"Fabulous banana & muscovado sugar muffin, studded with dark chocolate and topped with banana chips."
As you can see, the tops were generously covered with banana chips; which thankfully were the crispy kind. Breaking the muffin in two revealed an impressive amount of chocolate chips too, making me thinking of a Dalmation cake -yes I'm odd I know. Unfortunately, I could immediately tell from feeling the muffin that the texture was going to be on the dry side.
Unfortunately, the flavour wasn't as banana-ry as I hoped. Trusting M&S to pack a bold punch, I simply wasn't expecting such taste bud disappointment. The abundance of dark chocolate chips completely overshadowed the banana, ending up lost in the background somewhere. Yoo-hoo! Banana! Where are you? This was your chance to shine! Perhaps the fact that M&S chose to use only 14% banana puree accounted for the lack of flavour. I always use a mixture of mashed and chopped banana when baking my own cakes, and I'm sure it accounts for much more than 14% of the recipe.
The dryness of the muffin brought further dismay, it was almost rubbery, and so very different to the perfect fluffiness in the rhubarb versions I tried the other day. What is M&S playing at? My only guess is that because the muffins are made with rapeseed oil, they're missing the soft, richness that comes from a cake made with butter. Warming the second half of the muffin improved the situation slightly, but I felt that these would be best enjoyed drowned in Ambrosia custard.
Muffin's going to persuade me to buy these again ;). Haha.
5/10.
As you can see, the tops were generously covered with banana chips; which thankfully were the crispy kind. Breaking the muffin in two revealed an impressive amount of chocolate chips too, making me thinking of a Dalmation cake -yes I'm odd I know. Unfortunately, I could immediately tell from feeling the muffin that the texture was going to be on the dry side.
Unfortunately, the flavour wasn't as banana-ry as I hoped. Trusting M&S to pack a bold punch, I simply wasn't expecting such taste bud disappointment. The abundance of dark chocolate chips completely overshadowed the banana, ending up lost in the background somewhere. Yoo-hoo! Banana! Where are you? This was your chance to shine! Perhaps the fact that M&S chose to use only 14% banana puree accounted for the lack of flavour. I always use a mixture of mashed and chopped banana when baking my own cakes, and I'm sure it accounts for much more than 14% of the recipe.
The dryness of the muffin brought further dismay, it was almost rubbery, and so very different to the perfect fluffiness in the rhubarb versions I tried the other day. What is M&S playing at? My only guess is that because the muffins are made with rapeseed oil, they're missing the soft, richness that comes from a cake made with butter. Warming the second half of the muffin improved the situation slightly, but I felt that these would be best enjoyed drowned in Ambrosia custard.
Muffin's going to persuade me to buy these again ;). Haha.
5/10.
Well that's disappointing! :-(
ReplyDeleteVisually they look so good, such a shame they don't live up to their appearance
ReplyDelete