Banana Muffins

Here we are, week (too many to count) of the pandemic, and I think we are all still doing a lot of cooking. We are doing most of our grocery shopping online. It's not perfect, but there is a convenience factor that might keep me from going to grocery stores for mundane stuff even when we don't have to mask up, sterilize our carts, disinfect our hands, and get mad at people who can't seem to properly where a mask. 

But one of the down sides of online shopping, just once a week is that you sometimes end up with overripe bananas.. especially if you are also buying groceries for someone that only wants green bananas (but that's another story).   Putting bananas in the fridge before they are overripe will slow down the process, the skins get ugly but inside they are still good.   Once they are overripe, you can make smoothies or chocolate milk (and you can peel and freeze chunks to keep even longer and get a more frozen result), or banana bread, but most of the ripe bananas at our house end up in banana muffins on Sunday mornings. I make muffins before coffee, so I'm pretty much making them in my sleep.  Fortunately muffins aren't too fussy, and while I do measure, I'm pretty cavalier about adding an extra banana if they are small, or a bit more liquid if I only have a two bananas, or a bit more flour if the batter seems thin.  I used to make the muffins in my Cuisinart, this eliminates the need to mash the bananas, but then you have to clean the Cuisinart.  I have started using my potato ricer, as this does an excellent job of mashing and goes into the dishwasher.  A bit messier is to just squish the bananas in you hand (a half or third at a time), but no dishes to wash! If the bananas are good and ripe, you can also just use a hand mixer instead of a whisk on the wet ingredients... slices of bananas will get mashed by the mixer.

One other detail: Many muffin recipes call for vegetable oil (as I'm sure this one did from where I sourced it from). This works fine, but I like the taste of butter in my muffins. So the order you put the wet ingredients together is important. I usually melt the butter first (even before I get the remaining ingredients out) so it has a chance to cool down. Then it should go in after whisking the eggs and sugar (which you do to help give some volume) but before adding the bananas and milk. The butter will disperse in the egg and sugar mixture, and not clump up when adding the the cold ingredients.

Oat bran has been a bit more difficult to find in the store, I think because its out of fashion more than a pandemic issue.  You can just use more flour, or substitute some oatmeal.  The texture changes but they are still good.  You can also do these with all whole wheat, all AP (white) flour, or what ever mixture you like (or have on hand).  They will get more fluffy with all white flour.  White whole wheat flour also works well. 

Notice... no paper liners. Not needed and who wants to peel them off?

Banana Bran Muffins

10 to 12 muffins

3/4 cup flour

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour 

½ cup oat bran

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (optional)

2 eggs

½ cup un-packed brown sugar

¼ cup melted butter or vegetable oil

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

¼ cup yogurt, milk, or buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

½ cup chopped walnuts or almonds, plus more for topping

Raw (coarse) sugar

OVEN: Preheat to 400F or 380F convection bake. Grease 12 muffin cups.

Whisk together flours, bran, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl. 

Whisk eggs and sugar in a large bowl, then whisk in melted butter (or oil) and extract.  Add mashed bananas, yogurt, extract and mix well.  Bananas can be mashed in a separate bowl with a potato masher, with a potato ricer, or just squish them through your fingers into the bowl. 

Scoop batter into muffin cups.  If desired, place a nut halve on each muffin, and sprinkle with raw sugar. Fill any empty cups with 1/2" of water.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes (18 minutes convection), or until brown and springy to the touch in the center.  Turn out onto a rack to cool.

Banana Bread

We eat lots of bananas at our house, but even so, we sometimes get caught with too many, and I need to find a way to use them up.  And people that know me, understand that I occasionally end up with bananas that have flown an extra 1000 miles or so. 

The overripe bananas usually get used in Sunday morning muffins (which is another recipe I need to add to the blog). But I consider muffins something eaten before noon, not dessert.   For dessert, I make this. Still, it's not too sweet, and great for snacks, or to take sailing, or to a potluck.  





It's also easy to make.  "Easy" is a bit relative.  What might be easy for me, it more challenging for you.  But this is certainly easier to make than most desserts, and quicker to mix up than the muffins I normally make.  One of the things that makes this easy is mixing the wet ingredients with an immersion blender. (And if you don't have an immersion blender, you should get one). So one blender cup, one mixing bowl.  No food processor, or other tools or bowls to mash bananas. 







Another thing that makes a recipe easy is a recipe that uses ingredients I already have.  Face it, I didn't plan for too many bananas.  So I haven't planned for anything special for baking them (of course, I assume everyone has flour, baking powder, soda, and eggs...).  And these type of quick bread recipes are not too fussy.  It will still come out good even if you make a few substitutions to use up what you happen to have in the house.  For example, I made this at my mom's...  she didn't have any whole wheat flour, so I used all regular flour.  No plain vegetable oil, so I used olive oil.   No buttermilk, so I used Greek yogurt thinned with a bit of milk.  Don't like any of the cultured milks? Any milk-like substance (soy milk, etc) will work.  It might taste a little different, but it will be good.  It will come out fine without the vanilla extract. In fact, the recipe that I used for inspiration called for oats (which was fine, but I didn't really like the texture), and no add-ins (like chocolate chips or walnuts).   One last tip:  when the bananas hit that speckled ripe stage, toss them into the refrigerator (this would be before the overripe all brown stage).  The skins will get dark, but the bananas will still be good for making bread for another week or so. 

  



Banana Bread

2 cups flour (I like best with half white whole wheat and half all purpose)
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
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2 medium ripe bananas cut into quarters
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt*
1/4 cup vegetable oil (or olive oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
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½ cup chocolate chips

* If Greek yogurt, use a couple of spoonful’s of yogurt plus milk to make 1/3 cup.

Preheat oven to 350F.   Grease and flour a loaf pan.

Put the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and stir to mix.

Put banana, eggs, milk/yogurt, oil, and extract in mixing cup of immersion blender, or in 1 quart measuring glass measuring cup.  Blend until mostly smooth  (don’t over blend, you don’t want a lot of air mixed in). 

Pour wet into dry, stir a bit, add the chocolate chips, finish mixing together.  Don’t stir too much.   Scrape batter into the prepared loaf pan. 

Bake for 55 – 60 minutes, until nicely brown and skewer comes out clean (you can also check with a thermometer, looking for 195 -200F)  .  Run a knife around the edge, and then turn onto cooling rack.   Let cool at least 10 minutes before slicing (an hour is better).   Once cooled, wrap loaf and store in refrigerator. 

And this is of one of my recent platters...  colored porcelain inlaid on dark stoneware.  

Chocolate Milk

I’m not a vegetarian, but I find myself going days at a time without eating meat (except maybe some bacon in my beans). Sometimes I wonder if I get enough protein, especially with the studies that say athletes need extra protein. (I finally am comfortable with calling myself an artist… I wonder when I will be comfortable with an “athlete” label.) 

Protein requirements are typically given as “grams per kilogram body weight”, something completely non-intuitive to me (like how much bacon is this?). I think it’s much easier to understand a % of total calories. The protein requirement per the FDA (after the math of grams and calories and body weight* ) is about 10% of calories from protein. But there are lots of studies**  that say for more active people, like athletes and kids, more protein is needed, closer to 15 or 20% of calories. But food labels don’t conveniently label anything but the total grams of protein (1 gram of protein is 4 calories). NOTE: I’m not a doctor or dietitian, if you are not eating nearly enough calories to maintain your body weight or have other special diet needs, this might not apply. 

My (simple) system is to think of foods as low protein (less than 10% of calories are from protein), adequate protein (10-20%), and high protein. I’ve done some math to provide some examples as a frame of reference:

High protein:

Meat and Eggs: No surprise, meat is high in protein. Most meats and whole eggs are around 40% (+/-5%) protein calories. This would be lean sirloin steak, pork chops, or chicken with skin. 

But prime cut steaks (like a nice rib eye) are likely only getting 25 – 30% of calories from protein. Bacon is 25% protein. Since meat has lots of calories, you are getting lots of protein.

Protein as a percentage gets higher when you start stripping fat from meat – skinless chicken breast is about 80% protein calories, egg whites are over 90%.

Dairy varies quite a bit depending on how much fat, but lowfat (1%) milk is 30%, cheddar cheese is 25% protein calories.

Beans fall into the high protein group: they typically get 20 – 25% of their calories from protein, they have lots of carbs instead of fat to go with the protein.

Some vegetables even fall into the high protein group: Broccoli is about 30%, yes, calorie for calorie, you might be getting more protein from the broccoli than steak (but its tough to eat 500 calories of broccoli). 50% of the calories in mushrooms come from protein. Lettuce is also over 30%.

Adequate (10-20%) protein:

Most “starches” like pasta, oats, bread, quinoa are in the 15 – 20% range. Rice and potatoes are around 10%, maybe a bit lower. Nuts fall into this group, ranging from walnuts at 9% to almonds at 14% to peanuts at 19%.

Low protein foods (<10%):

Most fruit comes in at under 5%. Many vegetables (carrots, squash) are in the 5-10% range.

No protein foods: (0%).

Sugar and Fat. So anything that contains lots sugar and/or fat will be low protein. For example, if you add large fries and a coke to your Quarter Pounder (which is about 25% protein), the meal comes to just 11% protein. Not enough protein for the athletes (who are really the only ones that afford the 1300 calorie meal).

If you are eating a variety of whole foods, you probably don’t need to worry much about getting enough protein, even if you are not eating meat, even if you are exercising. In fact, my guess is that in the US, too much protein a bigger problem than not enough. It is believed that too much protein is hard on the kidneys and liver, and contributes to osteoporosis and kidney stones. If you eat meat every day and/or use protein supplements, I would recommend counting your protein consumption for a day or two. There are several web-based and iPad/Phone app’s available to do this, I have used MyFitnessPal but not convinced it’s the best. I have heard of a couple of others I am planning to try out (stay tuned for a future post).

Congratulations if you have made it this far! As your reward, I will share my latest favorite-after-running snack… Lots more protein than just a banana!

Chocolate Milk
1 Serving

½ a large ripe banana, or 1 small, best if it’s been in the refrigerator
1 spoonful peanut butter or almond butter (about 1/2 a tablespoon)
1 big spoonful of cocoa powder (1 1/2 tablespoons)
8 ounces unsweetened soy milk (or other milk of choice)

Cut banana up into small pieces into a cup suitable for use with immersion blender. Add nut butter, cocoa, and milk. Blend until smooth with immersion blender.

224 Calories, 20% protein

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Notes:
** See the Wikipedia post, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_(nutrient) for lots more detail. 

* If you want to do the math, here are the recommendations: 

1 gram of protein is 4 calories

Sedentary person: 0.8 g/kg per kg body weight
Endurance athletes: 1.2–1.4 g per kg body weight
Strength-training athletes 1.4–1.8 g per kg body weight