Brown Sugar Banana Muffins

There are a million and one versions of banana bread out there. This one is decently moist, low in fat, pleasantly spiced and not too sweet. There’s a nice hit of spice and crunch from the sugar chips, plus a hit of chocolate that not overwhelming as it often is in banana bread. I made these into muffins but you could just as easily make a tea bread - layer the chips in the middle and sprinkle on top.

Sugar chips:

one slab of brown sugar 

good cocoa powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Stick the sugar in a baggie and hit repeatedly with the blunt object of your choice to break into chips. Add cinnamon and cocoa powder to cover.

Batter:

2 c. flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp tea masala (cardamom/black pepper/ginger/cinnamon/clove)

1 cup packed brown sugar (the regular kind, not slab)

3  bananas, pureed to baby food consistancy.

2 eggs

dribble of vanilla extract

1/4 cup veg. oil

1/4 cup plain yogurt

Mix ingredients Muffin Method style. (Dry ingredients mixed in a bowl, wet ingredients mixed in a bowl. uh, sugar is a wet ingredient by the way. Also, beat your eggs before you add them to the wet.Wet into dry and fold together. Be gentle - you want to keep air in it.) 

Once you’ve got a batter, grease your muffin pans and add a spoonful to each. Layer in some sugar chips, then another spoonful of batter to cover. Sprinkle a few chips on top.

Bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of one. It will be a hell of a lot quicker if you’re making mini muffins, and longer if you decided to make tea bread. Regular muffins take maybe 12 minutes in my oven.