I wasn't joking when I tweeted over the weekend that I had half my body weight in chocolate waiting to review ! I've already reviewed some of the flavoured bars this week, but when I came to the Tesco Finest 74% Dark Ecuadorian chocolate that I'd received for a Bzz campaign, I decided to try it out in a recipe. Here's what we made, tweaking my usual banana bread recipe. When I'm in a rush or feeling lazy, I love using my set of measuring cups rather than getting out the scales as it's quicker and easier.
Chocolate & Banana Muffins
ingredients :
½ cup margarine
1 cup crunchy demerera sugar
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda (or sachet of raising agent - not needed if using self raising flour)
a pinch of vanilla salt
1/2 bar Tesco Finest 74% Dark Ecuadorian chocolate
Cream together the margarine and sugar - I decided to use crunchy demerera sugar in place of my usual caster sugar and swapped butter for margarine, to see if it would make a difference to the finished texture. I think the margarine gave a lighter texture but the demerera didn't retain its crunch as much as I hoped. Next time, I'd reserve some to sprinkle over the top just as they come out of the oven.
Mash the bananas in a separate bowl. Break in the eggs and roughly whisk them together. Add the margarine/sugar.
Mix in the flour, vanilla salt, baking soda and the chocolate, broken into small pieces.
Spoon the muffin batter into paper cases in muffin tins (I managed to get 4 batches of 8 muffins, but usually I make one big cake so the choice is yours). Bake in a preheated oven at 180° for about 20 minutes (or 1 hour if making a big cake), then test to see if a skewer or knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Disclosure : I received some chocolate from the Tesco Finest range for a Bzz campaign, in order to spread the word about the product and collect honest feedback.
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The muffins look good. Can I use butter instead of margarine? I'm not a fan of margarine...
ReplyDeleteHi Dan, yes, you can. As I said above, I usually use butter but I fancied giving them a go with margarine to reduce the fat content a bit and see what they came out like. It gave a lighter texture but you do lose a bit on the flavour front.
DeleteI myself love baking chocolate banana muffins but I make them extra chocolatey lol
ReplyDelete