Raisin Crazy #1: Chewy Banana & Raisin Mini-Muffins

Delicious!

My husband's parents are coming to visit us for a week, they arrive tomorrow, so as part of the mandatory clean up and getting ready I decided to clean the fridge so I could write a shopping list. Hiding in the back corner  I found a large packet of raisins. Who knows how long they had been there for! They were still within their 'eat before' date so I decided to cook as many recipes as I could with them. The problem is that I really don't like raisins and if I have to eat them I try to just swallow them whole.

So rather than search my cookbooks I turned to the internet today. I adapted the recipe used from SparkRecipes. I have never made chewy muffins before and these are definitely chewy so be warned. They were also so incredibly tasty that I ate 3 in a row, raisins and all! The recipe made 24 mini-muffins and 9 medium sized. I have frozen most of mine to use as snacks.

The original recipes lists sugar and olive oil as ingredients. I completely left the sugar out (who needs it!) and used apple sauce as a substitute for olive oil.

waiting to go in the oven

Here's what you need:
1.5 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup apple sauce or 1/4 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch of both cinnamon and nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 medium bananas, mashed
1/3 cup raisin
1/2 tablespoon honey
**1/4 cup sugar if you want


Here's what you do:

Place your mini cupcake papers inside your muffin tin and preheat your oven to 180C. In hindsight I would have used foil muffin holders or a silicone tray as mine became a bit stuck after baking.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl: baking soda, salt, flour, and combine well. Make a hole in the middle of the mix with a wooden spoon and then add your 'wet' ingredients: milk, banana and vanilla extract. Mix all together well. I use a KitchenAid (*love*) but by hand is just as easy. Add the raisins. While I was watching the mix combine I thought that honey would make a nice extra so I quickly drizzled about a half a tablespoon of honey into the mix.

Fill your muffin papers up to about 2/3 of the way or a little more. Mine were nearly to the top because I had so much mixture. Bake in the oven for about 17 minutes. Mine browned quite quickly and I panicked a bit and took one batch out too early and they were still quite doughy.

I was too impatient to let them completely cool before I tasted one and as a result the muffin stuck to the paper. It shouldn't happen once they are completely cooled. That's it, super easy and tasty! My mother-in-law has promised to teach me her amazing Lemon Tart recipe next week so stay tuned.