Busy Saturday and A Recipe

Well, I've had a busy day... Dropped J. at his Saturday morning club, then popped into my mum's to make sure she was doing okay. She is recovering, but I thought I'd hang around til it was time to go and get J. Did her jobs, then settled down with these:

As you can probably work out, there are four more rabbits, part-made.  The stuff on the left is the second of these:

Can you resist that face?

This one was finished last night - while J. was bouncing at his trampoline club. Is it cute, or is it cute?

More photos:

It's hard to put them in the shop sometimes... I'd really like him for myself.  You know, the little bell on his collar really jingles! I love him to bits. And there's another on the way... two puppies, rabbits, kittens..oh my!

Then I made some of these:

 

Banana and Chocolate Muffins

I thought I might share the recipe, as lots of people commented when I mentioned them before:

Banana and Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients:

50g margarine / butter, softened

50g chocolate chips / chunks

75g soft, brown sugar

110g plain, wholemeal flour, sifted

pinch of salt

1 ripe banana, mashed

1 large egg, beaten

1) Heat the oven to 170 degrees C / 300 degrees F / Gas no.3

Grease and line cake pans or use paper cases.

2) Put flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix well.

3) Add beaten egg and mashed banana.

4) Beat thoroughly to blend well together.  Add the chocolate chips / chunks.

Beat for 2 minutes, to incorporate air into the mixture. 

5) Spoon into cases and smooth tops. 

This mixture makes 10-12 small cakes

Or 6 large muffins

Or, if you double the mixture, as I did, you can have both!

6) Bake until golden and firm (15-20 mins), checking after 10 mins and turning / swapping shelves in the oven if necessary. 

Test with a skewer or sharp knife, leave to cool for a short while, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Just a word about the chocolate: Use good quality, dark chocolate for this recipe, if you possibly can.  The cakes are nice with milk chocolate or chocolate chips designed for cooking, but they are really great with decent quality dark chocolate chunks in.  If you don't have chocolate chunks, don't despair! Break bar-chocolate into bits and place in a plasic freezer bag (nice and thick!).  Bash with a rolling pin to break into nice chunks.  I like this kind of chunks best, as they are not all the same size, so some bits are bigger than others - a good surprise!

These muffins taste lovely. The mix of banana and chocolate is great. They are really nice eaten slightly warm and they make a good dessert, with cream (!), ice-cream, or custard sauce.

If you haven't scoffed the lot all at once, store in an airtight box/tin for up to a week.

This evening, we were piggies and sent out for pizza for our dinner.  Expect me to be eating nothing but gruel all week, to make up for it! (well, and the odd apple or grape, salad etc...)

That's my Saturday - hope yours was good too!

By the way, don't forget to leave your comments on the previous post, to enter my World Book Week Giveaway