House Warming Banana Muffins

The plague of rotten bananas. Everyone party in our house currently buys their own groceries; hence, we usually end up with surplus bananas which is good for the baker in the house and usually for everyone else.

However, these bananas would were meant to reside in a different house- my oldest and dearest friend's new apartment. I know that if were moving (and I will be soon), I'd need some homey baked goods to relieve the stress and lighten the overwhelming load of move-in chaos. When I walked into to her new, large apartment still in shambles from move-in day, I knew the muffins would definitely provide relief, even if just for those few minutes while savoring one of these golden,moist muffins.

Exhausted, I made a trip to her late Tuesday to deliver the muffins; this was after waking up at 2:45am to work at the Bakery; did I mention I'm working for free?

The muffins were nice; very moist, golden and chock full of banana however I realized afterwards there were no added spices to these banana muffins which I do prefer but a lot of banana muffin recipes do not have any. So, I'll leave that up to your discretion. The walnuts are also a great addition; I did half with and half without - I like to try to accomodate everyone's tastes. These muffins are incredibly moist; I could imagine a nice pinch of nutmeg to skyrocket there delicious factor then it would be the ideal banana muffin, in my humble opinion.


Banana Nut Muffins
Yield - 12 regular muffins
adapted from Simply Recipes

3 ripe bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 - 1 cup chopped walnuts

Pre-heat oven 350 degrees. In a large bowl mash bananas and add melted better and mix well.

Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add baking soda and salt and mix in.

Add flour and mix until just incorporated. Fold in walnuts if desired.

Pour mixture in to prepared muffin tin. Bake 25-30 minutes. When toothpick inserted in muffin center comes out clean, muffins are done! Cool on wire rack.

I also forgot to mention that these muffins are so easy to prepare. In a pinch for a gift or you simply want fresh banana muffins in the morning, these muffins would be a great go-to for impromptu events calling for muffins.

Thanksgivings Ruminations: Mile High Biscuits and Mom's Apple Crumb Pie

Better late than never as we creep into the morning of the 1st of December. I still haven't a gift for anyone or finalized what I'd like to bake for the approaching holiday festivities but regardless, I'll give the gift of blog this morning!

Thanksgiving was wonderful, full of food and family. I was happy that my mom decided to join us down in South Carolina even though we are returning to CT this weekend (yikes). And what comes with Mom is my favorite dessert. Yes, I am bold enough to say that this dessert is my absolute favorite. I have no mercy when it's comes to mile high crumbs over crisp flavorful orchid apples and perfectly flaky crust. I had it for breakfast for 2 mornings after Thanksgiving (another, yikes); I can't forsake the pie if it's there. The apple crumb pie brought to you by my mother and now myself is a compilation of different recipes from my family. The pie portion comes from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, the crumbs are a recipe from my great grandmother's coffee cake recipe, and the crusts have changed a few times but for this pie I rolled out a wonderful crust from Baking With Julia.

This second attempt at pie crust with Baking With Julia was perfect. Since my Pate Brisee flop, I had read up a great portion on pie crust and was ready to tackle again head on. I decided for the time being to use a recipe that contained butter and shortening. I never grew up with shortening in my house and this was a very scary, foreign object that always perplexed me. For baking sake, I used shortening for the first time. What we had in the house (my boyfriends mother's stash) was Crisco shortening in the iconic blue tub. I would definitely not use regular Crisco shortening in the future given the existing trans-fat in the product but I know there are alternatives. Anyway - Julia's recipe was the perfect blend of butter and shortening to create a flavorful and flaky crust. I detest all shortening crusts; They just taste like air. However, I do love all butter crusts but I do have to better my technique with them.
My next Thanksgiving baking adventure was biscuits. I've been yearning to make delicious buttermilk biscuits from scratch since I moved down to the south. I had my fare share since I've come down here but homemade in your own kitchen is always superior. I had planned to make buttermilk rolls but the timing would have been too tricky. It was the perfect opportunity to make biscuits for the bread quota of the Thanksgiving table. Making them was fun and suspenseful, to see if they were everything they were cracked up to be. I used the recipe from a little cookbook I picked up in the Charleston from The Hominy Grill entitled Mile High Biscuits. I don't feel I should post the recipe from there but it included all of your basic biscuit ingredients: soft wheat flour, salt, baking powder, buttermilk, butter, shortening and lard. Instead of soft wheat flour, I used AP because I had it on hand and is perfectly acceptable and no lard because I never have that on hand but I would interesting in trying it in the biscuits. Lard repulses and intrigues me at the same time.These were the biscuits prior to baking. I stored them in the fridge until we were just about ready to eat; they only needed 10-12 minutes in the oven. I've said it before but these really were everything I hoped they would be. Warm, buttery and flaky, the layers just peeled away and melted in your mouth; I would know, I ate about 5 of the 15.

Well, glad I finally got this written; Can't wait to do it again next year.

Back with Hearty Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

Thanks so much for the kind words - I really appreciate it. I've missed blogging and baking but I got to do a bit over the past week that I haven't shared yet.

Last Thursday - I actually had made these Banana Muffins in the morning but that's when all the madness began. At work the previous night they were going to throw away some barely browned banana's and I volunteered to take them instead of wasting them. Muffins seemed like the best option for something healthy for the morning; unless it's a special day, my morning meal is a usually a combination of fruit and whole grain.

I adapted this recipe out of my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook binder from the Oat Bran Muffin recipe.

Hearty Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

1 1/4 cups organic whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup mashed banana, heaping
3/4 cup fat-free buttermilk
1 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Lightly coat 12 - 2 1/2" muffins cups and set aside. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine ww flour, AP flour, baking powder, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Make a well in center of flour mixture and set aside. Mix in walnuts.

In a small bowl combine egg, banana, buttermilk, and butter. Add all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy).

Divide batter evenly among muffins cups. Bake in 400 degree oven for 16 to 18 minutes or until golden and object inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from cups; serve warm.

My boyfriend and I ate the muffins warm from the oven and they were tasty but could have used a bit more moisture. I would try a full cup of buttermilk next time since the original ingredients calls for 1/4 cup of honey contributing to the moist ingredients which I subbed from brown sugar. I could tell the batter was a bit thick but didn't want to risk drier muffins by more stirring. I will definitely make these again with a few tweaks. I only filled 10 out of the 12 muffins cups and I liked the size they came out; they rose nice and big.

I probably won't be able to blog about the Oreo Cheesecake or Strawberry Oatmeal Jam Bars until I get a replacement computer charger ... Long story.

I'll get that worked out today somehow but in good news, my application for the Culinary Institute of America is complete and in for review. I should find out in about a week about acceptance and dates and such. I'm off to go read all your blogs until my computer runs out of batteries!

Fat-Free Banana Bread

Don't let the title throw you off; I promise I haven't gone off the deep end.

On any average day about 4/5 persons in the household are on some sort of diet; I prefer to call it lifestyle actually. Despite my musings on this blog, I eat very healthy and exercise about 6 days a week. However, I believe in the everything in moderation philosophy and balancing yourself when it comes to diet. A "perfect" diet is bound for failure; when you deny youself certain things pyschologically and physically your body with crave them and the end result is usually not pretty. With that said, I decided to create a baked good that everyone would feel guilt free eating (including myself) and the results were completely tasty and satisfying, not just for a fat-free baked good.

I don't think "light" baked good should contain anything too unnatural - start with a naturally healthy, fat free, sweet thing and your off to a good start - fragrantly ripe bananas!

I adapted this recipe from a recipe on allrecipes.com

Fat-Free Banana Bread

1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 granulated sugar
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 egg whites
2 large bananas, mashed
1/3 apple butter, heaping

For glaze (very approx. measures):
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2-4 tbsp fat-free half and half

Preheat oven to 350, grease 9X5 loaf pan.

In a large bowl stir together flour, brown sugar, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. In another bowl mash bananas, add vanilla, egg whites, and apple butter. Add to dry mixture and stir until just combined. Pour into pan.

Bake for about 45-47 minutes or until object inserted in center comes out clean. Turn out onto wire rack and let cool before slicing (I didn't exactly follow this part).

For glaze, while loaf if still warm, put confectioners sugar in bowl and stir in fat free half and half with wire wisk until desired consistency. Use wire whisk to drizzle over loaf.

Yield - one 9X5 loaf.

Overall - the tasty was delicious and the loaf was moist. The banana flavor was prominent but next time I would even add another banana. I would also use white whole wheat flour or other whole-grain flour in place of the all purpose to make this a more healthful treat. I didn't have these on hand. I didn't feel like I was eating a fat-free baked good and the loaf was gone the next day, so I guess I wasn't the only one!

Pumpkin Bread

Although it doesn't seem much like autumn here in South Carolina; I felt autumn upon me. This means pumpkin, apples, sweet potatos and other warm, fuzzy comfort fruits and vegetables.

This sparkled my urge for pumpkin bread. I decided to start out simple and just find an ultimate pumpkin bread recipe to start off my fall-inspired baking. None of my cookbooks had quite what I was looking for, a recipe with butter instead of oil for the fat; however, I settled for a well-reviewed oil based recipe for my pumpkin bread. My searches to me to a recipe at allrecipes.com

I know my pictures are nothing to right home about but hopefully they'll get better as I take more. The end product turned out a bit more brown on the outside than I would have liked but the color on the inside was a warm orange - no complaints there. I made slight changes due to the pan size and spices that were in my cabinet. I'd love to make some sort of pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting for these loaves but I was just baking for pleasure so it stayed plain for now.

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
adapted from allrecipes.com

15oz pumpkin puree (1 can)
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. all-spice
1/4 tsp chopped crystalized ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 9X5 loaf pans (this is just what I had - use other pans if you desire)

In large bowl mix pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In seperate bowl whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Stir dry ingredients into wet just until blended. Pour mixture into prepared pans.

Baked 50-57 minutes in preheated oven. Loaves are down when toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.

Yield: 2 - 9x5 loaves

Next time I would even up the spices, substitute some white sugar for brown, and bake for a little less (I baked for 60 minutes) so the tops aren't as brown. Although brown on the outside the flavor on the inside was delicious; moist pumpkin, soft, midly spicy, it's hard to stop eating! It's slowly disappearing to the kitchen to my delight.