Spring Break Snack - Banana Nut Muffins

Banana Nut Muffins

I am not much of a baker. My repertoire of baking is limited to the cake mixes. I can make a decent cake with the boxed mixes, but since my kids don't eat cake (!), I have no incentive to expand my culinary skills in that direction.

We are in the midst of spring break and having both the kids home all day can be quite fun and quite challenging!!! You can only hear "I'm bored" so many times before it starts to get to you :)

One activity that they are always up for, is to help me in the kitchen. I too see it as an opportunity to teach them some "life lessons" like team work, sharing duties, taking responsibility for your messes, cleaning up after yourself etc.

So this week found us in the kitchen making "Banana nut muffins". This is an old recipe that I pulled off the internet a few years ago and it has always produced good muffins.

This time I wanted to try it without the eggs that are called for in the recipe. The reason for this is two-fold. I just don't like the "eggy" smell, and try to avoid it whenever I can. The other more unpleasant reason is this - whenever we are cooking together and eggs are in the list of ingredients, there is always a squabble over who gets to crack the eggs. Cleaning up after 2 kids that have cracked eggs into a bowl and over a large part of the kitchen counter is not pleasant !!! Worries about salmonella weigh heavy on my mind and I end up scrubbing the counters several times.

So, it was to be muffins without eggs!!

I'm happy to report that the muffins came out perfect! No one would have guessed that there were no eggs in it. It was just as moist and fluffy as the original version.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

4 ripe bananas (The original recipe was 3. I increased by 1 to compensate for the egg)
1 egg (I omitted this)
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter (unsalted)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups of flour (all purpose)
Small handful of walnuts, chopped.

Muffins, ready to bake

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Line muffin pan with muffin paper cups
3. Mash bananas well
4. Chop the walnuts and reserve 1 tbsp for sprinking on top.
5. Add sugar and melted butter
6. Mix the dry ingredients really well or sift and then add to banana mixture [ Mixing dry ingredients is important. Otherwise you will be biting into lumps of uncooked baking powder - not a pleasant taste!]
7. Add the chopped nuts.
8. Mix just enough to bring everything together
9. Fill muffin cups about 3/4 to the top
10. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.
11. Bake for 20 minutes or till the muffins are golden brown.

This makes 12 large muffins.

Eggless Banana Walnut Muffin