17 and Baking

Heathy Banana Apple Muffins – when life throws you bananas

August 26, 2008

Sitting beside your newly-driving 16 year old daughter as she backs out of a Costco parking space is not for the faint of heart. The kids running by, the impatiently waiting car with flashing lights, my mom in the passenger seat, instinctively pushing her foot on an imaginary brake – not the most relaxing day. The solution is to take frequent, stress-free breaks. Which is how we ended up at the farmer’s market.

Hours later, we stand in the kitchen, looking at the 25 or so nearly over-ripe bananas on the counter. It was just too good to pass up: $1 for all the nearly-rotting bananas you could carry. Naturally, we grabbed as many as we could hold without a second thought. But now we have two dozen old bananas that need to be used right away. There couldn’t be a better excuse to make healthy banana apple muffins.

There’s plenty of tasty banana things I like to make. Banana bread. Pound cake. Even cookies. But somehow I decided to try a healthy recipe. While they sound good on paper, healthy recipes don’t always translate. Like a sugar free cookbook I picked up from Goodwill filled with layer cakes and cookies sweetened naturally. Blech. My major complaint with healthy muffins is this: they only taste good fresh out of the oven. Wait a few days and they’re a little too moist. They don’t look appealing. These muffins didn’t last a few days, so it’ll remain a mystery. It does say something about this recipe though, which is adapted from allrecipes.com.

Healthy Banana Apple Muffins

1 cup mashed banana
2 apples, peeled, cored, and diced
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup nonfat vanilla yogurt
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease or line 30 muffin tins with paper cups.

In a large bowl, combine the applesauce and sugar, mixing until smooth. Stir in the two eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions. Then mix in the vanilla extract and yogurt. Sift in the flours, baking soda, salt, and spices, gently mixing until barely combined. A few streaks of flour are fine. Carefully fold in the mashed banana, diced apples, and chocolate chips.

Use a small ice cream scoop or tablespoon to fill muffin tins 3/4 full to create raised, rounded tops. Bake muffins for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Printer Friendly Version – Healthy Banana Apple Muffins

I wonder when we’ll get sick of bananas.

Entry Filed under: Breakfast/Brunch. Tags: apple, bananas, breakfast, healthy, muffins.