Chocolate Chip & Banana Doughnuts

I am a sucker for miniature food, give me a sharing platter, or tasting menu over a big portion of something any day of the week. I mean why would you want a huge steak or burger, if you could have tiny versions of lots of things off the menu? Maybe it's down to my own indecision and fear of ordering the wrong thing.

Anyway, mini doughnuts, whats not to love?

Ok, Ok, So technically these are not doughnuts. I mean, they aren't deep fried dough, but they are still mighty tasty and a heck of a lot easier than kneading and rising and deep frying. I bought this doughnut cake pan years ago, used it once and its been gathering dust in the back of my cupboard ever since. I came across it the other day when I was looking for my yorkshire pudding tin and decided to make some cute baked doughnuts or 'cake doughnuts'.

I had Zoe in mind when I was coming up with a flavour combination, as she is all about bananas at the moment. I thought about going for banana and blueberry (which I may try next time), but I though't I'd throw some leftover easter chocolate in there, as we had some to hand. The recipe is fairly similar to my Mum's banana bread, just slightly wetter with less banana.

Ingredients
240g Plain Flour
115g Caster Sugar
115g melted Butter
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 large eggs
1 over ripe bananas
50ml Milk
Handful of chocolate chunks/chips (plus extra for decoration)
I use coconut oil for greasing the tin, but butter or olive oil is fine.

Preheat the oven to 160C, and grease your doughnut pan (if you don't have a doughnut pan, you can make mini muffins instead)

Mash the banana into the eggs with a fork, you still want a couple of lumps, so I find a fork perfect for this.

Add the butter, sugar, flour and baking powder and mix together into a thick batter.

Add the chocolate chips and the glug of milk, and mix until the chips are fully incorporated

Spoon the mixture into the tin, ensure you don't overfill, they do rise, so aim for just below the top of the doughnut shaped hole.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until starting to golden and a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool.

Melt your chocolate in a small bowl, and dip the smooth side of the doughnuts into the melted chocolate. I also melted some white chocolate and did some drizzling and sprinkled some shavings, just to make them a bit different. You can go pretty wild with the toppings, using anything from sprinkles, to nuts and dried fruit. Raid the cupboards and go crazy!

They were a big hit with Zoe, although I'm going to be honest, I did make a couple without chocolate on the top for her, as the mess that kid makes with chocolate is just insane! I'm tempted to try a yoghurt topping too, maybe next time I'll go for blueberry and banana and reduce the sugar content a little, so many possibilities.

Are there any flavour combinations you think would work? These are such a perfect size and without the chocolate would be great for out and about snacks