OOTW muffins take 2

So I honestly couldn't get enough of these muffins and I still had a cup of mashed banana in the fridge. Those banana chocolate chip muffins sure are tasty and so easy to make. This time I tried to healthify them.

I forgot to purchase a bag of wholewheat flour from the baking supply store earlier but then I remembered I had a bag of wheat germ in the fridge, which was actually almost a year old BUT smelled perfectly fine. A little googling and I found out that you can sub 1/2 to 1 cup of flour in a recipe with wheat germ (as per HowStuffWorks). For these babies I subbed 3/4 cup flour with wheat germ. Instead of doing 1 cup brown sugar, I tried to lighten their color up by doing 1/2 raw, 1/2 brown.

What makes wheat germ healthy? According to this website, wheat germ is a good source of: folic acid (pregnant women need this!), calcium, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, potassium, etc etc. It also has this phytonutrient called L-ergothioneine, a powerful antioxidant that lowers cholesterol and promotes heart health.

Maybe I should've altered the baking soda or ratio of wet ingredients or something, because they didn't have perfect dome tops that we all love on muffins. They came out brown and squat, and despite the wheat germ? They were soft!














Hmm. While the old school muffins on the left side look a lot prettier, the hippie muffins on the right are healthier and still taste just a good.

Oh and if you're wondering where you can find cheap wheat germ, try Bake Masters along Sucat. Last year I got 1 kg for P60 ($1.25).

Happy muffin making! Need the recipe? Let me know!

PS These could almost pass as cupcakes -- that's how moist and soft they were. You can top 'em with frosting and eat them for breakfast and (maybe) not feel guilty!

Muffins that are OOTW

Just wanted to share these awesome out-of-this-world muffins that I made yesterday afternoon before heading off to set up for the Mano Amiga Dance-a-thon (more on the cupcakes in a future post).

These are banana chocolate chip muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking and they are aMAzing.

When I have to bake banoffee cupcakes, I try to buy more overripe bananas than I need for them. People of Manila -- if you're looking for bananas that are overripe and don't have to sit in your kitchen for several days to get to that stage, I highly recommend heading to Rustan's Supermarket where they try to keep their displayed bananas all pretty and immaculately yellow. They usually keep their ugly spotty bananas in the back. Just go up to the weighing scale person and ask for overripe bananas. They sell them super cheap too -- while regular bananas cost P35/kg (or $0.72/kg), overripe bananas cost about P15/kg ($0.32/kg)!! Seriously, and this is Rustan's. Overripe bananas are cheaper in Rustan's than in the palengke. I can only vouch for Rustan's Supermarket in Powerplant though. Not sure about other branches.

Anyway, so if you have extra overripe mashed banana lying around, please try these muffins. These are really easy to make and they went well with the omnivores. Frankly I am not a fan of muffins but I am a huge fan of anything with bananas. I've had some bad experience with coffeeshop-bought muffins that are always too hard and dry and bland. But these, man oh man, these were perfectly moist with the perfect crumb. Chewy exterior, tender interior. Not too sweet, even with the chocolate chips. I can almost see myself eating them for breakfast, if only they were made with wholewheat (these ones weren't).

In the spirit of trying to make these healthier (haha) I made them with brown sugar, hence their amber-brown hue.

I'm wondering if these are any good made with some instant coffee mixed into the batter. Hmmmm...

And I still have extra mashed banana lying around...