Banana Nut Muffins

By hefk -
In parenting, there are things on which I hold my ground and things on which I "drop the rope," as a former colleague used to say. For a few months, I had dropped the rope about letting the kids eat E--o waffles every morning for breakfast until T began waking every morning with a daily declaration that it's, "wapple time."  Oh yes, it was cute, but a "wapple" a day is not ok by me. For starters, S needs her breakfast to get her through an entire morning at pre-K, so I added breakfast back to ground-holding territory. I've been making these with the kids. I'm hoping to keep it up with weekly baking of healthy breakfast recipes that I then pump up with additional protein, fiber, calcium, etc.  
This one is adapted from Simply.

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed [I use my freezer stock, but I recently found I prefer just plain old overripe bananas before they hit the freezer]

1/3 cup melted butter [I plan to try to sub yogurt with the next batch]
3/4 cup sugar [I cut this by at least half]
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tbsp espresso or strong coffee (optional) [Since I make these with/for the kids, I sub a tsp of cinnamon or chai spice blend]
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup of flour [I use 3/4C white and 3/4C of another, heartier flour like rye, wheat or spelt.]
[2-3 tsp ground flax meal]
1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted or raw) [or pecans or other fave nut]


Method

No need for a mixer with this recipe. [S&T both love to help with this recipe, start to finish.]
1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

2 Mix in the sugar, egg, espresso/spices and vanilla.

3 Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

4 Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

5 Pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.

Makes 12 muffins. [we make mini muffins because the kids like to eat more than one at a time. makes 36 mini muffins]





Comments

Alissa said…
I made these tonight to stock the freezer for snacks to eat after the baby arrives. I followed your suggestions and subbed Greek yogurt for the butter, added ground flax seed, used 1/2 WW flour, less sugar, etc. They came out great. Not dense or dry (which sometimes happens when subbing out butter or adding in WW flour). Todd and I each ate one because they smelled so good coming out of the oven. I think I'll make another batch tomorrow as I still have more bananas in the freezer, and these were so easy to throw together. Thanks!
11:14 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dayton's Famous Pine Club Salad Dressing

By -
Well, close enough anyway. The Pine Club is probably Dayton's most famous restaraunt--not that Dayton is some culinary mecca or anything. This dressing is traditionally served on an iceberg lettuce salad with grated carrot (boring). It's a shame, really, since the dressing is so good but that's why it's better to eat it at home on the salad of your choice. I like it over a green salad with blue cheese, apples/pears and toasted walnuts/pecans, it's good with pasta salad and it's also good on Isaac's broccoli salad. Serves approximately 8. 1 C vegetable/canola oil 3/4 C cider vinegar 1/3 C white sugar 1 tsp salt 2 tsp garlic powder 1 scant tsp red pepper flakes You can mix this one of two ways: either pour it all into a mason jar, put on the lid and shake the heck out of it or do it up with your stick blender. I recommend using the stick blender. Either way it's delicious. Refrigerate leftovers and note that it keeps pretty well. I think I had my...
Read more

Pesto Tortellini Salad

By -
Why don't we just re-name the blog "Recipes Kelly Stole from Isaac's" because I seem to have no other recipes amongst my repertoire. Sheesh. Again, this is not really a recipe, but this salad was, and still is, one of the biggest sellers at the restaurant. As with all of Isaac's recipes, I've drastically reduced the quantity from the original (5 lbs. of tortellini, anyone?) 1.5 lbs tri-colored cheese-filled tortellini (or regular white ones, whatever), cooked according to pkg directions and gently rinsed with cold water 1.5 medium-ish tomatoes, diced 1/2 medium-size red onion, diced 1/3 C black olives (do yourself a favor and get some decent olives) 2/3 C or so pesto (I did a mix of basil pesto and arugula pesto) Dump all ingredients into a bowl and stir until everything is well-coated by the pesto. This is tasty when served immediately but the flavor will continue to develop the longer it sits. As usual, I added 2 handfuls of chopped asparagus but wi...
Read more

mango soba update

By gwen -
A small note to those of us trying to eat more veg, as Kelly would say... this soba noodle salad is delicious with slaw replacing some or all of the noodles. I made it with just one little bundle of noodles, a whole bag of broccoli slaw, and half a bag of cabbage/carrot mixture, and it's great -- actually provides a delicious crunch and you don't miss the rest of the noodles. I cooked the chicken in a bit of the marinade, too, and diced it into the salad/noodle/mango mixture for some protein. Yum.
Read more