Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

I have never been a fan of whole wheat muffins. They are usually too tough, or not sweet enough, or too...well, grainy. And because I am a bit of a banana purist, once there is the slightest bit of brown, I just toss them in the freezer. So, inevitably frozen bananas fall on my head when I open up the freezer.

My kids asked for muffins this weekend, and on Saturday mornings, I am always happy to oblige.

I was inspired by Smitten Kitchen's riff on King Arthur's Whole Wheat Muffins, as well as those from Mark Bittman at the New York Times. Both of these recipes were easy, and used fruit, but they used a full stick of butter. In an attempt to make these healthy, I also checked out this recipe from Simply Recipes. Elise uses less butter, but white flour. She also throws in a bit of coffee, which balances out the sweetness of the bananas. So, throw these 3 recipes in the air, and I ended up with this.

In terms of the frozen bananas, I just toss as many as I need in a microwaveable safe bowl and defrost them for a few minutes. I ease them out of their skins, making sure that the "juice" gets into the bowl as well.

**I fixed the recipe below based on a reader's suggestion. I always use King Arthur white whole wheat flour. Just using whole wheat flour can make for very dense muffins. Or you can mix regular whole wheat and white flour together.

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed (or frozen bananas, defrosted)
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tbsp espresso or strong coffee (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups of either King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour (OR 1 1/2 cups of white flour and 1 cup of wheat flour, mixed)

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

2 Mix in the sugar, egg, espresso and vanilla.

3 Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

4 Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated.

5 Pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.

Makes 12 muffins.