Indecisive Muffins

With five productive hours left to my Sunday evening (productive hours meaning those before I have to get ready for bed and work...) I decided to whip up a batch of blueberry muffins for breakfast, and also to bring a few with me to the office for my workmates. However, my mum was craving banana bread too... and so I thought I would just make a carrot banana bread first, then blueberry muffins later.

Though having spent the majority of my weekend in the kitchen, I kind of wanted an extra hour to watch some telly before sleep... so halfway through making the banana bread batter, I decided to add in blueberries, bit more flour, and just make a hybrid of the two wishes. I don't entirely know what I was thinking when I added some of the stuff, but none of the ingredients seemed that bad as standalone ingredients so they couldn't be too bad put together, right?

Absolutely.

So this Monday morning, I popped one of the cooled muffins back in the oven for about 5 minutes while I blow-dried my hair and had myself a nice warm muffin on the way to work. Yummy!

Banana-Blueberry-Carrot Muffins (That's 3 of your 5-a-day!) 
Yield: 12 medium sized muffins

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup soft packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup buttermilk 
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup ripe mashed bananas 
• 1 cup grated carrots
• 1 cup blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line the muffin pan
2. Beat the vegetable oil and sugar in a large bowl, then beat in the eggs, vanilla and buttermilk
3. Add the bananas and beat until incorporated
4. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon then gradually add into the wet mixture
5. Stir in the carrots and blueberries
6. Pour the batter into the muffin cups about 3/4 of the way up, then sprinkle with the topping and bake for 20 minutes. Leave them to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack

Topping

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

1. In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix with your fingertips until they resemble course crumbs. Or use a food processor if you have one to minimize the mess and time taken