This chocolate banana muffin is made with chocolate hazelnuts to serve with them. In addition to a delicious chocolate banana muffin, you will be work in a hazelnut ribbon, a combination of hazelnut butter and brown sugar melted together now get your pure hazelnut butter and measure out half a cup and add that to brown sugar and get it heating on low heat and add a little bit of vanilla. What you are basically doing is just melting the sugar into the nut butter.

What differentiates a muffin from a cupcake is the frosting a muffin does not have frosting. Start by adding pureed ripe banana into a bowl and to that added sugar and whisk in butter that has been melted and whisk them using a wire whisk then add in your eggs. And because the muffin is kind of a dessert muffin to add in your vanilla and mix it all in. next sift your dry ingredients starting with cake pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder. Sift the ingredients to a bowl and add them all at once to the banana mixture and mix it in using a rubber spatula.

Add in a cup of chocolate chips and fold them into the batter using a spatula. Next using an ice cream scoop into the lined muffin tray and fill it just about ¾ full do not fill it up all the way up because you have to work on that hazelnut ribbon. Get your hazelnut mixture and spoon some right on top pressing it down a little bit it will spread out as it bakes and catches a bit of a wave and now top it with the remaining butter right on top of the hazel mixture

Pop them into the oven that has been preheated to 350F for about 20 to 25 minutes to bake. What can make a chocolate banana muffin even tastier is serving it with chocolate hazelnut spread. Get whole hazelnuts and toast them on a baking tray in a 350F oven for about 15 minutes and the skins will turn really dark then you will need to peel your hazelnuts so after they have cooled put them in a colander and roll them around then the skins tumble off and fall through the holes and you will have your peeled hazelnuts.

Put them in your food processor and add in your icing sugar as much as you want and to enhance the hazelnut taste add hazelnut oil or almond or plain vegetable oil but not olive oil. For the chocolate, add in dark chocolate, vanilla and salt close your food processor and start by pulsing the mixture. It tumbles everything around and starts grinding the hazelnuts and the friction of the blade starts to melt the chocolate and the mixture starts to go smooth.

At this point, the chocolate is fully melted pour it into your container and chill it for an hour or two to set the chocolate and after that, you can store it at room temperature. Get your muffins out of the oven once baked and take one and remove the muffin wrap and then apply your chocolate hazelnut spread and enjoy.

Ingredients;

Hazelnut Ribbon;

• ½ cup (125 ml) hazelnut butter or almond butter
• ¼ cup (50 g) packed light brown sugar
• ½ tsp (2 ml) vanilla extract

Muffins;

• 1 ½ cups (375 ml) mashed ripe banana (3-4 bananas)
• ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar
• ½ cup (115 g) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
• 2 cups (260 g) cake & pastry flour
• ½ cup (60 g) Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 2 tsp (6 g) baking powder
• ½ tsp (2.5 g) baking soda
• ½ tsp (2.5 g) salt
• 1 cup (250 mL) chocolate chips

Instructions;

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C) and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
2. For the hazelnut ribbon, stir the hazelnut butter, brown sugar and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat to cool while making the muffin batter.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the banana, sugar and melted butter and then whisk in the eggs and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Add this to the banana mixture and stir until blended.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips then spoon enough batter to fill each muffin cup two-thirds of the way. Spoon the cooled hazelnut mixture into each muffin cup and then top with the remaining muffin batter.
6. Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes, until a tester inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the tin for 10 minutes and then tip out to cool completely.
7. Serve the muffins with Chocolate Hazelnut Spread.