It is these same banana chocolate chip muffins that have led to Ms Verlinden being crowned Ballarat’s undiscovered baking legend as part of a Yellow and White Pages competition.

The Ballarat North resident will feature on the cover of the local directory for 2017/18, with the muffin recipe to appear on the inside for residents to master in their own kitchens.

“They are a very basic recipe that I adapted but they’re very popular,” Ms Verlinden said.

“And you could say they’re half healthy with the bananas in it.” 

The directory is focused on celebrating the achievements of the Country Women’s Association of Victoria.

Ms Verlinden has been a member of the association in the Ballarat area for more than 11 years. 

“It’s the friendship and the companionship with the other women (that attracted me) and just being involved in our local community and giving back to our local community,” she said. 

“The organisation very quietly goes about supporting local charities and community events.” 

However, she was surprised to have been nominated by a friend and never imagined she would win the competition. 

“It is a bit overwhelming really to think I’ll be going into everybody’s homes,” she said.

“But it might bring some interest to the CWA. It gets the message out that we are still a strong and viable organisation within our local community and statewide, and we’ve been around for over 85 years.”