Malabar Muffins

This one was for my little baby Efrem who's allergic to ALL meat protein and dairy products. Being allergic to things most people take for granted is not easy. Luckily for us, he's not really known life another way. He probably thinks all milk everyone drinks tastes like Soy milk (ugghh!!) and he's never actually enjoyed an egg in his life (Sigh :( ). So this aunt went to work trying to make something which wasn't just sugared soy biscuits, but something a little more interesting. I wanted him to have a taste of home, a taste of our roots, land and country. What's more 'home' than Plantains, Coconut and Cardamom to anyone from Kerala?


Ingredients

2             very ripe warm steamed plantains
1/4 cup   refined oil
1/2 cup   sugar
1/2 tsp    baking powder
1 cup      flour (maida)
3 tbsp     grated coconut
6            Cardamom pods (seeds crushed)

Mash plantains when still hot and stir in sugar until it melts. Add oil and mix with a wooden spoon.
In another bowl sift flour and baking powder.
Fold in flour to the plantain mix till its blended completely.
Stir in coconut and cardamom
Pipe into muffin liners. Bake at 180C for 22 mins or till toothpick comes clean.
I used really tiny muffin liners and got around 36 tiny muffins (right size for an almost 3 year old)

**You could always use normal overripe bananas, but then I wouldn't be able to call them Malabar Muffins now... would I?