Banana Beach Breakfast Muffins

I make a batch or muffins almost every week, varying the ingredients to accommodate what I have in my larder and to match my personal leanings. This week I used dates and coconut, which always make me think of a tropical beach, and bananas remind me of 'home', or what was home for so long - Natal, in South Africa.

Ingredients:

375ml flour

125ml rolled oats

15ml baking powder

2ml salt

150g caster sugar

40g coconut

2-3 ml mixed spice

8 dates, pitted and roughly chopped

125ml dried fruit mix

1 ripe banana

200ml milk

1 egg

100ml vegetable oil

5ml vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, oats, baking powder, salt, caster sugar, coconut and mixed spice. To this add the chopped dates and dried fruit.

In a mini blender, blitz the banana and 50ml of milk to a loose puree.

In a jug, whisk the remaining milk with the egg, oil and vanilla extract. Add the banana-milk mixture and whisk to blend.

Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix to a fairly runny batter. Fill 12 paper-lined muffin cups with the mixture and bake for 22-25 minutes. Test for doneness with a metal skewer, which should come out clean when the muffins are cooked. Allow to cool before serving. Store in an airtight container.