- 2 tbs molasses or dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
- ¾ cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp maldon sea salt/fleur de sel
- 40gm slab of coffee flavoured chocolate, cut into 1cm chunks
- ¼ cup oats
- ¼ cup hazelnuts, crushed lightly
- Preheat the oven to 175*c. Spray half a cupcake tin with vegetable/canola oil (such as PAM or any other cooking spray) to grease well on all sides or use liners, like I did.
- Mash bananas in a bowl using a potato masher. Mix in the sugar and butter, till you have a smooth consistency. Mix in the vanilla extract.
- Sift over the flour and baking powder. Mix well and fold in the chocolate chunks and hazelnut. Pour the batter into the prepared moulds, and sprinkle the top with the oats and fleur de sel.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, and leave to cool on a cooling rack thereafter for another hour.
- Serve warm with a spoonful of salted caramel, or as it is.
- You can substitute the coconut sugar + molasses sugar for equal amount of brown/dark brown/ demerara sugar.
- If you don't have coffee flavoured chocolate, use chocolate chunks and 1/2 tsp of instant coffee powder in the batter.
