YUMMY BANANA PECAN MUFFINS

Today I was inspired by a bowl of quickly ripening bananas.  I have been making banana muffins for as long as my children can remember.  There was a time when I made them 2-3 times a month, no longer needing the recipe because it was forever imprinted in my memory banks.  In my never-ending quest to serve my family nourishing yet DELICIOUS food, I decided to experiment with my already pretty healthy recipe.  The recipe I have been using for the past 16 years is from Food & Wine magazine.  I actually came up with a better tasting (and healthier) muffin by using mostly whole wheat flour instead of all white, substituting agave for half of the sugar, and by adding a couple of tablespoons of ground flax seeds.

The muffins were very moist and flavorful because of the addition of the agave.  Agave tastes a tiny bit like molasses so it adds its own flavor character to the recipe.   Sometimes when whole-wheat flour is substituted in recipes, the end product can end up being a bit dry.  Because agave is a liquid(slightly less viscous than honey), the additional moisture ends up balancing out the addition of the whole-wheat flour.

RECIPE

½ cup chopped pecans

1 cup whole-wheat flour

¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 Tbs. ground flax seeds

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar

1/3 cup agave syrup(nectar)

2 large eggs

½ cup canola oil

3 medium overripe bananas (mashed)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

·      Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat two 6 cup muffin tins with cooking spray.

·      In a medium bowl, whisk the flours with the ground flax seeds, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  In another bowl, combine the sugar, agave, eggs and oil and beat at high speed until lighter in color around 2 minutes.  Add the mashed bananas and vanilla and beat until smooth.  Stir in the dry ingredients until thoroughly blended.  Fold in the nuts

·      Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins filling almost to the top.  Bake in the middle of the oven for 22 minutes.  Let the muffins cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a rack to cool completely.