Banana Strawberry Muffins

A few months back, I was presently surprised to find a new stall that sells muffins at the hawker centre near my place. It is not very common to find a stall in hawker centres that sell nothing but muffins. The muffins are freshly baked and sold at the stall. I bought a few of them for breakfast and they were very tastey especially with a cup of kopi. Their muffins are rather big and have nice huge domes. I told myself I should try making these muffins somedays, and so since I got my oven, I have been trying out different muffin recipes.

These Banana Strawberry muffins are one of those earlier recipes which I have tried. Even though I have read up on how to achieve huge domes and followed the method recommended, my muffins still came out with cracked tops. These muffins were very fragrant and fluffy. The recipe is based on the standard method, i.e. the dry ingredients are mixed with the wet ingredients. The other method is the biscuit method, where the butter and sugar are creamed together before adding the other ingredients. Muffins made from the biscuit method are usually sweeter and have a cake-like texture. I suspect the muffins sold at the stall are based on the biscuit method as they are more dense and sweeter. By the way, ever since I started baking, I have stopped buying muffins from that stall ;)

Ingredients:
(Makes 10 to 12 regular sized muffins)

110g butter, melted
150g sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
315g all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh strawberries (cut into small pieces)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degC. Position rack in center of oven. Line muffin tin with paper muffin cups.
2. Melt butter over low heat in a saucepan. Set aside. Mash the bananas.
3. Whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and mashed banana. Add the melted butter to the sugar mixture and stir to combine.
4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Use a spatula or whisk to mix the dry ingredients completely (to prevent having lumps of baking powder/soda).
5. Gently fold in the strawberries, making sure they are coated with flour. This helps to prevent the strawberries from sinking during baking. Do not over mix or the strawberries will end up coloring the batter red.
6. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir only until the ingredients are just combined. The mixture will appear very lumpy. Do not over mix the batter otherwise the muffins will become tough.
7. Fill each muffin cup about two thirds full of batter. Fill any unused muffin cups halfway with water to prevent warping of the pan or uneven browning of the muffins.
8. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
9. Let the muffins cool for 10 mins in the muffin tin, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Do not leave the muffins in the muffin tin otherwise the base will be soggy.
   

Tip: To make high-domed muffins:

• To bake high-domed muffins, fill muffin cups nearly full. Make sure that the recipe yields a thick batter. In a full cup, a thin batter will flow all over the oven before setting. The batter should be “spoonable” not pourable.
• Preheat oven to 210 degC. A high temperature is needed to create a burst of steam which will lift the top of the muffin and quickly set the starches and proteins in the muffin. After the muffin tin is placed in the oven, set the temperature back to the required temperature setting.