Mini Banana Muffins

One of my favorite and relaxing hobbies is baking.  Unfortunately, I really only know how to bake banana bread.  Why?  Because I end up having to bake a banana something all the time.  You see...I have a really odd love-hate relationship with bananas.  I LOVE bananas when they aren't ripe.  In fact, green means good in this case.  I buy and eat bananas green and once they get one little bruise on them I am out.  So, I normally have a few bananas leftover that aren't "good" anymore.

I either give the little bruisers away or bake them.

This morning I had three bananas sitting on my kitchen counter...all nasty and not edible on their own.  I sighed and decided to take on baking them first thing this morning.  I decided to skip my routine banana bread loaf and use my new mini muffin pan.  (Everything is better mini, right?)  I have one go-to recipe for my banana breads that I love.  I'm continually trying to tweak it to make it more organic and healthy.  Below is what I actually made this morning.

Mini Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cup Organic Whole Wheat Flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup melted butter (I use Smart Balance Butter light with flax)

3/4 cup Organic Pure Cane Sugar

2 Organic Eggs

3 Organic Ripe Bananas mashed

1 teaspoon vanilla

* white chocolate chips

* coconut flakes

Preheat oven to 325F degrees.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the melted butter and sugar.  Add the eggs, mashed bananas and vanilla and mix really well.

Mix in the baking soda and cinnamon.  Then slowly pour in the flower, mixing well as you pour.  Give the mixture a really good stir to make sure everything is fully mixed and then stir in the your treat of choice.  (white chocolate chips, coconut flakes, nuts, blueberries).

Lightly grease or oil your baking cups.  Spoon your mixture into the cups.  Bake at 325F degrees for about 20 minutes.

*I actually poured out a little but of the mixture into a separate bowl and added the coconut flakes.  I also spooned the plain banana mixture into the cups and then added a few white chocolate chips to about half of the plain muffins.  I ended up with a few plain banana muffins, a few white chocolate banana muffins, and banana coconut muffins.  YUM-O.  Sparky was pleasantly surprised when he stumbled out of bed to the aroma of baking banana muffins.

In the future, I am going to try to incorporate Agave Nectar, Xanthum Gum, and coconut oil.  I will let you know how that goes.

Scenes from my morning.  Enjoying my muffins, coffee, flowers, and dogs.

*All photos belong to me, yo.

Keep on Keepin On.