Banana Whole Wheat with Chocolate Chips Muffins

Delicious!  That's what teen has already declared on these muffins baked for a special guy's 5th birthday breakfast in the morning.  And healthy to boot!

Teen recently baked whole wheat french bread for a 4-H nutrition fair last weekend.  So instead of grabbing the regular all-purpose flour, I goggled my favorite site, Allrecipes, for a whole wheat banana muffin recipe.  And then modified it a bit.  I stole a pinch just to insure "quality control"!  YUM is right!

Banana Whole Wheat with Chocolate Chips Muffins (aka Monkey Muffins)

 (for original recipe click HERE)

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed bananas (for me that was grabbing 4 out of the freezer and defrosting in microwave)

1 cup applesauce

3/4 cup Splenda (or sugar or guava)

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray muffin tins with cooking spray.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt together.  Blend mashed bananas, applesauce and Splenda.  Blend the flour mixture and banana mixture together.  Mix till blended.  Fold in chocolate chips.

Fill muffin tins 3/4 full - this made 18 muffins for me.  Bake 20-25 minutes in oven.  Enjoy!

 

Mini Banana Muffins with Crumb topping

These were the perfect little muffins to bake for big and little friends that visited one morning!  I often have ripe bananas frozen.  When a banana gets too ripe, I toss the whole banana, peel and all in the freezer.  When I need to bake muffins or bread, I just lay the right amount of bananas (normally 3 for bread/muffins) on a plate and microwave for about 2 minutes.  The liquid from the frozen bananas is not an issue when baking.

Normally, my go to banana recipe calls for chocolate chips. But, I was out of chocolate chips!  So thanks to the power of the internet and the fabulous website called Allrecipes, I found another winner!

I baked the muffins in a mini muffin pan only because I was having guests the next day.  It is easier for a mom - and toddlers - to pop a tiny muffin in the mouth versus a regular size one.  And moms have to know how to eat fast!

Banana Crumb Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Banana Pudding - the Southern Way!

See this empty dish.....
It's one of my favorite dishes.  We just recently added it along with a small identical dish and 6 coffee mugs from Lantern Hill Pottery in Seagrove, NC.  I really like this dish.  So much so, it won the prize of holding the most scrumptious Banana Pudding I do believe I have ever tasted!
Company was coming for dinner and I needed a good dessert recipe for the evening.  I debated between a pie or something with bananas as I had plenty of them.  But I did not have the old faithful - vanilla or banana pudding.  How hard could it be to make true from scratch pudding?  I found out - NOT HARD AT ALL!
As Big Guy stated after dinner, "That Banana Pudding was absolutely unbelievable!"  And he is not a sweets guy!  Got eggs, milk, flour, and sugar - there you go!  Add bananas and some cookies and you have one of the most amazing creations to hit your tastebuds!
And yes, I did make one change to the recipe - I used Scottish Butter cookies instead of Vanilla Wafers since I had them on hand.  And I broke them in bite size pieces.

This is two layers of sliced bananas and broken cookies.  Cookie on top is just an example of what I used.

Pudding has been poured over the 2 layers of cookies and bananas.  I had a few slices of banana left and crumbs so I just added them on top.
The recipe uses 3 egg yolks.  I took the 3 egg whites and left them out while I made the recipe.  This gave them time to become room temperature which helps to whip them into meringue.  Very simple to make meringue - egg whites and a couple tablespoons of white sugar.  Then whip and whip!  Tips for the perfect meringue are given by Christy Jordan over at Southern Plate.

Final Product!

Homemade Banana Pudding

1/2 Cup Sugar (or splenda)
1/3 Cup Flour
3 egg yolks
2 Cups milk
1 box Nilla Wafers
5 bananas
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
dash salt

Place a layer of Nilla Wafers in the bottom of a medium sized mixing bowl. Slice a banana over the top. Repeat two more times with another layer of wafers and remaining bananas. In sauce pot (or double boiler) on medium low heat, add all ingredients except for vanilla. Stir well with wire whisk. Allow to cook, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, until thickened – about fifteen minutes. Add in vanilla and stir. Immediately pour over wafers and bananas. Let sit for about five minutes or so before serving, to allow wafers time to absorb pudding. Top with meringue, if desired.

This recipe can be found at Southern Plate.