muffins

This lovely fall...or, more precisely, winter weather has been making me want to bake and, as we always seem to have a plethora of overripe bananas at out house...I thought I'd make some banana bread. I had all the ingredients, and got to work looking at recipes online. Apparently I was not the only one craving banana bread...it was in the top searches box on allrecipes.

Now there seems to be a misconception about banana bread, at least in my brain, because it's made with fruit...it must be more nutritious than, say cake. Not so, I found as I perused through all the top rated recipes. Two sticks of butter in one loaf of bread is a bit excessive, in my opinion, especially when I'm sure I would probably end up eating most of it.

So on to Plan B. I needed to find something that called for overripe bananas, that tasted good, and was somewhat nutritious. I must admit, I wasn't optimistic. But not only did I find a recipe that met all the criteria, it also called for apples...which I had, and needed to use. The stars were in alignment! All was right with the world!

So I got to work. Of course, I had to change the recipe, because I can never actually follow a recipe to the letter. First off, I tripled the recipe, because I wanted to make muffins we could eat for a week or so, and a loaf of bread. The recipe called for raisins...plumped raisins... not a fan. So I left them out. Actually, I substituted walnuts. And I added an extra egg and a substituted a little all-purpose white flour for some of the whole wheat because some reviews said they didn't rise well. So this is what the recipe looked like when I was done with it:

• 4 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups milk
• 4 1/2 cups bran cereal {I used bran flakes}
  
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  
• 6 tablespoons melted butter or oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 3 apples, cored and shredded {zucchini would work too}
  
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 cup brown sugar or honey
• 1-2 cups chopped walnuts
  

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 36 muffin cups or two large loaf pans.
2. Beat the eggs and the milk in a large bowl, and mix in the bran cereal. Let the mixture stand until the cereal absorbs the liquid, about 5 minutes (this is when I mash my bananas and grate my apples). Add the mashed bananas, shredded apples, melted butter (or oil) and vanilla. Gently mix in the dry ingredients, and stir a few times to combine.
   
3. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

They were wonderful! Not quite as good as banana bread *smile* but still very good. A new staple at our house for breakfast, I think.