Banana”berry” Bomb Muffins!

Two weeks in a row! I’m getting a bit impressed by myself! I’ve been craving muffins for weeks but  I just never have the right ingredients.  This time, I was going to get bananas and strawberries for making a smoothie but instead I figured it’d be a good match for this one.

Last night having a crazy week. I figured I’d use my ultimate stress relief trick and do some baking while watching Dirty Dancing.  I reviewed that HERE if you’re interested in checking that out 🙂 Now lets see how it turned out!

Fresh out of the oven!

This was inspired from a recipe in the Looneyspoons Collections cookbook. The name is Bananaberry Bomb Muffins which actually applies to this one also even though the berry used is different.

Ingredients

Makes 12 muffins

1 cup quick- cooking rolled oats (not instant)
1/2 cup each all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup ground flaxseed or wheat germ
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large or 4 small)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1) Preheat oven to 375F. Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside (or line it with muffin cups like I did).

2) Combine oats, both flours, sugar, ground flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.  Mix well and set aside.

3) In a  medium bowl, whisk together bananas, butter and egg.  Add banana mixture to dry ingredients and stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Gently fold in blueberries.

4) Divide batter among 12 muffin cups.  Bake for 20 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean.  Cool on wire rack.

I made a few changes to the actual recipe. I completely removed ground flaxseed/wheat germ because I don’t have any or more like I remember buying it and have no idea where it vanished to. As for bananas, I used 3 and they were not ripe.  I had just bought them the other day (but I was on its way to being ripe).  And I did end up replacing the blueberries with strawberries. Just remember to cut them in a bit smaller pieces so that it keeps the texture of what blueberries would have.  That was my logic behind it at least.

Doesn’t it look awesome? I really like seeing the whole red treasure inside the muffin effect.  Its totally unintentional but thats exactly why this muffin is very moist and I love them that way.  Its had a good balance and the oat really helps soften the taste.  Its not too sweet but not bland because it has a fruit explosion with the banana and strawberry.  Feel free to try it with blueberries if you’d like.  I know I will one day.  I’m just more of a strawberry girl than a blueberry one.

What type of muffins do you like? How do you like banana or strawberries in baked goods?

Pumpkin Spice Muffins!

You don’t actually get into Halloween spirit without having something or another made with pumpkin.  I don’t cook pumpkin or squash much but I do bake. The debate was really between Pumpkin Pie and something in the form of a muffin or scone or cookie.  I went with muffins as they are easy and should be as close to foolproof as I can get for the first time baking with something new.

These are called Pumpkin Spice Muffins (at least I call them that).  The recipe that I got it from was from Looneyspoons and of course, they had another witty and long name, it was Pumpkin and Spice and Everything Nice.  Just to say, I followed everything to the recipe and only had two omissions. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

PUMPKIN SPICE MUFFINS (Looneyspoons Collection by Janet and Greta Podleski)

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I made my own with 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup canned pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup plain low-fat yogourt

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup finely grated carrots

1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 375F.  Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, whole wheat flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, yogourt, maple syrup, butter, egg and vanilla.  Stir in carrots.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir using a wooden spoon just until moistened.  Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.  Batter will be thick.

4. Divide batter evenly among 12 muffin cups.  Bake for 20-22 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center of muffin comes out  clean.  Cool on wire rack.

 

Looks pretty good, right? I’m eating one of these as I’m typing up this post and its exceeded what I thought it’d taste like.  I was always worried that the pumpkin taste would be strong and it isn’t.  Its a well-balanced muffin.  Its not dry either so thats too my taste as well. I did make a few modifications. I had to take out the yogourt and chocolate chips from the recipe and instead of chopped walnuts, I put in chopped almonds.  Thats about all that I have to say. The taste is definitely pretty good.  I was pleasantly surprise and maybe will make it again next year.

Although, due to this recipe, I have the remaining can of pumpkin to use up and I have no idea what to do with it.  I’m pretty sure I’ll look for something randomly and make it.  I should be back with more pumpkin in some form of meal. Any suggestions?

As always, if you try out this recipe, please tell me how it turned out.  I’d love to know if you liked it or if you would make any changes to it, that sort of thing.

Raw Apple Muffins!

Ever since I saw this recipe earlier this year on a fellow blogger’s post, I’ve been wanting to make it.  I never actually had bought apples and when I did I always went and made the familiar pies.  It turns out my friends (and even myself) we’re not much of a muffin person.  Everyone always had other choices for apples, even if it meant just slicing it and eating it by itself.

Now, these muffins looked amazing.  They looked downright delicious.  Here is the link to her post on Raw Apple Muffins.

Recipe: http://saltandserenity.com/2012/05/28/raw-apple-muffins/

Last night, the initial plan was to make Pumpkin Spice Muffins, but I didn’t have time to head out to buy groceries after work.  So seeing as I had bought apples last week to make this and never got around to it, I thought it’d be the perfect time.  I have a gathering with my friends again.  I can’t believe its been a month (or so).  Remember last time, I made  Apple and Oat Scones, and before that it was Banana Gingerbread Slices? Other than dicing the apples took a crazy amount of time, this was a fun recipe.  I pretty much put on a movie and started chopping and mixing.

This recipe really suited my taste a lot.  I didn’t really have to change anything at all.  It turned out as promised to be moist and delicious from the apples.  I did have to make some little changes.  Salt and Serenity suggested to use Granny Smith and Macintosh apples.  I didn’t have those, so I used Cortland apples.  I think it didn’t make too much of a difference.  Second modification was that I replaced raisins with dried cranberries.  It added a little extra colour to each muffin and usually is a good replacement for raisins.

 

Wait before you go, there’s more.  There was one extra little part I had to change–the topping.  It was supposed to be dipped in melted butter than into the sugar.  I’m lactose intolerant for one and I had run out of butter and margarine.  So I just sprinkled the cinnamon-sugar mixture on the top.  Trust me, it still taste fantastic.  Honestly, I’m not sure melted margarine would’ve tasted the same as melted butter, maybe I’ll try it on one of them later on.

 

This was how they looked when they first got out of the oven.  Nice little muffins, eh?

I’d like to give a big thank you to Salt and Serenity for sharing this with everyone.  If you haven’t been to her blog, you definitely should, she has awesome recipes there.

So, just a little update: Those other muffins I talked about will be coming up soon.  As much as I’m not much of a muffin person, I think I’d prefer that over making a pumpkin pie or something.  Its going to be the first time I bake anything with pumpkin so, I’ll start it off in an easy fashion.

If you do have any suggestions for pumpkin recipes, I’d love to hear it.

Banana Muffin

I finally managed to find time to bake again! We had a few ripe bananas sitting on the counter so I decided to make something with them. My mom is a muffin person so I ended up doing that.  Note that I haven’t made muffins before, at least not from scratch, and even that was 10 years ago or something.  Anyways, this was a fun experience although the muffins turned out a bit pale.  Being the experimenter I am, I decided to add some jam on the top.  So the muffins looked weird because the jam melted a tad bit and it made it look a bit flooded on some of the muffins.

 

Right out of the oven, appearance-wise was not too great but still, I gave it a bit time to cool down before I went to try one.  It tasted really good.  The texture was moist.  I added some dried cranberries instead of raisins (since I don’t have those at home) and it added a bit of more chewy taste and gave the banana taste something more. As much as the jam doesn’t look appealing, it also did its job in giving it just a little more fruity taste.  It was pretty much like a fruit explosion muffin.  I have a few ideas as to how to put the jam and not make it look so “messy”.

While eating I snapped a few pictures to show you what it looked like on the inside of the muffin, the consistency, etc.  Not too bad, eh?

I actually found this recipe in one of my books.  Apparently when making cookies, I had to change some of the ingredient quantities but with muffins, they were right on.  I’ll probably give muffins another shot when I skim through more recipes.

Here is the recipe extracted from “Cookies Biscuits & Bakes 500” by Catherine Atkinson for BANANA MUFFINS:

MAKES 12

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

3 large ripe bananas

1 egg

1/4 cup soft dark brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup raisins (if you want banana chocolate muffins, then replace with chocolate chips)

HOW TO MAKE THEM:

1. Preheat oven to 190C/375F.  Arrange 12 paper cases in a muffin tin (pan).

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.

3. Using a fork, mash the peeled bananas to a smooth consistency in a large bowl.

4.  Beat the egg, sugar and oil into the mashed bananas until fully combined.

5. Add the dry ingredients and beat in gradually, using an electric whisk set at low speed.  Mix until just blended.  With a wooden spoon, stir in the raisins until just combined.  Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins, filling them two-thirds full.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the tops spring back when touched lightly with your finger.  Transfer the muffins to a wire race to cool completely before serving.

SOME CHANGES!

It took me less than an hour to do from prep work to pulling them out of the oven.  Easy and quick! Some of the changes I did do. One was mentioned before was dried cranberries instead of raisins.  I just realized as I was typing up the recipe that I had added a bit more nutmeg than it said, but it didn’t do anything to the taste.  I also don’t like using electric mixers or anything of that sort but for this recipe, it didn’t make a difference or cause any problems because everything was already pretty soft in consistency.  If it was to become something more like dough, then electric mixer would’ve been recommended as they said.  Even by hand, this one was easy to mix.

It may not have turned out as the pictures in the book showed.  Mine was more pale but it still tasted great.  Now for more work on appearance, could it be affected by the ingredients?  For example, soft dark brown sugar would’ve been better, or maybe adding more of it.  I just used normal brown sugar, and perhaps there is another type.  Any suggestions?