Banana muffins allow for endless variety – swap in applesauce for one or more bananas, milk or yogurt in place of the water, throw in some peanut butter … every time it’s a different combination. Nuts, seeds, berries, raisins, orange rind, lemon zest – so many options to stir in you can make it every week and never repeat for years! Though I used to use honey or maple syrup or date sugar, these days I have been able to skip all of these and sweeten these treats with ripe banana alone. And even add wheat germ – hence the name power muffins!

Here is what I did the other day for a potluck – got so many compliments including from a 1 year old baby, that I thought I had better write it down before I forget. It is also easy to make vegan since it is leavened with baking soda.

Ingredients:

4 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork (or hands)

1 cup milk (can also use water or yogurt) (and honestly I did not measure this so based on the texture you can adjust as needed.

12 ounces “mixed nut butter” – I used the entire jar, including the oil that had separated to the top. This in the only oil in the recipe. Any nut butter will do, with no added sugar. If the nut butter is salted, then reduce the salt by 1/2 a teaspoon.

2.5 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup wheat germ

1/2 cup chopped pecans (sunflower seeds or any nuts will do)

1 tsp salt

1.5 tsp baking soda

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp apple cider vinegar (if you used yogurt instead of milk you may not need the acv)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F

In a large bowl, stir together the wet ingredients including the nut butter. Use a fork, your hands or a whisk to stir the nut butter in evenly.

In a second bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix well to distribute the salt and baking soda evenly.

Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix well.

Texture should be like a thick batter or wet dough. Scoopable but not easily pourable.

Scoop into well-oiled muffin pans. I used a silicone muffin pan and did not use any oil, and they came out fine.

Bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes. Fork should come out clean. If you are using a mini-muffin pan then check in 20 minutes.

I think this would have made 2 dozen muffins but I ended up making 1 dozen regular, 2 dozen mini and still had batter, which I then pushed out into a small square dish and baked that too like a mini banana bread. That stayed in the oven longer, probably 40-45 minutes. That is all that is left at this point so I will try to take a picture of that. Actually I will try to repeat this and take pictures as I go along next time.