Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chips

Ingredients

75g/3oz melted butter
250g/9oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
115g/4oz caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large, ripe bananas
2 medium eggs
125ml/4fl oz milk
10 walnut kernels (optional)
White and Milk chocolate chips


To serve
2 bananas, sliced
50g/2oz walnut kernels
2 tbsp crème fraïche or yoghurt
2 tbsp runny honey

Method
1. Heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Melt the butter and allow to cool. Mash the bananas well. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a large bowl, add caster sugar and stir through.
2. With a fork, beat together the eggs, vanilla extract, melted butter and milk in a second bowl. Add the mashed banana and chocolate chips and stir through.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the egg mixture, stirring roughly with a fork (don't over mix) until it is a lumpy paste.
4. Set paper cases into the moulds, or grease the moulds well with a little extra oil or butter and spoon in the mixture until almost full. Top each one with a walnut kernel if you like.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins come away from the side of the pan when touched. Rest the muffin tray on a wire rack for five minutes then remove the muffins and leave on the rack for another five minutes before serving.
6. Serve the muffins with sliced banana and a dollop of creme fraiche, scattered with walnuts and drizzled with honey (or with Caramel yoghurt).

Dee's Forest Fruit Cobbler

Fruit Cobbler

This is a fantastic American recipe equivalent to our crumble. Particularly good with strawberries and rhubarb, but you can use any fruit combo you like; about 680g/1Vlb of fruit should do it..

Serves 6

For the fruit
1 punnet of blackberries
1 punnet of blueberries
1 punnet of raspberries
(or 2 big cartons of frozen fruit - easier to find in winter)
5 tablespoons sugar
a good glug of balsamic vinegar

For the topping
6 heaped tablespoons butter, chilled
225g/8oz self-raising flour
70g/2Voz sugar
a large pinch of salt
130ml/4Vfl oz buttermilk
a little extra sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 1901⁄4C/3751⁄4F/gas 5.
Put the fruit into a pan with the sugar and the balsamic vinegar, put the pan over the heat, and cook gently until the juices begin to run from the berries. Pour into an ovenproof dish.

Meanwhile make the topping. Rub the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and salt, stir well, then add the buttermilk to form a loose scone-type mixture. Spoon this over the hot fruit (to get a cobbled effect, flick balls of dough randomly over the fruit), sprinkle with a little caster sugar, and bake in your preheated oven for 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Low fat Panna Cotta with berry jelly

To make the panna cotta
2 3/4 cups lowfat milk
3/4 cup lowfat or non-fat buttermilk
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup Splenda
1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries

To make the berry jelly
1 cup of raspberries,
1 cup of blackberries
1 cup of strawberries
I sachet of Quickgel
Tin of strawberry juice

Method
1. Pour 1 cup of the milk in a small saucepan. Add the gelatin, stir, and let sit for at least 5 minutes.
2. Put the saucepan with the milk and gelatin over a low flame. Add the sugar and vanilla and heat until the gelatin and sugar are completely dissolved.
3. Transfer the mixture to a blender (or food processor, but a blender is better), and add the rest of the milk, the buttermilk (Don’t add the buttermilk directly to the hot mixture as it might curdle. Add the other ingredients first.).
4. Blend until smooth.
5. Pour into ramekins (makes 6 small) and refrigerate until set, at least three hours. Serve alone or with fresh fruit.
6. Put sachet of quickgel in a saucepan with water and stir until set.
7. Chop raspberries, strawberries and blackberries and place on top of each panna cotta. Pour quickgel over and leave to set.