Lickety Split

It has been muffin madness in my kitchen lately with three new muffin recipes this last week! All successful despite some weird yield amounts (which may have a lot to do with all the additions I made to each one). These ones are probably my favourite of all of them!

These started out as a banana-split muffin recipe so I wanted to keep the ice-cream parlour theme going as I made a couple changes. To do that, I added in some extra nuts and flaked coconut. Next time I may try some crushed pineapple and I'd also like to add some wheat germ (nothing to do with the ice-cream theme!)
I can't wait to enjoy these for breakfast during the week.

This made 12 standard-size muffins (even though I halved the original 12-muffin recipe!)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 very ripe bananas, smushed up
1/4 cup firm tofu, smushed up (egg substitute)
1/4 cup turbinado (raw) sugar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil (butter substitute)
1/2 tbsp. vanilla
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp. aluminium-free baking powder
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
3/8 cup non-dairy, semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/8 cup dried Bing cherries
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup coconut

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin pan with unbleached cupcake papers or lightly grease with vegetable oil or non-dairy butter.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In another bowl, combine the mashed bananas, mashed tofu, turbinado sugar, olive oil, and vanilla.

3. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the banana mixture into the well. Stir to combine but be careful not to over-mix. Gently stir in the chocolate chips, nuts, cherries, and coconut.

4. Scoop the mixture into the prepared muffin tin, filling each muffin cup about 3/4 full. Bake the muffins at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let them cool on a wire rack (but make sure you try one while they're still slightly warm!)


Reference:
This recipe is based on the Banana-Split Muffins recipe from the November/December 2008 issue of VegNews magazine.

My changes/additions:
*I used half-and-half on the flours - 1/2 cup whole-wheat and 1/2 cup all-purpose (original called for all whole-wheat flour).
*I added the pecans, coconut, and cinnamon.
*I changed the method around a bit.

Tip:
Really make sure you smash that tofu up! My taste-test muffin had little white chunks in it :) Hmmm... I wonder what that could be? Obviously, it won't change the taste at all but you'll want to try to avoid that, especially if you're serving these to others.