Banana or Custard apple muffins: Choose your fruit!

My previous post talks about my recent discovery and fascination with a new baking supple store in Bangalore; well not a ‘new’ store but one that I ‘newly discovered’. My shopping spree at this store included these very dainty looking polka dotted muffin cups. Not only are they bake-proof but they have a plastic sort of lining within which allows you the leisure of not having to grease your muffin cups. Just get them out of the cupboard, pour you batter and bake! No fuss with the muffin trays and the parchment paper! At one rupee per cup, I think it’s a fair deal. You need to buy a minimum of 100 pieces, but that has never stopped a keen baker.

I am a big fan of custard apples and managed to get some really sweet and flavourful ones from a fruit vendor close to home. So I substituted my trademark banana muffin recipe for custard apples. It did take me some patience to deseed the fruit, but I can say with some relief that the results did bear fruit; pun intended. I always bake this recipe in my loaf tin and never realized that it can make up to 16 medium sized muffins! Imagine my little cousin’s delight when she came home to visit us for her Diwali break and was absolutely thrilled to find not only my grandmum’s chaklis and pedas but my muffins and brownies too!

You will be pleasantly surprised to know that this recipe works perfectly well even when you just dump all the ingredients into one big bowl, mix well and bake! You don’t need to actually follow the recipe; but for the perfectionists out there here’s the detailed recipe anyway!

Prep time: 15 min

Cooking time: 60 min    

Serves: Makes 16 muffins

Ingredients

If using bananas:

175g unsalted butter, softened and chopped

175g brown sugar

110g caster sugar

½ tsp ground cinnamon

3 medium or 2 large bananas, mashed

3 eggs

300 g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

1tsp clear vanilla essence

If using custard apple:

Replace the bananas with 2 custard apples, deseeded and pulp mashed; remove the cinnamon powder from the recipe.

Method

Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease your muffin cups or muffin trays.

First, cream the sugars and butter in large bowl till you achieve a smooth and matt finish.  Separate the egg whites from the yellows. Beat the egg whites till soft peaks form. Add the egg yellows to the beaten whites and beat some more. Add the vanilla essence and whisk for a minute. Sift the flour with the baking powder.  Add the flour and the whisked eggs to the creamed sugars, alternating them; folding gently till you see a smooth batter without any lumps. Fold in the fruit purée and cinnamon powder (no cinnamon powder for custard apple muffins). Spoon carefully into muffin cups, ensuring that only 3/4^th of the cup is full (allow space for the muffins to rise in the oven). Place muffin cups on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 170°C for 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Serve muffins warm with a cup of English breakfast tea. Delightful!

Baking Supply Store/ Baking Ingredients in Bangalore

All Bangalore bakers rejoice! Just as I did, when I came across IBCA, Institute of Baking and Cake Art on Mission Road (under double road flyover) in Bangalore. I used to notice this dilapidated building while I was studying at St. Joseph’s College of Arts and Science during my graduation days. I always thought it wasn't a functional institute and never bothered to Google it either. So, it was a Eureka moment when I found a post online that mentioned something about bakery supplies being available at IBCA. I was absolutely thrilled to find that their website is not only comprehensive, but lists their complete collection of bakery and confectionery products with prices and availability. You will be amazed at the range of products they house, some of which are only found in whole sale bakery supply stores in godforsaken Chickpet/KR Market areas. The phone numbers on the website are quite useful, as you can call them in advance to find out if they have what you are looking for (in case you can’t find it on the website).

Note: Please excuse my shoddy photos, I am visiting Bangalore for a yearly holiday and don’t have a decent camera with me! These were taken on my phone!

The store itself is a humble, dingy little room with one single counter to buy your supplies and one table for billing. I was a tad disappointed when I got there, expecting it to be more spacious with everything laid out in shelves for me to ogle at. But the disappointed was soon overpowered by a sense of fulfillment at finding supplies which I've struggled with, supplies with guaranteed quality used by commercial bakers, all available in one place. I could sense that people around me were beginning to get irritable while I hogged the single counter at the store and kept asking “Show me this”; “What is that?”; “I want this!.” It was nice of the sales girls there to entertain my whims. I must have driven them to the edge of their patience. But any keen baker will know what it feels like to have discovered a good, reliable, bakery supplies store in the heart of the city.

Start penning you wish-list down because this place has it all: from whipping cream, brown sugar, colorful and feisty ready-to-bake ramekins, sugar flowers, various other sugar decorations, glitter dust in all possible colors  clear vanilla essence, food colors  gelatin granules, measuring cups/glasses, cake turn-tables, dark/milk/white chocolate (to name a few)…to the most rewarding find: instant dry yeast (IDY) by Gloripan. Bread bakers, heave a sigh of relief. You can now stop hunting high and low for IDY, stop fretting and fuming about ‘travelling’ just to get your yeast. This is premium quality IDY. The best part is that you can buy it in 100 g packs and don’t have to buy the whole 500 g pack which is sold in whole sale shops. Using freshly bought yeast will ensure that your yeast is active and ready to rise away! As Peter Reinhart always says, “May your bread always rise”.

They also have baking and cake art courses at the institute- short ones, like 1-day, 3-day and 7-day courses, as well as long courses that last up to 14 weeks. The courses are heavy on the pocket, but may do you good if you want to channelize your baking career. For home bakers, I would suggest that you simply buy everything in the shop and keep baking till you get that perfect crust on your bread or that perfect slice of cake. For more information please refer to their website; it is quite informative.


IBCA address: Institute of Baking & Cake Art, 46/3, Mission road, Bangalore - 560027. Landmark: Above Noble stores.
Email: ibcablr@yahoo.com;
Telephone:  +918022106619;  +918032021185
Mobile: M.K.Gaur:  9379969606; Nalini: 9341721680
Website: http://ibcablr.com/
Training timings: 10:30 am to 4:00 pm
Office/Store timings: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm; Sunday holiday


I am certain that Bangalore has many such hidden stores yet to be explored. I know that General Food Additives in Sheshadripuram is one such place, but have never found the patience to visit, as I live down south. The store is a retail branch of an otherwise whole-sale company. They have a huge range of cake and ice-cream making supplies available readily (surprises include liquid glucose, self raising flour, ready made rolling fondant, cream of tartar, hazelnuts and many more).


General Food additives address: PO Box 2016, #175/3, 1st Main Road, Seshadripuram, Land mark - Opp HDFC Bank, Bangalore 560020, India.
Telephone :  +91-80-2336 7878, 2336 0517
E mail : ramachandra.tk@gmail.com
Website: http://www.generalfoodadditives.com/products.htm
Store Timings :  10:00 am to 1:45 pm  4:30 pm to 7:30 pm; Sunday holiday
Note: Cash only, no cards accepted.

All in all, my day at the candy store was a grand success. I couldn't resist myself from using the dainty polka-dotted muffin ramekins at the earliest occasion possible…and what better occasion than to treat yourself for such a wonderful discovery. So I baked and baked, till my eyelids gave way. But it was so worth it.