Banana Nut Muffins for the smaller household

I don't know about you, but at my age, and with only two people living in this house, I struggle sometimes getting everything I bake eaten up.  I do give a lot of it away, but food is money and in today's economy, I don't always want to be giving away half of everything I make because I can't use it or because it can't be frozen or stored.  The perfect solution is to downsize recipes, cutting them in half, or only cooking and baking things that can be frozen.

 

These Banana Nut Muffins here today are from a recipe I managed to very successfully cut in half, making only six muffins which makes it the perfect size muffin recipe for just Todd and myself.  You can cut most recipes for muffins in half, so long as the ingredients are easily divisible by two.



Math is not really my strong suit but it doesn't take too much of a genius to figure out that half of two cups is one, or half of two eggs is one egg, etc.    This won't work with everything . . .  but it worked well with these muffins!



I ended up with six good sized muffins.   They were moist and delicious with the perfect crumb.  I used toasted pecans as the nuts, but feel free to use your other favourite nut if you wish.  Walnuts go very well, and indeed so do no nuts at all.

 

You may want to forgo nuts altogether and add some dried fruit such as cranberries, raisins or dried blueberries.  All go very well.  You could even use both dried fruit and nuts.  I think you will find that this is a good basic banana muffin recipe which yields great results and is quite adaptable to your own family's tastes.

*Banana Nut Muffins*

Makes 6

Printable Recipe 

This recipe makes six of the most delicious banana muffins, stogged full of toasted nuts.  You can double it if you need more, but it is just perfect for small families like my own where there are only two of us. 

140g of plain flour (1 cup)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

4 TBS butter, softened

95g of white sugar (1/2 cup)

1 large free range egg

2 small overripe bananas, peeled and mashed

1 dessert spoon of plain yogurt (about 1/8th cup)

1/2 tsp vanilla

60g of toasted pecans chopped (1/2 cup) 

 

Pre-heat the oven to 190*C.375*F/ gas mark 5.  Butter the top of a six cup muffin tin and line with paper liners. 

Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, nutmeg and salt.    Cream together the sugar and butter, until light and creamy   Beat in the egg, banana, yogurt and vanilla, mixing well together.  Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, combining just to moisten.  You don't want streaks of flour, but you don't want it to be smooth either.   Fold in the toasted nuts. 

Scoop the batter into the muffin tins, filling to just below the edge of the paper liners.   Bake in the centre of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top springs back when lightly touched or a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.  Leave in the pan to cook for 5 minutes before tipping out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.  Serve warm or at room temperature.   Store in an airtight container. 

Note - Recipe can be doubled.  Just double all of the ingredients.  The baking time will stay the same.  These also freeze well.