Chocolate Banana Muffins with Herman

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Cocoa Banana Bread, which is already an excellent recipe. I just happened to have an excess of Herman poolish and egg whites on hand.

Herman poolish 
5g Herman starter
180g milk
90g flour
45g sugar

170g egg whites
Vanilla extract
240g all-purpose flour
90g cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 bananas -- mashed or pureed
100g white sugar
100g raw sugar
114g butter


Make Herman poolish the night before.

On the day of baking, whisk the egg whites, poolish and vanilla extract together.

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Cream butter and sugar.

Beat in the remaining ingredients by alternating wet and dry. Start with half of the egg white mixture, then flour, then the egg white mixture again, and so forth, finishing with the flour.

Bake at 170C.

Makes 24 muffins.

Notes: 

The Herman Poolish has only half the sugar of the normal Herman starter, mainly because I would like to reduce the amount of sugar.

I adapted the mixing method from Rose Levy-Beranbaum's Two-Step method.

This version is much fluffier and lighter than the original.