No sugar banana muffins for Jay Bird's birthday

It was my dear friend Jay Bird's birthday today. We visited her with these muffins. She's diabetic so I didn't put any sugar in them but they were nicely sweet anyway because of the banana and raisins in them. The hardest part was trying to make them look a bit decorated without using icing. I glazed them with a little fruit spread and sprinkled with poppy seeds. Without icing, I think they fell short of being like birthday cakes but were a perfect accompaniment to our mid-morning birthday tea and chatter.

There must be something pretty and non-sugary that could serve as icing without using sugar. I'm thinking maybe something with creamed coconut in it like the filling for these biscuits I made a while back. In that case I would have to leave out the raisins and cinnamon from the cakes though, or there would be too much going on!


Banana and raisin muffins

1 cup soya milk
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 bananas
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 175c.

Mix the vinegar into the soya milk and set aside while you mash the bananas. Add the milk mixture to the bananas along with the oil, sugar and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix all the other ingredients except raisins. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and combine well. Add the raisins and stir.

Spoon into 10 muffin cases (I made 12 from this mixture but they looked a bit small in their muffin cases) and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

This is not Jay Bird. This is just a bird I made for Jay Bird's birthday. Isn't she pretty? Of course, Jay Bird herself is much prettier.