When Life Hands You Bananas Part 2

A couple of years ago I wrote about a banana cake in my first blog titled, "When Life Hands You Bananas." Well, once again, with some bananas that had gone way past where they were really edible, I created a recipe for Banana Nut Bran Muffins. These turned out absolutely amazing; light and fluffy, moist and tender. 

Banana Nut Bran Muffins

Banana nut muffins are nothing new, for sure. Every grocery store deli has them. Recipes abound. Still, I didn't go looking for recipes online, as is my wont. Instead, I wanted to create something that was midway between banana cake and banana bread. Not too heavy but not too light and not too sweet. As it happens, they were sweeter than I intended, but that was no deterrent for my husband - or for me, for that matter. They were delicious. I looked at my Banana Cake recipe, and at an old recipe for a "Banana Coffee Bread," from my (very) old "Better Homes and Gardens" binder cookbook. I opted in most cases to go in between amounts called for. The Banana Coffee Bread had very few ingredients. I also went with a streusel on top of the muffins, though this can be left out if preferred, for a less sweet version. In the end, this is what I came up with, and I am very pleased.

Banana Nut Bran Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Banana Nut Bran Muffins

¾ cup mashed over-ripe bananas
2 teaspoons lime or lemon juice
-----
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
-----
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup wheat bran
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
-----
¾ cup sour cream

STREUSEL:
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

Line a 12 well muffin tin with muffin papers or simple spray the wells with cooking spray (I sprayed the wells - no papers). Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Make the streusel by combining all the ingredients and cutting them together - or work the ingredients with fingers. Set the bowl into the fridge while making the muffins. 

In a medium bowl, stir together the 1 cup flour and the following 5 ingredients and set aside.

Mix the bananas and lime juice together and set aside. Beat together the 6 tablespoons butter with the ¼ cup granulated sugar and the ½ cup brown sugar until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the banana mixture. Once well blended, add in the bowl of dry ingredients and mix on low speed for a minute, then add int he sour cream all at once and continue to beat until the mixture has no white streaks left.

Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin tins and rap the tin sharply on the counter to settle the batter. Remove the streusel from the fridge and cut through it with a fork to loosen. Divide the mixture evenly on tops of all the muffins. 

Place the tin in the oven, then immediately lower the oven temperature to 350 and time them for 20 minutes. Once done, allow the muffins to set for about 10 minutes before turning out of tins, at which time, if you have only greased the tin and not lined with papers, the muffins should easily release. 


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Savory Dinner Muffins

I've been spending all my time of late working on identifying plant and flower photos I have taken while visiting (and now living in) Arizona. I have taken a lot of photos. And generally I take closeups, with no thought to really being able to identify them later. It has been an arduous task. A task I love and have been enjoying, and it keeps me very busy, to the exclusion of just about everything else. Including this blog. 

Shallot & Pesto Muffins

I have been occasionally making something new, such as these savory muffins. 

One day recently I was planning to make my Roasted Corn & Poblano Chowder for dinner and wanted something bread-like to accompany the soup. My first thought was corn muffins, but the soup is full of corn and to top it off, with corn masa flour added, both for thickening and for flavor. Maybe I needed something other than corn for the "bread." The more I pondered, the less I was able to come up with. I didn't want just plain muffins, or plain anything. Even without sugar, plain muffins might go okay with the soup, but to me somehow they just didn't sound appetizing.

So I went online. I found ideas. Some were appealing. Others just gave more ideas. So, with what I had on hand, I went to work. While the muffins stayed very light colored, their flavor was excellent. And, best of all, they went so great with the chowder! We enjoyed every last one of them, over the course of a few days. If I had had chives available, I would have added some of those, minced finely as well, but at this time I did not. They came out excellently.

Shallot & Pesto Muffins

Shallot & Pesto Muffins

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 small shallot, minced
¼ cup fresh cilantro, minced finely
-----------
¾ cup buttermilk
½ cup sour cream
3 tablespoons pesto
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the wells of a 12-well muffin tin: set aside.

Place the first 6 ingredients in a mixing bowl and toss well to combine; set aside.

In a large measuring cup or smaller mixing bowl, whisk together the next 5 ingredients until well combined, then pour into the dry ingredients and mix just to combine, until no dry ingredients are left. Divide the batter evenly between the muffin wells and bake the muffins for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Great Muffins from Rye Flour and Rye Bran

The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

I had been busily making rye breads before Christmas, particularly having just received my latest bread cookbook, "The Rye Baker," by Stanley Ginsberg. Between the two new bread baking books, I made a lot of breads of many varieties, to be covered when guests were here over the holidays. I have my own electric grain mill, making quick work of grinding most things into flour; wheat berries, rye berries, Kamut Khorasan, red rice, dried garbanzo beans and more. The difficulty lies in that with rye, most breads call for at least medium rye, which is rye flour with the bran sifted out. Let me say, I spent a lot of time sifting the rye flour. That I need a better, faster way to accomplish that is a no-brainer. Since the holidays, however, I have still been noshing on the already made breads I have in the freezer.

Maple Bacon Rye Muffins

That comes back to the fact of all the leftover rye bran that I had sifted out. I have lots and lots. I made some muffins a few weeks ago, using mainly the rye bran, and while they were good, they were not exciting. In the meantime, I had been reading about the whole grains and the problem with phytic acid, after talking with a friend whose doctor warned her against whole grains. This is a quote from one website:

"High-phytate foods, such as grains, nuts, and legumes, can raise the risk of iron and zinc deficiency. As a countermeasure, strategies such as soaking, sprouting and fermentation are often employed. For those who eat meat regularly, deficiencies caused by phytic acid are not a concern."

Another site, precisionnutrition.com, and another quote:

"Some experts even suggest that it’s the phytic acid in whole grains and beans that lends them their apparent protective properties against cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes."

Most all of the whole grain breads I've been making call for very long, slow fermentation periods, some including overnight cold rising in the fridge. This slow fermentation mitigates phytic acid binding the minerals. Many of the newer bread recipes call for soaking and sprouting the grain, then drying and grinding, so that long soak also balances out any harm. But when it comes to the rye bran, which is culled from just plain rye berries not previously soaked, sprouted or other, the bran is then high in phytic acid. 

As one of the things to do is soak, I thought I would soak some of the rye bran in buttermilk (double whammy, as an acidic environment is also supposed to help, along with soaking in general). Then I read more and found that the soaking medium should be hot. And, that it requires a long soak. 

I mean, REALLY! What's a girl supposed to do to have a healthy breakfast anymore???

Maple Bacon Rye Muffin texture

Long and short, a few days back I thought I would heat some buttermilk and soak the rye bran while prepping the rest of the ingredients to make some more muffins, and have done with it. I am not vegetarian, so I shouldn't fall into the risk of iron and zinc deficiency. All this aside, most readers will not own their own electric grain mill, grind their own rye berries to make bread, and sift out rye bran. And if this is the case, oat bran would work just as well in these muffins. Rye flour is easily found these days. Bob's Red Mill carries at least 3 different grinds: Light Rye (the rye equivalent of white all-purpose flour, but with less gluten), Medium Rye (what I approximate when sifting out the bran), and Pumpernickel Rye (more coarsely ground and with all the bran and germ), plus all the organic options. There are other types and grinds, but these are the most easily available. I happened to have some of my sifted "medium rye flour" in a baggie I found pushed back behind some things, so decided also to use this in the recipe. 

Okay, so I knew what I was doing with the rye part of the recipe. I happened to have some bacon in the fridge. I don't eat it often, so I thought I would use some in the muffins. Maple is always an excellent flavor combination with bacon, so I used maple syrup as the sweetener. 

This time, the muffins were fantastic. Oh my! The texture was light and just perfect. Even my husband, generally not one to actually eat anything whole grain if he can help it, actually asked if he could have a couple! They must have smelled really good to him, too! He said they were great, and that is just about the biggest endorsement I could possibly give to a whole grained food! 

Maple Bacon Rye Muffins

Maple Bacon Rye Muffins

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

1 cup buttermilk, heated
½ cup rye bran (or oat bran)
5 strips thick sliced bacon
¾ cup medium rye flour
¾ cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
¼ cup real maple syrup
½ teaspoon maple flavor
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the bran into the heated buttermilk in a medium bowl, stir, and set aside.

Cut the bacon across into ¼-inch pieces and fry until just crisped. Drain on paper toweling. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, whisk or sift together the rye and all-purpose flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the eggs, maple syrup and melted butter to the bowl with the buttermilk and bran. Stir to mix well. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and stir to combine, then add in the Maple Flav-r-Bites and stir in.

Grease the wells of a 12-count muffin tin, using cooking spray. Divide the batter evenly between the 12 wells and bake the muffins for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out with only a crumb or two. 


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

More Morning Muffins

"BAKE from scratch" Beet & Goat Cheese Muffins

Muffins are a lovely start to a morning. I surely don't make them too often, but I do love them. This quarter's issue of "BAKE from Scratch" had a feature with (I believe) 7 different muffin recipes. I went a little wild with the last quarter's issue with the 8 different kinds of scones. I somehow cannot get quite as excited about the muffins for some reason. There are some that certainly piqued my interest. One of them was a recipe that contained pureed beets (making them prettily pink in color), goat cheese (for a little piquancy), lots and lots of orange zest and a whole lot of streusel.

I made these last because I happened to have pureed beets in my freezer. I used them to make a most excellently moist Chocolate Beet Cake, though if any of my readers have kept up with my blogs, they will know that chocolate is very low on my list of things to make or eat. Ergo, I still have lots of pureed beets in the freezer!

Matcha & Black Sesame Muffins

Another of the muffin recipes that called my attention was one that used Matcha Green Tea powder and black sesame seeds. I love using Matcha powder in recipes and have made many things this way. I made some really excellent molded individual Black Sesame Matcha Cheesecakes once. They were to DIE for. I made some Green Tea Lime Sables about a year ago, and a GF Angelfood Cake with Green Tea Pistachio Swirl a year ago March. I love the Green color in things, though the flavor does not always come through strongly. 

Matcha & Black Sesame Muffins

While reading the recipe for the muffins in "BAKE from scratch", I rather disagreed with the method for making the muffins, and also with the streusel for the top. I followed the recipe for the pretty beet muffins to the letter. I was unsure how much beet flavor would come through for one thing, but the streusel seemed excessive, and excessively sweet. There was as much sugar in the entire muffin recipe as was in the streusel part. To me, that was just plain overkill. The same went for the Green Tea muffins. I love sweets; don't get me wrong. I do love sweets. But sometimes, there can be too much of a good thing. I opted to skip the streusel entirely on the green tea muffins and instead use the black sesame in the recipe. One thing I particularly liked in the recipe as it was presented was the use of almond meal. This would automatically make them moist. I kept that idea. Instead of streusel, I just sprinkled the muffins with sliced almonds before baking, to make them look pretty.

All the recipes in the magazine were sized for jumbo muffin tins. I do not own jumbo muffin tins, though I do have a 12-well square holed tin. I believe the square shape holds a larger amount than a regular muffin tin, though I have not officially measured. I know when making this recipe, it all fit into the square holed 12-well tin, though when I made one of the other recipes in a regular muffin tin, I had to use 3 extra wells in a regular tin to accommodate. Be aware of

this when pouring into the tins, and also when baking. Larger, jumbo muffins will take longer to bake through completely. I was so very pleased with what I did and how they came out. Here is my method:

Matcha & Black Sesame Muffins

Makes 8 jumbo muffins or 12 - 16 regular muffins

Matcha & Black Sesame Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup almond meal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons Matcha green tea powder 
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs 
1 cup milk
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
½ cup sliced almonds, for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray the wells of 12 - 16 regular muffin tin wells with cooking spray, or simply use muffin papers.  Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the first 6 ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, eggs, milk and melted butter. Pour the liquid ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir well with a silicone spatula or a spoon, until no dry ingredients are left. Divide the batter between the prepared muffin tins and sprinkle the tops with the sliced almonds.

Bake the muffins for approximately 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Remove the muffins from the tin to cool on a rack. 


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.