Banana Muffins

Hello Friends!  Today the weather is a little less oppressive (don't even get me started on the heat/humidity combo we experienced here in the Northeast last week), and I decided to do something brave.  I turned on the oven and baked something! 

Truth be told, it wasn't just the cooler temperatures, but I was also motivated by the pile of rotting bananas on my counter.  I just bought them yesterday, and I swear they looked fine in the store (does that ever happen to you?).  But regardless of when I bought them, I needed to deal with the bananas before they bred a whole colony of fruit flies in my kitchen.  The result was a big batch of my favourite banana muffins. 

When I graduated from high school, one of the things my mother gave me was a small recipe box filled with some of her standard recipes.  Admittedly, I cook very different than my mother on an everyday basis, but this was a good start for me at age 18, and is still the place I turn when I just need to make something basic.  For me, banana muffins are basic.  I love my mum's recipe, but it's not very healthy.  It has a ton of butter, sour cream, sugar, and chocolate chips.  Sounds delicious, right?  Well it is, but today I want to share with you both the original recipe (because sometimes you just need to indulge and eat a cupcake while calling it a muffin) and my modified recipe.

Healthier Banana Muffins

400F for 20 minutes
Yeild: 12 regular sized muffins

1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup apple sauce
3/4 cup sugar (some combination of white and brown)
2 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional - but my kids really like them)

Combine flour, oats, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in one bowl.  Cream butter, sugar, and eggs in a second bowl.  Mash bananas in a third bowl, and add both the sour cream and apple sauce to the bananas.  

Fold together the contents of the three separate mixtures in your largest bowl.  Be careful not to over mix, or your muffins will be tough.  Add walnuts (and chocolate chips). 

 

Spoon mixture into muffin tins (either lined with papers or greased).  I often find that I have enough batter for one or two more muffins, so if I'm doubling the recipe, I'll do a batch of mini muffins too (those cook for 15 minutes).

Bake for about 20 minutes.  Muffins should be rounded on top, golden brown, and cooked through the center.

And here is the original recipe for those of you who love butter, sugar, and lots of it!


Original Banana Muffins

400 F for 15 minutes
Yeild: 12 regular sized muffins

1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
3 ripe bananas, mashed 
1/2 cup chocolate chips (or whatever looks good to you)

Combine flour, soda, and salt in one bowl.  Cream butter, sugar and eggs in a second bowl.  Mash bananas in a third bowl, and add sour cream.  

Fold together the contents of the three separate mixtures in your largest bowl.  Be careful not to over mix, or your muffins will be tough.  Add chocolate chips. 

Spoon mixture into muffin tins (either lined with papers or greased).  I often find that I have enough batter for one or two more muffins, so if I'm doubling the recipe, I'll do a batch of mini muffins too (those cook for about 10 minutes).  Bake for about 15 minutes (or maybe a little longer, but you don't want to over bake them).  

I am not one of those bakers, that will take a recipe for a dessert, and then cut out all things that make it delicious (the fat, white flour, and sugar).  But I'm a little more ambitious when it comes to muffins and making them healthier.  I don't worry as much about them having the perfect consistency, because as long as you don't change everything from the original, they will at least be edible.  I find that with most muffin recipes you can decrease the sugar by close to half, replace at least half the fat with applesauce, and trade out some of the white flour for something a little healthier.  For these mufffins I used whole wheat flour and oats.

And since I actually prefer to eat muffins that don't just taste like cupcakes (called muffins because they have some 'healthy' ingredient like pumpkin, bananas, zucchini, or apples), for me this is the way to go.  I don't know how healthy my recipe actually is, but it's a whole lot better than the original and I really do like it more (sorry mum). 

Do you find yourself cooking similarly to your mother (or husband's mother) or have you branched off in a totally new culinary direction?  We eat mostly vegetarian at my house, and I love cooking with spices my mother has never heard of, but I still find myself constructing some similar meals to the ones I grew up with.  Especially in the summer, when we often sat down to a supper of boiled new red potatoes, a variety of fresh vegetables from our garden, and cottage cheese.  Yum.  I could eat that all summer long.     

In other non-related news, my three year old hums or sings to himself while he is playing.  It's pretty adorable.  His song of choice - It Takes a Woman (from the musical Hello Dolly) - which is possibly one of the most sexists songs he's ever been exposed to.   I mostly find this hilarious since he has no idea what the song is really about.  Do your kids have any favourite songs to sing that fall into this category?