CHOCOLATE BANANA MUFFINS

I think of muffins as a treaty weekend breakfast, but these look so darkly elegant, especially in their matching dark-brown, tulip-skirted party frocks, that they positively beg to be brought out with coffee after dinner. Certainly, while most muffins are at their best pretty well straight out of the oven, the bananas in the mixture make sure these beauties keep their moist, eat-me texture long after those less favoured have staled and lost their allure."

- Nigella Lawson

Ingredients

3 very ripe or overripe bananas

125ml vegetable oil

2 eggs

100g soft light brown sugar

225g plain flour

3 x 15ml tablespoons best-quality cocoa powder, sifted

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 x 12-bun muffin tin

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6 and line a muffin tin with papers. Don’t worry about getting special papers: regular muffin cases will do the job.

Mash the bananas by hand or with a freestanding mixer.Still beating and mashing, add the oil followed by the eggs and sugar.

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

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.