The Banana Muffin, Perfected

It's difficult to type while patting oneself on the back, but I'll try. You see, for some time, I have been trying to arrive at the perfect banana muffin. Something that tastes good, has a pleasant texture (moist, but not mushy; tender, but not crumbly...) and is not too terrible from nutritional standpoint. After making many adjustments to many recipes, by Jove! I think I've got it! Now, you can have it, too :)


Perfect Banana Muffins

1 cup almond meal
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 TBS graham cracker crumbs
2/3 cup oil
1 cup honey
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups mashed bananas
½ cup hot milk or milk substitute**


Heat oven to 325 F.

In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine oil, honey* vanilla and eggs. Stir mashed bananas into wet ingredients and mix well. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, alternating with hot milk.

Pour batter into greased muffin tin and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until done.

Optional: serve topped with a dollop of peanut butter and a drizzle of honey (do this upon serving, or provide toppings on the side ~ do not top them all and plan to store them this way).

* Tip: Measure oil first, then use the same measuring cup to measure your honey, and it will slide out cleanly, without sticking.
** I used So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage, but you can use your favourite milk substitute…or regular milk….or probably even just plain water.


And here's the rest of the good news: I found a site that will let me input a recipe and figure the nutrition facts. Check it out.


Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 85 g

Calories 258
Calories from Fat 109
Total Fat 12.1g
Saturated Fat 1.7g
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 42mg
Sodium 290mg 12%
Total Carbohydrates 34.7g
Dietary Fiber 1.7g
Sugars 18.3g
Protein 4.7g
Vitamin A 1% • Vitamin C 3%
Calcium 3% • Iron 7%
Nutrition Grade C-
* Based on a 2000 calorie diet


I am no nutritionist, but I think this one stacks up pretty well. What do you think? Are these good numbers for a muffin? I mean, I am not thrilled with the C- grade, but, when I compared it to the nutrition facts on another site for a generic banana nut muffin, I found that mine had fewer calories, less sugar, less sodium, less fat, less saturated fat, more protein, more fiber and more iron, so, for a snack food that you don't plan to eat every single day, it's probably okay, right? I mean, it may not be the healthiest food in the whole world, but, for what it is, I think it's acceptable.

Obviously, if you serve it with the optional peanut butter/honey topping, you change the nutrition information, but it is so, so yummy that way. And, if you eat it for, say, breakfast, it's probably still a pretty decent choice. I checked the nutrition facts for that (assuming 1 TBS peanut butter and 1/2 tsp honey per muffin), and it wasn't bad, IMO. Calories and fat rose, as expected (363 cal. and about 20 grams of fat, which is, admittedly, a lot), but so did the protein, fiber and iron, so, you know, make informed choices. You could probably lower the fat in the actual muffin by subbing applesauce for some of the oil, but you have to go in knowing that the resulting muffin won't be quite as moist as the original, and you'll bring up the sugar count a bit, I suspect.

Ultimately, I feel this recipe works for us because it is sweet, but not too sweet, and because Kaia won't eat baked goods with nuts in them...but...nuts are so good for you! The addition of almond meal to this recipe packs in little extra nutritional umph, but it blends right in with the texture of the wheat flour, so she'll actually eat it. Hallie is not a huge fan of whole wheat baked goods (weird, because she loves whole wheat pastas), so using part whole wheat and part all purpose flour makes it a little less...um..."Whole-Wheaty," I guess.