Muffins! [Banana Soy with Chocolate Chips]

As promised, here is my recipe for delicious and relatively healthy (minus the chocolate, but that's good for the soul, so I think it's healthy in its own way!) banana soy muffins. To make these muffins, I modified a Soy-Banana Bread recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks - More-with-Less Cookbook: suggestions by Mennonites on how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources by Doris Janzen Longacre. My mom had this cookbook when I was growing up and made many delicious foods from it. Now I own my own 25th anniversary edition, thanks to my mom giving it to me for my 23rd birthday several (8!!) years ago. If you want a great, down-to-earth cookbook with scores of great recipes, that also educates you on how to be a conscientious and responsible eater, this one's for you. It's worth its weight in gold. Anyhow, back to the muffins. Here they are:

Banana Soy Muffins with Chocolate Chips

Ingredients

1 cup soy flour

1 cup spelt or whole-wheat flour

1/4 cup all-purpose white flour

1/4 cup ground flaxseed meal

2 3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup dry milk powder

1 cup mashed banana (2-3 bananas)

1/4 cup melted butter

1 egg, beaten

1/3 - 1/2 cup water

1/2-1 cup chocolate chips or chopped walnuts (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. You could use a stand mixer to make these, but I like making muffins by hand. They usually turn out better because they require very little mixing to combine the wet and dry ingredients; too much mixing makes dense dough and consequently, tough muffins.

Side note 1: As the More-with-Less cookbook says, "Soy flour is expensive among flours, but not as a source of protein". If you make 12 muffins with this recipe, each muffin will have about 6.5 grams of protein in it. I buy Bob's Red Mill Soy Flour from Safeway, but I'm sure you can buy it bulk at many health food or organic stores. I also buy Bob's Red Mill Flaxseed Meal at Safeway and the Spelt Flour from Costco. I'm very happy with the price and quality of all of the Bob's Red Mill products that I've used.

In a separate medium bowl, mash your bananas. I use a waffle-style potato masher for this as it is easy and efficient and ensures there aren't any large chunks of bananas, but you can use any kind of masher or even just a fork. As you probably know, brown, over-ripe bananas make the best banana baked goods. You can also freeze the bananas before you use them. When my bananas begin to get too ripe for me to enjoy eating them, and I'm not in the mood to bake banana bread or muffins, I just peel the bananas, put them in a ziploc bag, and pop them in the freezer. Then I just take them out of the freezer a couple hours before I'm ready to use them. They're brown and slimy and generally disgusting looking, but they make fantastic muffins!

Melt the butter in a mug in the microwave and add that to the banana as well. Then use the mug to beat the egg before adding it to the mashed banana as well. Finally, add the water to the liquids and stir to combine. I often find that 1/3 cup isn't enough, but you may want to start with that, then sprinkle a bit more water into your muffin mix if it seems to dry when you're combining the dry ingredients with the wet.

Side note 2: Ever start baking and then realize you don't have any eggs? That's what happened to me this time around. Thankfully, there are several options for egg substitutes, including using apple puree or tofu, but my favourite, which has worked every time I've tried it, is ground flaxseed. Mix 2 1/2 tbsp of flaxseed meal with 3 tbsp of water and let sit for a few minutes until it gels up, then add to your ingredients as you would an egg. It works like a charm.

I usually add the chocolate chips and/or walnuts to the dry ingredients before adding the wet ingredients, but again, these are optional. My husband prefers chocolate chips in his (it's about the only way I can get him to eat muffins) and I, surprisingly, considering how much I like chocolate, usually prefer walnuts or nothing at all. Then I'll make half of the batch plain and add the chocolate chips to the batter once I've scooped half of it into the muffin tins.

As you're adding the wet ingredients to the dry, remember to add them all at once and to stir gently while you're combining. Don't over-mix. This batter is great because it kind of "fluffs" up and has a nice airy texture; if you over-mix you'll ruin that and have denser, tougher muffins.

Once you've scooped the batter into 12 greased (if necessary) muffins tins, pop them in the oven for about 20 minutes, until they're raised and golden brown on top. Enjoy hot right out of the oven, slathered with lots of butter. Now that's a delicious breakfast. Or snack. Or anytime food. These also taste great cold, and they reheat and freeze well too.

Side note 3: If you prefer banana bread to banana muffins, you can just pour all of the batter into a 9x5x3" loaf pan (greased) and bake for 50 minutes rather than 20. This should also be eaten hot out of the oven and leftover slices taste amazing toasted. I just pop them in the toaster, slather with butter, and enjoy.