Over Ripe Bananas Meet Their Demise In A Muffin--Real Health Food

I woke up this morning thinking I had to get rid of the 4 rapidly darkening banana in the fruit basket. I love cooking without a recipe, just knowing the basics. Baking is really chemistry, you know. I guess that's why organic chemistry was fun in college. The chemistry knowledge gives you the freedom, and you're off and running on your best creative bent.

Well, take the knowledge that it takes 1 teaspoon of baking powder for 1 cup of flour. Or that if you use an acid like buttermilk, you need to also add a half teaspoon of baking soda too. You probably already know that the eggs make a binding to the dough to make a muffin instead of a biscuit. Fat in the form of butter, oil, lard coats the molecules and gives a smoothness to the crumb. But here's a good one--you can substitute something like applesauce or pureed prunes in quick breads for a healthier muffin, although I admit not quite the same texture but still delectable.

On procedures, it's good to know that you should not over mix the batter on quick breads( breads that use baking soda, and baking powder for leavening). A technique I learned 40 years ago as a young mother always in a hurry, was to mix the dry in a bowl and the wet in the blender and then fold into the dry. What a time saver!

So here's what I made this morning, using this knowledge.

I put:

2 cups unbleached flour,

½ cup oat bran,

¼ cup ground flax seed,

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder,

½ teaspoon baking soda,

1 teaspoon salt

into a mixing bowl.

Next into the blender went:

4 over ripe bananas. (You could use 5 or 6 even!)

1 cup stewed prunes (don't forget to remove the pits),

2 large eggs,

and because it looked like I might need a little more liquid, I added

½ cup orange juice ( I could add that little more acid because I already had the soda in the dry).

If I had wanted a little sweeter bread, I would have added sugar, but the fruits really make it sweet enough. Plus hubbie is diabetic.)

Blend until smooooooooooooth!

Then I folded the wet into the dry, adding two handfuls of toasted pecans toward the end. (Just mix until all is moistened, otherwise it gets tough)

I baked the 12 muffins at 350 until done. 18-20 minutes. Actually, I watch the muffins and take them out when they're just done. For instance, a convection oven takes about a fourth less time.

Because these babies have no fat, we even indulged in the butter a bit. We're having the leftover ones split and toasted tomorrow morning!