RECIPE: BLUEBERRY BANANA MUFFINS

I'm not really a fan of muffins. Their nutritional stats aren't that great and when compared with a cupcake, who wouldn't want a sugary treat topped with icing instead? Actually, I'm not a craver of sweets either but whatevs. Anyway, with a bunch of blueberries and bananas in the kitchen to use up, I got to what I do best: baking! Of course, this recipe was done almost three full weeks ago but whatevs (yet again).

The recipe is quick and easy if you have all the necessary items (if you're a healthy eater you'll probably have them all on-hand). I pulled these together in no-time. The hardest part was waiting for them to bake!

The recipe calls for buttermilk but I didn't have any (I never use buttermilk in recipes) so I subbed milk and vinegar) but then read the buttermilk alternative wrong so I poured that out and started again with milk and lemon juice but then I ran out of milk and used plain yogurt instead. The result was a super moist muffin with a little bit of texture from the cornmeal and plenty of taste from the blueberries and raspberries (frozen from the raspberry picking trip on Canada Day at Whittamore's).

Here are my muffins ready for the oven:And after 28 minutes in the oven, here are the raspberry ones:and the blueberry ones:
Aren't they delicious?
I opted not to top them with sugar as I would have liked since I wanted to share these with my dad who is watching his sugar intake. He's not full-blown diabetic but his life-long passion of seriously indulging his sweet tooth made him borderline diabetic, words from his doctor last fall. Since then, he's seriously curbed his sweet tooth, no longer indulging in any form of sweets (no sugar in his tea/coffee) and anything sweet he now thinks is sugar-overkill. It's kind of a hassle to bake for him but these muffins were a perfect treat. The tablespoon of honey and ripe bananas provided just the right amount of sweetness. They were also great as a breakfast treat, which I ended up enjoying them as for days to follow. They didn't keep in the fridge for very long so sharing is a must--even if you don't want to.
Berry-Banana Muffins
(adapted from Whole Living.com)

Ingredients:
- vegetable-oil cooking spray
- 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone ground
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup + 2 tsp AP flour, feel free to use whole wheat
- 1 1/2 cups ripe bananas, mashed (approx. 3 large bananas)
- 1/4 cup yogurt + 1/4 milk and 2 Tbsp lemon juice)
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 tsp sanding or turbinado sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a standard (12-cup) muffin tin with paper liners; coat liners with cooking spray.
2. Whisk together cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 cup flour. In a large bowl, stir together bananas, buttermilk, rice syrup or honey, lemon juice, egg, and vanilla. Fold cornmeal mixture into banana mixture just until combined. Toss blueberries with remaining 2 teaspoons flour, and gently fold into batter.
3. Spoon batter into prepared tin, filling to the brims. Sprinkle each muffin with sugar (optional). Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of 1 comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack. (Muffins can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.)