I promise you that these are edible for homo sapiens too! They’re also chimply delicious. 😉

I’ve had this obsession with Banana Bread since forever and I thought it’d be cute to put a monkey’s face on one! However, I started off with perfecting my banana bread with Brad before I turned them into muffins!

To cut down on calories I entirely did not add any margarine / butter / vegetable oil and instead replaced it with unsweetened applesauce.

Here is my recipe! Most of the ingredients are common products and the only thing I had to purchase was the applesauce and the half splenda & half brown sugar package.

BANANA LOAF

• 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup of regular flour
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup of mashed bananas
• 2 egg whites & 1 yolk
• 1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 4 tbsp of half splenda and half brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of water
• 2 tbsp of soy milk
• 1/4 tsp of vanilla essence
• 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts OR
• 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries

 

If you like, the ground cinnamon could go with the walnuts or blueberries too!

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together your salt and optional ground cinnamon in the same bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mash your 1 c of bananas with a fork. Add the eggs one at a time and beat the mixture after each one. Remember to cut out 1 yolk! Combine the applesauce, honey, brown sugar and splenda mix, vanilla essence, milk and water and blend well.
4. Add the wet banana mixture to the large mixing bowl and fold until blended. You can now add your optional blueberries or walnuts. Fold in only using a spatula.
5. Now coat your loaf pan with a low calorie cooking spray and pour the batter in. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes, then drop the temperature by 20 degrees and bake for another 10 minutes. This is to prevent the top from being burnt and the bottom from undercooking. Perform the toothpick test on the centre of your loaf and ensure it comes out clean.
6. Remove the loaf from the oven and allow to cool completely before indulging!

 

 

You can see that I obviously chose the blueberry option (because I ❤ blueberries)

SUCCESS! YAY!

Now, this was actually my 2nd attempt on the banana bread with blueberries. My first attempt was a complete flop! It turned out waaaaay too moist and didn’t look appealing at all! I had also forgotten to coat the pan with my non-stick spray

While I was trying to figure out the science and chemical reaction behind the oven, I started thinking to myself how health and taste make a double-edged sword. Must I sacrifice calories for a delicious banana bread? Was it the applesauce that made it too moist?

I tried the recipe again and made some adjustments. The second time was a success. Phew.. Reason? I put in 1, 1/2 cups of blueberries on my first attempt. (I’m a berry monster and I thought it’d be nice to have lots of berries in my banana bread. I guess I went overboard!)

So on to the muffins!

MONKEY BANANA MUFFINS

The ingredients for the batter are exactly the same as the banana bread but I entirely cut out the blueberries / walnut. Again, the ground cinnamon is optional.
Different colour icing pens
50g shredded coconut
Green Dye
Oreo Cakesters or any similar sized wafers / biscuits
Chocolate Frosting
Gumballs / White and black chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

Frost the muffins with the chocolate frosting. (Go easy on them!)

MONKEYS

1) Separate the Oreo Cakesters, remove any cream in between. Cut one side to an approximately 40:20:40 ratio. Remove the :20 part, and use the rest as ears. The full circle on the other side will go as mouths on the Monkeys’ faces. They should stick to your frosting

2) Using a red icing pen, draw a cute smile for the monkey. Using the chocolate frosting, dab a nose for it.

3) For the eyes, i used the same chocolate chips as the ones in the Cookie Monster Cupcakes. see https://sweetsamsations.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/cookie-monster-cupcakes-om-nom-nom-nom-nom/
I only had one pair of eyes left and had to resort to using a packet of multi-coloured gumballs that I happened to have in my kitchen. Unfortunately for me, there were only 6 black coloured gumballs in my packet. The gumballs were very hard though, so I wouldn’t recommend them. On one of the monkey, I used some cream from the Oreo Cakesters and rolled it into a ball. I then dabbed on pupils for the monkey with chocolate frosting.

GRASS

1) Mix the shredded coconut and green dye in a plastic bag. Rub and shake until the green is uniform in the coconut. Apply by pressing down gently onto the muffins.

2) Play around with your icing pens! Put flowers / butterflies whatever your creativity makes of you! I drew flowers on my grass and they were simpler. Have fun with the different colours you have! Refrigerate each muffin after completion to avoid having the icing melt or smudge. Remember that the muffin is not entirely flat and its spherical top surface can actually cause the icing to slide downwards if not refrigerated immediately.

That’s it! Now arrange your monkeys and grass together and you get MONKEY ISLAND!

Just don’t go bananas over them! 🙂