Muffin Recipes

I've been making muffins recently.  Mostly, it has been because I have an overabundance of overripe bananas needing attention and a too-full freezer.  My favorite muffins are pumpkin muffins.  My pumpkin muffins always turn out so much better than my banana muffins.  The pumpkin muffins are just pumpkin bread that is baked in muffins tins instead of loaf pans and the banana muffins are just banana bread baked in muffin pans instead of loaf pans.  But, for some reason the pumpkin muffins just seem to work better.  I again had several more overly ripe bananas that needed to be turned into something more stable and I figured muffins were easiest (again, for lack of freezer space).  So, I decided to experiment and see if I could get my banana muffins to turn out more like the pumpkin muffins.  I had previously compared the recipes and they are very similar, thus I could not figure out exactly what the difference was other than the obvious difference between banana and pumpkin.  Anyway, this afternoon I decided to use the pumpkin bread recipe and substitute mashed banana for the pumpkin and omit some of the spices.  The muffins turned out very much like a banana version of the pumpkin muffins!  I was pretty excited and pleased with myself.

Pumpkin muffins

2 c pumpkin	3 ½ c whole wheat flour	1 t nutmeg
¾ c oil	2 ½ t baking powder	½ t cloves
¾ c honey	1 t soda	½ t allspice
4 eggs	1 t salt	½ t ginger
2/3 c water	2 t cinnamon	1 c walnuts, optional

Mix liquid ingredients. Sift together dry ingredients.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, stir just until moistened.  Pour into greased muffin tins.  Bake 325 ~20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in pans ~10 minutes, then on rack.  Makes 24 muffins.

For pumpkin bread, pour batter into 2 greased 9x5x3” loaf pans and bake ~1 hr.  Cool as directed above.

Banana muffins

2 c mashed banana (~5 ripe)	1 t vanilla	2 t cinnamon
¾ c oil	3 ½ c whole wheat flour	1 t nutmeg
¾ c honey	2 ½ t baking powder	1 c walnuts, optional
4 eggs	1 t soda
2/3 c water	1 t salt

Mix liquid ingredients. Sift together dry ingredients.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, stir just until moistened.  Pour into greased muffin tins.  Bake 325 ~20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in pans ~10 minutes, then on rack.  Makes 24 muffins.

For banana bread, pour batter into 2 greased 9x5x3” loaf pans and bake ~1 hr.  Cool as directed above.