Baking Heaven inspired Chocolate Banoffee Muffins

This recipe was inspired by a recent copy of Baking Heaven magazine. This is a new publication to me but I was pleasantly surprised to find it full to the brim with delicious recipes to try. What I specifically enjoyed was that it is about 80% recipes, all with beautiful photographs accompanying them, split into different categories - cakes, cupcakes, biscuits, savoury, etc.  There are some original recipes, blogger recipes and those taken from bakers and books.  There are also a few articles sprinkled in, which will all be of interest to a baker.  I loved reading about Amie Milton from the Whipped Cake Co, and her gorgeous buttercream drip cakes.  You should look up her business, you will have serious baker envy, she’s so talented!

The recipe that caught my eye, particularly as I had three very sad looking bananas in my fruit bowl, was for Banana Cupcakes with Praline Cream from the book Bake to Impress.  Now, I ended up with a quite different recipe but the elements of bananas, nuts and chocolate are still there.

These muffins are moist from the banana, have crunch from the toasted pecans and are decadently sticky thanks to the condensed milk filling.  I wanted to recreate that caramel flavour found in a classic banoffee pie but without the fuss of making a full caramel, so some experimentation was in order.  I had condensed milk in the cupboard and knew that, once baked, it would become deeper in flavour and offer a sweet surprise in each bite.   I’m delighted to report that it worked and as a result you can have these tasty little muffins ready to eat in under an hour.