Banana Muffins with crunchy topping

Good morning everyone! Hope your weekend went well. =) We headed to Fremantle yesterday for a walk and realised that there was some sort of festival going around there. Then we saw this photography studio open (on a SuNDay?!) and pop our heads into there. The consult was full of information and the lady (Stephanie was her name) even told us to wait till the Wedding expo next year to do our bookings as prices will be discounted by 50% (just for the photographer not the albums though!). Anyhow, we are still gathering information and making decisions on whether we should hire someone from SG or stick to a local person. It's all about getting our money worth!

We also visited a possible reception venue Blue water grill at Point Heathcoate. Its great and just want we are looking for! The search continues but this is certainly a front runner at this point.

Readers in SG, any ideas of hotels with smaller function rooms? In fact, we really do welcome any piece of information you can give us. E.g. any good photographers/venues/florists even bridal salons....

Oops, sounds like this is going to be a wedding blog/food huh? ;p It's amazing how thinking about the wedding keep my spirits alive and actually allow me to focus on my work. I don't think I have ever been so focused in my research before.

Back to the Banana Muffins.

It's classic, delicious and healthy. This were made just a day before we headed to Sydney last month! (gosh, that is how behind I am with posting!). As you know, bananas are sooo expensive in Australia-in fact, it caused inflation! Serious. I didn't know whether to laugh or to be upset when the treasurer said something like "This year, inflation was caused by the mining boom in WA as well as the rising costs of bananas." Unfortunately, a natural disaster struck Queensland hence the crops were destroyed.

I couldn't possibly swallow 3 bananas by myself in one night...and I didn't want to bake a cake (lazy to bring out the hand mixer). So I thought of banana muffins!

Then out of the blue, I decided to sprinkle some brown sugar on the top of the muffin-just to see what will happen. To my surprise, the sugar half melted and created this crunchy brittle-like topping. I also half the sugar amount in the muffin mixture, hence the combination sweetness was just right.


Banana Muffins with crunchy topping
Dry ingredients
2 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
1/4 cup of caster sugar (was 1/2)
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of walnuts

Wet Ingredients
1 cup of skim milk
2 lightly beaten eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

150grams of unsalted butter/spread melted

3 mashed bananas
couple of tablespoons of brown sugar.

Method
Preheat oven at around 200C. Whisk wet ingredients (with the exception of melted spread) together. Assemble dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well in the middle and slowly, pour liquid mixture into dry. Add melted spread last. Fold gently with a metal spoon. Add mashed bananas. Spoon into prepared muffin tins. Using your fingers, sprinkle some brown sugar on to each muffin (approximately 1 teaspoon each). Bake it in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Note- this made more than 12 muffins but less than 24 in a standard muffin tin. I spoon the remaining mixture into patty pans instead and that yielded an additional 9 patty muffins. I probably would have put the muffins under the grill for 3-5 more minutes so that all the sugar melts... but i was too impatient ;p