Honey Banana Muffins

__________ _________ Muffins

Can you fill in the blanks?? Or atleast guess the two main ingredients other than flour and nuts

Recipe coming up soon....

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So the guessing is up! Some of you managed to guess ' Banana'. What's this, with Banana and muffins though? It's the first thing that comes to my mind too when I see a muffin ! The other ingredient is honey. The recipes calls for honey instead of using processed sugar.

I found this recipe on one of the foodblogs which mentioned that this is Nigella Lawson's recipe. I have longingly looked at her cookbooks in bookstores but the reviews of how the pictures are great and the recipe is not at all that accurate, dissuades me from buying a book that costs around Rs.2000. I do feel that her recipes are no-fuss but while baking, the adjective that I'm looking for is 'foolproof'. Nothing can be as heartbreaking as a failed baking attempt! All those heady aromas in your kitchen and nothing edible in the end is the height of taste-bud torture.

Actually, quite a few food bloggers around have tried this one with varying results. Read what Babe in the city has to say. Despite the not-so-good results, i decided to try out this one with my own modifications, because it wasn't much effort and all the ingredients were there in my pantry. ( I read the Chubby Hubby version only this morning, after I had already made two batches of the muffins, or else discouraged by their results- I don't think I would have tried this one)

Modification: And I modified the 1 cup AP flour into 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup AP flour to make it atleast half healthier. Also, I added a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped mixed nuts into the batter as well as for a little crunchy garnish on the top.

Honey Banana Muffins-a modified recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess

Ingredients:

1/2 cup AP flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 heaped tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (use cardamom powder for a variation)

2 large very ripe bananas

2 generous tbsp of good honey

2 tbsp of unsalted butter (i used salted butter and omitted the extra salt)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp finely chopped mixed nuts and a little more for topping

Pinch of salt

Method:

1.Preheat oven to 175 C/ 350 F

2.Sieve the flours with baking soda and baking powder into a large bowl. Add cinnamon / cardamom powder to it and keep aside.

3.Mash the bananas with a fork and keep aside.

4.Melt the butter in a saucepan on very low heat. Spoon the honey and vanilla essence into the melted butter and pour this butter mixture into the mashed bananas. Mix the finely chopped nuts into this.

5.Add the above mixture to the prepared flour. Just mix them gently until you have "a not terribly attractive lumpy sludge, but don't worry about it."

6.Spoon the mixture into a well greased / 'lined with paper cups' muffin tray. This mixture yeilded me 9 medium to large muffins. Rather i force fitted the entire batter into my 9 cup muffin tray. You could spread them over 12. Top each cup with a little sprinking of nuts.

7.Bake for 20 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool and serve with tea or for breakfast.

Result:

Compared to what people have to say- I had a pretty good bunch of mufffins. I don't know if the different result was due to the mixture of flours or the kind of bananas used. They were soft and springy. I rather prefer the subtle sweetness of honey to the overt sugary sweetness. The nuts added a nice crunch and the banana-cinnamon flavours are anyway an all time favourite. I made another batch the very next day, in which I added some mueseli into the batter. They turned out fine too!

It's worth a try for sure.

Tags: banana muffins, muffins, sugarfree, sugarless, honey, dessert, breakfast

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Just reminding you friends, to send in your breakfast entries by 13th of July so that I can stick to the round-up date of 15th. Please send the Permalink of your recipe to saffrontrail AT gmail DOT com

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Check out:

The latest muffin on the block oops...Blog - Shammi's Chocolate muffins

Morning glory muffins that I learnt from Zoubeida

And don't miss Meeta's Carrot-coconut-walnut-apple muffin

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Disclaimer: Any resemblance in recipe idea, pictures, words is purely co-incidental.