Banana Walnut Muffins

In the ironweed patch

Last night, as Rob fried up some delicious beer-battered seitan sticks and the kitchen floor became dangerously greasy, I made vegan banana-walnut muffins using this recipe. It was another cozy, fun, unsanitary baking session, with Carl on the table cuddling with an over-ripe banana and myself sliding around in grease in my sock feet. (Carl was finally removed from the table after he sampled the beer batter.)

The muffin recipe originally called for whole-wheat flour, but since we couldn’t find any in our tiny town forgotten by time, I substituted regular flour, which seemed to work out fine. I made a few other little changes too, so here’s my version, adapted for small-town living:

Banana Walnut Muffins

Ingredients:

½ cup almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 ¼ cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 ¼ cups mashed over-ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
½ cup canola oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts

Topping:

2 Tbls melted Earth Balance
1/3 cup sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together almond milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside for 10 minutes, allowing the milk to curdle. Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. In a separate mixing bowl, mix together mashed banana, curdled almond milk, sugar, oil, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla extract. Pour wet ingredients into bowl with dry ingredients and stir until just mixed. Stir in walnuts.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake papers and pour in the batter. Bake for 30 minutes or until you can stick a toothpick in and it comes out clean.

When muffins are finished baking, wait until they are cool enough to handle, then dip the tops into melted Earth Balance and roll in sugar.

In the sun room