Chocolate Banana Muffins

Happiness comes in small packages. At least that's the message that muffins and cupcakes seem to keep sending out to me. With muffins, it always seems like there's more to go around. Of course, the fact that there's no greasing and flouring, and the fact that the baking time is a lot less does tend to give muffins an edge over regular cakes.

While I can safely say that I've mastered the banana muffin, I'd been reading a lot about how well chocolate and banana go together. I really had no idea. These low fat muffins showed me how two flavours that I like in muffins can come together and create magic. This recipe yielded 18 muffins and after distributing some among friends and colleagues, we ate the remaining over 3 days.

2 cups Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

3 tbsp Cocoa Powder

1/2 cup Demerara Sugar

2 tbsp Golden Syrup

2 Eggs, beaten

4 tbsp Milk

4 tbsp Oil

3 medium over-ripe Bananas

Prepare the muffin pans by lining them with paper muffin cases. Heat the oven to 375 F.

Sift the dry ingredients together.

Combine the bananas, golden syrup, milk, eggs, oil and brown sugar in a bowl. Using an electric mixer, blend all these to a rough paste. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until just about combined.

Pour this batter into the prepared muffin cases and bake for 15 minutes.

Fresh out of the oven, these muffins make for a great breakfast. And a great breakfast is always a good start to the day. Just as having a great birthday celebration is a good start to the year. To me, a great birthday means having family, friends and loved ones close by. All of you have been with me through the last year and a half, looking out for me when the going got rough, sharing in my joys and my excitement. And for that reason, I chose to make muffins for you all. There's always enough of them to go around. Just the way all of you have always been there for me. On my birthday, I invite you all to my little party. And all you have to do is sing, "Happy Birthday!".