Jglencross' Chocolate, Banana and Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

1¼ Serving/125g Flour, Wholemeal, Self Raising, Allinson*

125g Flour, White, Self Raising, Average

100g Sugar, Light Muscovado, Tesco*

200 g Banana, Raw, Flesh Only, Average

1 Egg/56g Eggs, Free Range, Large, Average

1 g Salt, Table, Average

250ml Milk, Skimmed, Average

50g Cocoa Powder, Bournville, Cadbury*

60g Milky Bar, Buttons, Nestle*

125g Prunes, Bite Size, Ready to Eat, Sainsbury's*

1 Tsp/4g Vanilla Extract, Average

Method

1. First, add the two flours, salt, sugar and cocoa into a mixing bowl. If you're going to mix the muffins by hand, it's a good idea to sift the dry ingredients also.
2. Put bananas, prunes, vanilla extract and milk into a blender and blend until smooth. If you don't have a blender, you can get away with mashing the bananas with a fork until smooth, and chopping the prunes up as finely as possible - but the muffins will have a different texture. A hand/stick blender should be sufficient. Once combined, add the egg and beat lightly to mix.
3. Pour liquid ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth - I use my Kitchenaid mixer for this. The batter should be quite wet: if too stiff, add a splash more milk. Don't worry if it looks too runny!
4. Once the batter is made, add the milky bar buttons and mix briefly to combine evenly. It's best to crush them a little first. You can substitute actual Milky Bars, white chocolate drops, or any other white chocolate, though if you buy it in a thick block you'll have trouble breaking it into small enough bits.
5. Dollop spoonfuls of batter into 12 x silicon muffin moulds. N.B. I say silicon for a reason! this mixture is almost fat free. As a result, even paper muffin cases become welded to it! If you want to use metal tins, that's fine, but they will need greasing well (which of course adds calories) and lining with good quality non-stick paper. Don't panic if there appears to be a lot of mixture! The mixture rises in the centre, but not at the edges. So you can fill the muffin moulds to within a mm of the brim, and they won't overflow.
6. Bake on 170 C, until a cocktail stick or skewer inserted into the centre of the muffins comes out clean. Check muffins for the first time after around 20 minutes, although they could take up to 35.
7. Leave to cool in the "tins". Although the cakes will have risen, as they cool they will shrink back.

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