Banana Muffins

     I love bananas.  In fact, I eat one every day for a snack.  Being the frugal cook that I am, I also love the fact that bananas are a cheap fruit.  Once a week, I pick up a bunch of organic bananas at Publix for $0.99 a pound.  This entire bunch costs me around $2.50 but normally a little less.  I always buy seven bananas because this gives me one for everyday of the week and this makes for a cheap snack at $0.37 per banana.  On occasion bananas brown and become very ripe before I have a chance to eat them.  When this happens, I peel the banana and freeze it.  Once I have two overripe bananas in my freezer, I make these banana muffins.  I mainly make these muffins for myself.  J.T. absolutely loves Pumpkin muffins and Sweet Potato muffins so I keep our freezer stocked with those for him to eat.  In my opinion, mini muffins are easier to eat while working at a desk, so that’s why I like the smaller size.  These banana muffins are fairly low in sugar, because I do not care for overly sweet muffins which taste more like a cupcake than a muffin.  Since bananas are naturally sweet, it doesn’t take much honey to sweeten the batter.  I store these in the freezer and every morning I put two in a container to take to work.  By mid morning the muffin has defrosted but you can microwave it for 20 seconds to rewarm it instantly.   

Ingredients

·         1 ½ cups gluten-free whole grain flour blend*

·         1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

·         ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

·         1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         ¼ teaspoon baking powder

·         ½ teaspoon salt

·         ½ cup coconut oil

·         ¼  cup honey

·         ¼ cup almond milk

·         ½ teaspoon vanilla

·         2 eggs

·         1 cup over ripened mashed bananas (about 2)

Directions

1.      Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease (or use cupcake liners) a 24-cup mini muffin tin or a 12-cup muffin tin. 

2.      In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  In a small glass measuring cup, whisk together the coconut oil, honey, vanilla, and eggs.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.  Fold in the mashed bananas.  Divide the batter equally among the muffin tin.  Bake mini muffins for 8 to 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and leave in muffin tin for 2 minutes (you may skip this step if using cupcake liners).  Move the muffins to a wire rack to cool.  Yields 24 to 28 muffins. 

You can also make these muffins using a regular size muffin tin.  Divide the batter equally among a 12-cup muffin tin and bake for 16 minutes.  Yields 12 large muffins.   

* I made my own gluten-free whole grain flour, but you can also substitute whole wheat flour.   The recipe behind my whole grain flour blend came from here.  I used the following ratios:

·         350 grams buckwheat flour

·         350 grams oat flour

·         300 grams arrowroot flour

This flour recipe makes more than what is required for this recipe.  Store any extra in the refrigerator.  

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