These Chocolate Banana Cardamom Muffins are the moistest, tastiest muffins going and will perk up this weeks lunch boxes in a flash.
When the bananas in your fruit bowl show more brown than yellow it’s time to grab yourself a recipe, such as these chocolate banana cardamom muffins, that will turn them into a tempting treat rather than let them go to waste. Or to the chickens in my case. Sorry chickens.
And so that is how these Chocolate Banana Cardamom Muffins came to be. My fruit bowl was looking sadly abandoned due to a crazy busy week followed by a cider fuelled busy weekend.
Overripe Brown Bananas
I like my bananas with a few brown patches as I know the fruit inside will be ripe and sweet. But this level of ripeness is a bit too extreme, even for me. That said, when you’re baking with bananas the riper they are, the better as they’ll impart more banana-y flavour and moisture to your baked goods.
Another bonus is that brown bananas = sweet bananas, which has allowed me to reduce the sugar in this muffin recipe a little without it feeling like you’re missing out on a sweet hit.
Cardamom Love
Regular readers will know that I have a soft spot for the comforting yet exotic taste of Cardamom. In these chocolate banana cardamom muffins the two flavours marry together delightfully. And if you are as much of a cardamom fiend as me, do check out my delicious cardamom coffee recipe. It gets rave reviews!
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If you love muffins as much as we do you can find plenty more recipes in the blog archives here: My muffin Recipes.
If you’d like to build up a list of recipes that put brown bananas to good use, you can also follow the links to find the recipe for this yummy Date and Banana Traybake, a Dairy Free Banana and Coconut Rice Pudding, banana weetabix muffins and this Super Simple Banana Loaf.
What’s your favourite way to use up those speckledy brown bananas?
Janie x
Chocolate Banana Cardamom Muffins

- 280 g plain flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 80 g sugar
- 1 egg well beaten
- 90 ml water or milk
- 90 ml vegetable oil
- 10 cardamom pods seeds only finely ground
- 3 large bananas mashed
- 90 g small dark chocolate chips
- Preheat the oven to 190/375/gas 5. Line a muffin tray with paper or silicone muffin cases.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb together in a large mixing bowl and combine with the rest of the dry ingredients.
- Measure out the wet ingredients into a large jug and mix well.
- Pour the wet into the dry and carefully mix just until there are no dry patches left. Try not to over-stir.
- Scoop the batter into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are golden and a skewer comes out of the centre clean. Let cool before storing in an air tight tin.
Matias says
This is one of my favorites banana muffins! I just wonder, the first time that I made I used cardamom pods and it turned out delicious but the last time I did I switch for 1 + 1/2 tsp cardamom powder and I could barely taste it, though I mistakenly mixed it with the dry ingredients instead of the wet! Does cardamom powder is different? Lol it should be the same, right?
Jane Sarchet says
Hey Matias! Great question, and I think the answer lies in buying/using preground cardamom.
It’s actually quite hard to find the ready ground stuff, because it loses its flavour so, so quickly!
Just this week I remade a cardamom shortbread recipe here on the blog from years ago so I could take some new photos. I used some, admittedly old, preground and there was ZERO flavour to it at all! I remade it the next day with freshly crushed seeds and it was just as I remember!
Hope that helps and so glad you enjoy the recipe :)
Jane x