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. :)

If I never have to grate sweet potato again...

I'm not even going to lie & say that I've returned to blogging. It is just TOO beautiful outside to stay in for too long! I have been making a few things, in moderation, as the need arises, but I've definitely been slacking. On the other hand, however, my bike & I have become very well acquainted. See...a summer friend (bike) & a winter friend (kitchen). :) Not so bad!

I'd been wanting to make muffins lately as I love to grab them as I run out the door in the morning. I had bookmarked this recipe a long time ago from Joy the Baker, & when I came across it again I realized I had both zucchini AND sweet potato! Honestly, very unexpected. I especially like that she lightens the recipe a bit, and because, as you know, I like to overdo things, I lightened it up a bit more.

And omg. The best thing about this recipe? Accidentally vegan. That's right, I forgot the eggs. Completely. I'm sure that it affected the texture of the breads, but it was delicious without the eggs, so I didn't mind. Tim said they were the best muffins ever. Even after he found out there were sweet potatoes in them. :)

Zucchini Sweet Potato Bread
adapted from Joy the Baker

1/2 cup unbleached AP flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup graham flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
pinch cloves
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups finely grated zucchini
1 1/2 cups peeled & grated sweet potato
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour 2 9×5x3- inch loaf pan, 4 mini loaf pans or 2 cupcake tins and set aside. Sift dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl. In a separate, large bowl, beat the sugars, oil, applesauce and vanilla extract. Mix in the zucchini and sweet potato. Add the dry ingredients and stir just to combine. Fold in the nuts and cranberries and stir well.

Transfer batter to prepared pan(s). Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 1 hour for loaf pan, 20 minutes for mini loaf or cupcake tins. Cool bread in pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Loosen the edges of the bread with a butter knife and turn out on a rack to cool completely. Can be prepared 1 day in advance. Wrap in foil and keep at room temperature. Alternatively, wrap in plastic wrap/foil & freeze until you need it.

Chocolate Banana Muffins

I intended to make this today: Banana Chocolate Walnut Bread but instead (due to what I had on hand) came out with these.

And they were delicious!

Chocolate Banana Muffins
adapted from the Wednesday Chef

3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/3 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cocoa powder
dash salt
dash cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tbsp applesauce
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 medium banana, ripe & mashed
1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 oz dark chocolate, chopped into pieces

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Oil/spray muffin tins.

Combine flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, salt, and cinnamon in mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat together butter, applesauce and brown sugar. Add eggs until blended, then beat in the mashed banana, yogurt & vanilla extract.

Pour flour mixture into wet ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Gently stir in the chocolate pieces. Pour mixture into muffin tin.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until muffins are lightly browned & inserted toothpick comes out clean. Makes about 9 muffins.

Ok there is NO SUN in the whole state right now, so there won't be any pretty pictures for a while...4 days of grey and counting!

Cranberry Orange Muffins

So yesterday I was babysitting, and a favorite activity for one of the little girls (Elise) is baking muffins. Yes, she's 3. And, honest to god, she helps A LOT. She has mixed all of the ingredients more times than I can count, and she also loves pouring things into the bowl, and my favorite...cracking the egg (though she won't touch the actual inside of the egg, hehe).

Now yesterday Elise had the most awful cough I've heard in a while. And as a reminder, she's 3, and she's stirring the ingredients for the muffins. So where do you think the coughing was directed? Yup...right into the batter. Yuuuuuum.... I mean ew.

I decided that at 425 degrees all the germs would be killed, plus if I'm going to get sick from her, heck I'll get sick whether I eat the muffins or not. And I was really excited about these muffins. Anyway, promptly after we put the muffins in the oven, Elise was asleep on the couch. So I continued the baking activities with Evan, a cute but rascal-y 18 month-old.

So there's not much to do at this point...the muffins are in the oven, there's plenty of time, and Evan's shirt is off so we go upstairs to get a new one. We come downstairs, plenty of time still, try to put the shirt on but it's a no-go. Ok, no shirt. Wait...apparently no pants either. Great. Alright so here's the point when Evan tries to pull his diaper off. Fine. Ok, diaper off. He's starting to use the potty, so presumably he won't pee all over the floor. Hmmm...those muffins should be done...uhhhhhh wait. Evan is making all kinds of squeaky noises...I run for the potty but now he's PEEING ALL OVER THE FLOOR.

At this point I'm running for some towels, yelling for Evan to stop (which of course he can't do) and trying to get him to sit on the potty before it's too late, which it already is. I throw some baby wipes on the floor...wait Sarah, what is that exactly going to do? I recover and find some paper towels, but now Evan is bawling. Pee all over the floor, crying kid.

So I quickly pick up the miserable (naked, presumably wet
with urine) child and rock him around the room. Now, I smell burnt something...oh, burnt muffins. Of course.

Despite disasters, the second batch of muffins came out delicious, (actually I even ate the burnt ones...I kind of don't mind burnt things) and we ate them up quick.

So here's my recipe...gotta love cranberry & orange flavors together!

Cranberry Orange Muffins

1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup oatmeal (mine was quick cook)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
grated rind of most of an orange
1 large egg
3/4 cup vanilla yogurt + 1/2 cup milk
3 tsp juice from the orange you just zested!
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp applesauce
1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients into a bowl and blend thoroughly. In a separate large bowl, stir together egg, yogurt & milk, orange juice, butter & applesauce. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just blended. Add cranberries & again stir until just blended. Batter will look somewhat runny. Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven. Makes about 12 regular sized muffins.

So I fully intended to take more pictures today when it was bright and sunny, but unfortunately...we ate them all. I completely forgot. Enjoy the cute pictures of Evan enjoying the muffins instead...his cute poses should be enough of a reason to try them!