Banana Muffins

Returning to the blogging world. Spent the past...well...quite a while...just wanting to spend time with my puppy...now that puppy is gone, it's time to return to this hobby.

I've been cooking & baking like crazy, or so it feels. I don't have a whole heck of a lot of motivation, but I make dinner most nights of the week. And I try to make something (muffins, scones) for breakfast in the morning. Today, (although it's the weekend, so probably not the best timing for "work brekkies"!) I decided to use up some of the buttermilk that I had leftover from St. Patty's Day irish soda bread to make these muffins.

I just found this recipe the other day on Phemomenon, and immediately bookmarked it because of the excess buttermilk in my fridge. And while I was getting the ingredients ready, I realized I also had quite a few bananas to use up. Perfect!

I made quite a few changes, the most significant being swapping banana in for the butter. Healthy, no? :) They rose really tall, perfect muffin texture and delicious!

Buttermilk Spice Muffins
adapted from Mimi's Cafe

Batter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup mashed bananas (abt 2 medium bananas)
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup & 1 Tbsp buttermilk

Topping
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, cream bananas and sugar (I used a hand mixer). Add 3 eggs and blend until well-combined. Batter will be very wet at this stage.

In a separate small bowl, sift flour, baking soda, cinnamon & nutmeg.

Add 1/2 of the flour mixture to the banana mixture and combine until just blended. Add 1/2 of the buttermilk, combine. Blend in the rest of the flour, then the rest of the buttermilk. Batter will have thickened quite a bit.

In separate bowl (you can use the one you used for the flour), combine the topping ingredients and mix until combined.

Grease muffin tins. Pour batter in the muffin tins 1/2-3/4 full, then add a small spoonful of the topping. Put into oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.


*Now obviously these are not your typical bakery muffin! Not quite as moist (no butter!) but still great texture and flavor. And not as sweet, because I severely slashed the sugar. I love muffins like this because I feel good about grabbing them for breakfast in the morning! And because of course they taste delicious. :)