Banana berry muffins that are on the healthy side, made without butter, and sweetened with maple syrup.
We’re officially one week into the new year! I don’t recall resolving to spend most the first week of January sitting on the couch reading fictional novels, but hey, I didn’t resolve not to do that.
Just in case anyone had a New Year’s resolution to eat more muffins, today I have muffins for you. Not regular-sized muffins, but jumbo muffins – occasionally known as ‘Texas’ muffins. That being said, these muffins are probably still smaller (and less dense) than the gargantuan ones you can buy from some bakeries.
To continue the blog’s theme for January – which is berries (in case you missed it) – these jumbo muffins are bursting with mixed berries, as well as some shredded coconut and white chocolate chips. Although if you’re sticking to a resolution to eat less chocolate (heaven forbid!), then you could replace the white chocolate with dried fruit, chopped nuts, or even more berries.
As usual, these muffins on the lighter or healthier side, so hopefully they’re ‘resolution friendly’. Instead of refined sugar, the muffins are sweetened with a relatively small amount of maple syrup (plus the bananas, of course). There’s also no butter and only one tablespoon of oil in the recipe.
Despite the lack of fat in the batter, the muffins are nice and moist due to (a) the bananas; and (b) one of my favorite ingredients, Greek-style yogurt. I used fat-free Greek yogurt, but any fat percentage should be fine.
Since all purpose flour yields the lightest muffins, I’ve stuck with good ol’ white flour in this recipe – plus some rolled oats, because I love oats. (Notwithstanding, it is on my resolution list to experiment more with whole-wheat flour this year).
This recipe makes the somewhat awkward number of seven muffins. If you’re jumbo/Texas muffin pan only makes six, then you can bake the extra muffin in a ramekin – or maybe even a tea-cup, if you have an oven-safe one.
If you don’t have a jumbo muffin pan, then my guess is this would make about 12 – 14 regular-sized muffins. The key would be to reduce the cooking time, lest your precious muffins become dry. In this recipe, the jumbo are baked at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes – as this helps them rise – and then the oven temperature is turned down to 350°F (180°C) and the muffins are baked for a further 20 minutes or so.
If you’re making regular-sized muffins, still cook them at 400°F for 5 minutes, but please reduce the amount of the time the muffins are baked at 350°F to around 10 – 15 minutes. Just keep an eye on them, and test them with a skewer to see if they’re done.
Question of the Day
Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? If so, how are you going with them? I made a resolution to walk more… that’s no going so well.
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup (250g) mashed banana
- ½ cup (120g) Greek-style yogurt
- ¼ cup (60mL) maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon (15mL) canola oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (195g) all purpose flour
- ⅓ cup (35g) rolled oats
- ⅓ cup (25g) shredded coconut
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup (65g) white chocolate chips
- 1 cup (130g) fresh or frozen berries
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Grease 7 holes of a jumbo (Texas) muffin pan with cooking oil spray. Alternatively, line the holes with muffin papers, and lightly spray the papers with cooking oil spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with a fork. Mix in the mashed banana, yogurt, maple syrup, canola oil and vanilla extract.
- Add the flour, rolled oats, shredded coconut, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix until just combined. Gently fold in the white chocolate chips and berries.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared muffin pan, filling the holes most of the way up. If desired, sprinkle some extra white chocolate chips and berries over the tops of the uncooked muffins.
- Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes, and then reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C). Bake for a further 20 – 24 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean (or with a few moist crumbs).
- Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 – 10 minutes before transferring to a cooking rack. Store in an airtight container.
1 cup mashed banana is approximately equal to 2 large, very ripe bananas.
Berries
Virtually any kind of berries are fine. I used a bag of frozen 'mixed berries', which consisted of blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.
Eggs
Ideally, use room-temperature eggs.
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