Banana oats and cinnamon muffins

The family was home today and we had a fun time playing cards and watching television - and of course lots of chatter.

Diwali is done with - all the gifts given away and sweets tucked into, pounds piled on and time to regret all the binging. I swear I am going to hit the gym real hard tomorrow onward (I seriously hope I do). By the way, after three days of the gym being closed, it is not easy to gather the motivation to wake up at 5:30 in the morning again ! I have no idea how will I do it tomorrow.

Anyway, time for some last treats before beginning an austere life. And this was a special request from my sister who prefers the muffins and cakes to the traditional Indian fare.

I have tried these muffins once before, and then too I had modified a recipe for banana cupcakes and mixed it with the one for chocolate muffins to get an idea of the ratios in which to mix the ingredients. Luckily the experiment worked then and what happens when a first time experiment works??? Well - I experiment again !!!

So this time I decided to make it a little more fancy and apply some of the things I have learnt about baking since. I made a sugar free version (ahem - my conscience stuck after the goodies I have hogged on at every relatives place I visited). The recipe below is the original one made with sugar.

Banana Oats and Cinnamon Muffins

1 1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup oats

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon powder

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 ml milk

1/3 cup oil

1 tbs raisins

Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Sieve it a couple of times to get a homogeneous mixture.Next add in the oats. This is the dry mixture.

Mix well together the eggs, vanilla extract, milk and oil in a separate bowl.

Mash the ripe bananas into a smooth paste and mix in the sugar. Mix in the egg mixture into it. Add the dry mixture into this one third at a time and mix it. Mix in the raisins.

Pour into muffin moulds (I could make 10 muffins with these quantities of ingredients). Top with a raisin. Bake at 190 degree Celsius for 20 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before you dig into them.

They are wonderful and moist, oozing with the banana and cinnamon flavour - a winning pair if you ask me !