Banana Crunch Muffins

Sometimes those days arrive when you have a craving for a delicious sweet and in the corner of the kitchen you see some bananas getting a bit too ripe. Those days never happen to me because I absolutely love overripe bananas, but this time I sacrificed my bananas to make a nice treat for the family.

Now, I'll intro that I messed these up. Not really as they were still incredible, but my add-in didn't work the way I would have liked. I decided to use up old granola bars I made last week instead of making some granola or using pre-made granola. Next time I'll make some or just add in oats and nuts. Ooo, I bet a crunchy oats and nuts type of cereal would be fantastic!

On to the recipe.

Banana Crunch Muffins
adapted from Ina Garten, my hero

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
3 medium or large eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 large mashed bananas (if you want some chunks of banana in the muffin, dice one of the bananas)

2-3 cups add-in. Vary it. Granola, pecans, walnuts. I used a seed mix from Lidl. It had sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, cranberries... some other bits. I also broke up 2 homemade granola bars. Go crazy. Anything you think might be tasty with banana.

Direction

Preheat the oven 350F/180C.

Now, use muffin liners. Did you read that? Check it off in your mind? USE THE PAPERS. These muffins will stick to a muffin pan. You need those cupcake/fairycake/muffin cases.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

Add the melted butter and blend it together well with the dry ingredients.

Combine the eggs, milk, vanilla, and mashed bananas.

Gently fold them into the flour mixture until its combined. Don't overmix. Stop when it all starts to look wet.

Use an ice cream or cookie dough scoop if you want, to put the batter into the cases. This will give you even muffins with the exact same amount of batter in each muffin. Top with granola and sugar if you'd like!

Fold in your add-in. Gently. DON'T OVERMIX.


Bake for 25- 30 minutes. Let them cool before you eat them.

Spiced Pumpkin Bread

Spiced Pumpkin Bread
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Old-Fashioned Home Baking

I love this time of year, excuse to use loads of pumpkin. That is, in my case, butternut squash, since I'm a big cheat. However, I still believe firmly that it tastes nicer than pumpkin. This makes 1 ring of bread (bundt pan) or two loaves.

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour (the original recipe uses all white flour)
1/4 cup wheat germ (you can omit this if you want or don't have it)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon (shoulda added more)
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup pumpkin/butternut squash fresh or canned puree
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs (I used 3 medium eggs)
1/3 cup shortening (I suppose you could use butter if you wanted to)

1 cup of either dried berries, nuts, raisins, or seeds like pepitas (I used a prepacked mix of sunflower seeds, pepitas, cranberries and goji berries from Aldi)

Directions

Preheat oven to 175C/350F

In a mixing bowl (or the bowl of your mixer) mixed half the flour (1/2 cup WW flour, 1/2 cup AP flour), baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.

Add pumpkin, milk, eggs, vanilla and shortening. Use mixer and beat 30 seconds to mix and a couple minutes on high.
Stir in nuts/seeds/dried fruit.

Bake for 1 hour for a ring mold/bundt like I used, or 45 minutes for two loaf pans.

You can make a glaze with a bit of powdered sugar and water, and a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, or just do what I plan to do, which is slice it up and smear it with butter or cream cheese. I plan on making french toast with a few slices for my breakfast, yum!