Insanely Good Banana Chai Muffins

You know how they always say you need to bake if you are selling a house, I’m convinced they refer to the smell of these baby’s! If you want your house to smell all homey and incredible these are the muffins! These chai muffins have the most amazing fragrance. The base for these muffins is banana which in my opinion gives all your muffin recipes that nice moist texture instead of a dry crumbly texture, and I mean who wants a dry muffin right?! The almonds in these chai muffins create a change in texture and the fattiness of the nuts carries the flavour of the spices even better.

I bet you know the chai lattes from your favourite coffee shop. Chai literally means tea but the amazing smell comes from the spice mix that is combined with black tea. Every country, culture and even family has it’s own spice mixture but there are a few basic spices that can’t be left out! Green cardamom is the main character in chai, it gives it that peppery sharp fragrance. You could say the cardamom caries the other spices. The other most used ingredients are black pepper and cinnamon. But most chai mixes are much more complex than that. I will admit the chai mix used in these muffins is not as layered as most chai mixes but that is because we want to be able to taste the different spices. Besides that, we need the spices to complement the other flavours like the banana and almond.

Ingredients for chai spiced banana muffins

Wet ingredients

• banana’s
• egg
• olive oil
• vanilla extract

Dry ingredients

• caster sugar
• baking soda
• regular flour
• chopped and roasted almonds

Chai spice mix

• Green cardamom
• Cinnamon
• Star-anise
• Ginger

How to serve chai muffins

These chai muffins taste and smell the best when they are still steaming, but please don’t burn your tongue off! If you want to make it even better cut your muffin open and add some honey or a cold dollop of yoghurt.

Tips

If you want the ultimate chai fragrance experience than use whole pods of the cardamom and star anise, and real cinnamon sticks and heat them in a dry pan until they start to get fragrant. Take them off the heat and grind them in a spice grinder or even in a pestle and mortar. If using the pestle and mortar make sure you take out the bigger pieces or even sift the spice blend!

Dietary options

If you don’t like using eggs you can replace them with a flax egg. But keep in mind the flax egg won’t let your muffins rise as beautiful as real eggs do!

How to store chai muffins

If you want to keep these muffins for a few days or want to transport them to give them to your friends you totally can! You can store these muffins for around 4 days in an airtight container or zip-lock bag with paper towels underneath and on top of the muffins to make sure they don’t get soggy.

Now go make your home smell amazing and let me know on Instagram if you were able to stop eating these!

Hugs,

Manou