Taste & Create VI – Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

It’s time for that event again where we get a chance to explore a partner’s blog and make a dish from their blog. Taste & Create is an event created by Nicole of For the Love of Food. It’s a good excuse to actually make something from another’s blog, than just adding the recipe to a “to-try” list.

My partner or should I say partners this time were the mother and daughter duo, Psychgrad and Gizmar of Equal Opportunity Kitchen. They have a wide array of dishes on their blog. As always, my quest was for something which involved baking and I finally zeroed in on the Banana Chocolate chip Muffins.

I followed the recipe to the letter, and halved it to make 6-7 muffins.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins:

You will need: (Makes 12 Muffins)

2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups of mashed ripe bananas (about 4 large)
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add chocolate chips. In a separate bowl, whisk together bananas, butter, milk and eggs. Pour flour mixture and stir just until blended. Fill batter ¾th way into paper-lined muffin pans.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and tops are firm to the touch.

I baked these muffins on Sunday night and sent them with my hubby to Columbus, Ohio. He has been traveling from work for a few weeks now. I sure wouldn’t have eaten all 6 muffins (7 actually, I ate one!), so off the muffins went with him. He told me his colleagues enjoyed them.

I must say Banana and chocolate come together very well. The muffins were moist and I had to resist eating more than one! Thanks to the ladies at the Equal Opportunity Kitchen for the muffins and to Nicole for another series of Taste & Create.

I also would like to share something with you all. I had sent in two pictures to The Deccan Herald online edition and both of my food pictures have been published.

The Valentine's day hearts I made out of cake can be seen here: (picture in right panel)

The Sankranthi home-made acchu is here: (picture in the bottom of the page)

Taste & Create V - Marble Pound Cake

Taste & Create is an event where we get to pick a recipe from another blog, create it, taste it and blog about it. Of course, all of us would have done this once at least, because often a nice dish on another’s blog catches our attention. We create and taste it, but may fail to mention on our blog that we tried their recipe. This event specifies that we choose a dish, try it and most importantly blog about it.

My “Taste & Create” partner was Amy of Tart Reform. She has an array of baked goodies on her blog, and that made it all the more easier for me to pick one. I chose her recipe for Marble Pound Cake with Chocolate Glaze. I have been meaning to try a Marble Cake and couldn’t have come across this event and recipe at a better time.

I followed her recipe for Marble Cake to the letter, and was pleased with the results. I had recently bought a bundt cake silicone pan, and was waiting to try it, finally got a chance to do so.

Since the cake already had chocolate flavour in it, I resorted to a light powdered sugar glaze instead of the bittersweet chocolate glaze.

Marble Pound Cake with Powdered Sugar Glaze

You will need:

3 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup cocoa powder
6 tbsp water
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs
1/2 cup milk
Powdered Sugar Glaze (recipe follows)

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 325F. Grease a 10-inch Bundt cake pan with a non-stick spray. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. Blend together 1/2 cup sugar, cocoa powder and water until smooth.

Cream butter with the help of a beater until smooth. Gradually beat in remaining 2 cups sugar. Increase speed until well blended and light (4 min). Beat in vanilla then eggs, one at a time. At low speed add dry ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions.

Add 3 cups of batter to the cocoa mixture and stir until blended. Ladle the vanilla and chocolate batters alternately into the prepared cake pan. Using the end of a wooden spoon, swirl the two batters in light figure eight motion. Do not over mix, this will hamper the marble effect. Bake for an hour, and when the hour is approaching check to see if its done by inserting a cake tester in the centre. If it comes out clean then your cake is done. Depending on your oven cooking capacity, the cake may take longer or lesser time, hence its advisable to check to prevent burning.

Let cake cool in pan for ten minutes before inverting onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting or drizzling glaze.

Powdered Sugar Glaze

½ Cup Powdered Sugar
2-3 Tbsp Milk

Whisk the above together to make a smooth mixture which has pouring consistency.

Drizzle over the cooled cake and serve.

I must say this was one delicious cake and was hard to share. But I had to, otherwise I would have ended up eating all of it!

Hard to Share..Marble Pound Cake with Powdered Sugar Glaze

This post is off to the event "Taste & Create" hosted by Myamii of For the Love of Food.