Chocolate & Banana Muffins with Boisson Rouge

A unlikely match, made in heaven.  By Kate

I haven’t done a completely healthy but still entirely delicious recipe for a while, so the time has come again. These recipes are a bit of an obsession of mine because they are generally easy and taste so good. The final bonus is that they happen to work brilliantly with the right wine.

I know – muffins tend to be breakfast food but there are times in my life when the day has been awfully long, it is terribly late and only a bizarre combination of whatever is to hand will fit the bill.

Sometimes these attempts work; sometimes they don’t. We live and learn.

This particular recipe is my adaptation from a book written by farmer’s wives in my favourite part of South Africa – the Karoo. (Thanks so much Ames, Jaco and SB!) It is a place where food is determinedly no-nonsense. Anywhere that makes something called ‘fat cake’ which, incidentally, is generally served as a savoury dish with a meat accompaniment (right before everybody drops dead of a coronary) is very literally not for the faint hearted. They do make exceedingly fine cakes and bread though and I believe the meat is pretty amazing too. 

Chocolate & Banana Muffins 

4 medium-sized bananas, mashed

100ml fruit sugar (or 200ml cane sugar)

1 beaten egg

80ml virgin coconut oil, melted (or 80ml butter)

Mix the first 3 ingredients and then add the melted oil or butter. Then fold in the following after sifting together :-

375 ml of a mixture of fine whole meal (or white) cake flour and coco powder – almost half/half. The coco powder is my addition and I find using it in baking is a revelation – it gives a light, fluffy quality while you still get the delicious nuttiness of the whole meal flour. And chocolate flavour to boot!

5ml Bicarbonate of soda

Fill muffin pans about ¾ full and bake at 180 degrees celcius for 20 minutes.

Yummy! I had one the other night with the last of a bottle of the Boisson Rouge. The hit of residual sugar in the wine and of course the intense berry-ness of it worked perfectly with the rich, chocolaty bananas.

And maybe it was just me and the lateness of the hour but the combination of really wholesome food (I swear, you can just feel these muffins doing you good) and pure, vibrant fruit in the wine was so good, I almost felt I could have gone out dancing immediately afterwards.

Obviously, I didn’t. But still – quite a pick-me-up.