Baaaanananaaaaa!

I LOVE banana's, I can eat them by the bunch full. I am a regular monkey, uh lets make that  a gorilla! Besides mango's they are my favourite and best fruit! However..... I often buy them and never can eat them fast enough! Call me weird, but  I cannot eat a banana that has a slight blemish on it when peeled! The mere sight of a brown mushy spot makes me get all funny inside! Like seriously vomitty! I kid you not! Hence there always seem to be 3 or 4 mangy minging banana's in my kitchen.

 

See What I Mean?



There really is only so much Banana Bread and Banana Ice Cream one can make! And to be honest I could make and eat more but I also think I am a bit bored with my recipe(even though it is Yummeeeeee!) I had thrown these 3 sad and tried looking banana's in the fridge a few days ago.... I was determined to find something useful to do with them... For 3 days I watched them look more and more pathetic! Really, they looked Disgusting! When I looked at them today I decided enough was certainly enough! I popped on to the World Wide Web - trawled and took pot luck- and Boy-Oh-Boy, did I find a winning recipe!

This recipe had all my favourite ingredients in the title so it was my instant choice! I mean when you type Healthy Banana Muffins into your search engine........ a trillion recipes come up - The one that caught my eye said Skinny  Peanut Butter and Banana  Muffins - Bingo!!!  And on the plus side - you could add my other favourite thing CHOCOLATE!!!!!(Don't know how Skinny that makes them but really - who cares ?)

 

That Looks Better!

I am not going to bore you with the precise making- suffice to say I threw everything in and baked, I also changed a few things here and there but nothing major! I will give you the recipe and tell you what I did in red and  brackets.... You all know me MRS EASY!

 

Chocolate..... Heavenly Chocolate!

Yummy Looking Batter!

Skinny Peanut Butter and Banana Muffins

• 2 ripe large bananas, mashed with no chunks - I used 3 Banana's
• 1/4 cup honey (or pure maple syrup)- I used half Honey ,half Maple Syrup(didn't have enough of either)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup 0% Plain Chobani Greek Yogurt   - I used plain  old yogurt
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk (or cow's milk, soy milk, rice milk) - What ever... I used 2% low fat
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (non-oily natural style is OK) - I used normal peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 and 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour (or an even mix of whole wheat + all-purpose) - Used White Flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder - I left out the Baking Soda and used 2 tsp of Baking Powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips - I used 100g of milk chocolate- which was perfect!
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter, melted

Directions -

Preheat oven to 425F(225 degrees Celsius) degrees. Spray 12-count muffin pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the mashed bananas, honey, brown sugar, yogurt, egg, and milk together until combined.  Whisk in the peanut butter and vanilla extract until smooth and thick. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips together (if using).  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and lightly whisk until combined.  Try not to over stir the muffin batter or your muffins will have a tough (not soft) texture. Stir as little as possible until no flour pockets remain. - I put the Dry ingredients straight into the Wet bowl( why wash 2 bowls!)

 

Fill the muffin cups practically all the way to the top. Between 3/4 full and all the way full.  Bake for 5 minutes at 425F (225degrees Celsius)degrees. Keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350F(180 degrees Celsius) and continue to bake for 12 more minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. - I baked mine for about 17 minutes  Drizzle muffins with melted peanut butter if desired. - I  left out this step as I felt it might be too Peanutty!

Muffins stay fresh at room temperature for 3 days. Muffins without peanut butter on top freeze well, up to 3 months.

Oh! One last thing on these muffins - I used muffin cases but won't do this again, they stuck to the cases and there is NOTHING more frustrating than trying to get half your muffin out of a fiddly bit of paper!!

Pre Baking



Baked!

Moist And Delish!

They smelt gorgeous, a combination of peanut and banana wafted through the house! They rose beautifully they looked delicious and when APPLIED TO MOUTH ....... SUBLIME! The combination of peanut butter, banana's and chocolate is mouth watering! I initially thought that I should add more Chocolate however the amount I put in was just  perfect. I will try them with Dark Chocolate next time I make them....  Will I make them again ?  The recipe  has been printed out and stuck into my cook book already! So I think that is a resounding YES!  And as for  Ripe banana's they might not be so bad after all!  xxx

 

PS: I was just looking at the recipe and realised that they really are very skinny and really healthy!(Weeeellll, if you don't add the chocolate!) No butter and only a quarter of a cup of brown sugar! So NO extra fat and very little sugar!

Muffin Number 2 being Applied To Mouth!