What do you do when your cat wakes you up very early?

Simple - you bake! Flo thought it would be amusing to meow loudly outside our bedroom door just before 4am yesterday. We tried ignoring her, but she was very persistent, so Mr JK let her in. She came up on the bed, purred very loudly, and when she was quite certain that we were wide awake, she pushed off back downstairs again!! Once we had decided that going back to sleep wasn't on the cards, Mr JK went for an early morning run and I got busy in the kitchen. I have started baking batches of muffins recently and decided to play around a little with the ingredients. An over ripe banana was waving at me from the fruit bowl, so I decided to bake some banana and walnut muffins. I used wholemeal self raising flour and soft dark brown sugar to get that lovely toffee taste. Mr JK was most impressed when he came back in from his run and we shared one straight after breakfast!! Mmmmmm, a little bit naughty, but they did have some porridge oats sprinkled on the top, so could be classed as a breakfast item at a push!!

 

 

Here's how to make them, if you fancy giving them a try. This quantity makes 6 muffins.

Before you start, preheat your oven to 180 C.

1. Mix together 125g of wholemeal self raising flour, 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder and 50g soft dark brown sugar in a bowl. I used my fingertips to break up the big lumps of sugar so it was well mixed up with the flour. Add in about 40g of walnut pieces.

2. In a separate bowl, mash up a ripe banana (the riper the better) and add 70ml of milk (I use semi-skimmed), 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil, 1 large egg and 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whisk it all together.

 

3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. The batter should be fairly sloppy! Spoon the mixture equally into 6 paper cases in a muffin tray. Mine is silicone and I sit it on a metal baking tray in the oven. Sprinkle a few porridge oats and some walnut pieces on top of each muffin. I also added a sprinkle of maple sugar that a friend sent me over from the USA. You could use Demerara sugar instead for a little sweet crunchy topping. Put on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for about 25 minutes.

 

4. Once baked, remove from the tray and leave to cool on a wire rack. Try to avoid the temptation to eat one straight out of the oven (it is hard, I must admit, to ignore that delicious fresh baked aroma that's teasing your nostrils!!)

 

 

 

  

To stop us from scoffing all the muffins straight away, once cooled, they get popped in the freezer. Perfect for a little treat any time. Enjoy! xxx