Banana walnut muffins - tasty way to consume overripe bananas

My baking repertoire is very limited. Though I have switched many of my Indian deep fried recipes to baking as alternative, I don't delve into full time baking in my kitchen. I am yet to overcome my inhibitions about baking. However there are some very simplistic baking recipes I dish out frequently to make myself feel good :-). You can find some of my successful baking experiments here, here & here.

After last weekend's bommala koluvu, as always I ended up with a bunch of fruits. BH & DD have a funny way of consuming fruits, they both love fruits as long as it is washed, cleaned and kept in front of them. I will have bags of oranges go unnoticed until I start peeling them, then there will be a pile of orange peels (and a plea for me to make Orange peel gojju) in a matter of minutes, same with other fruits.. they need someone (me) to start the process and then things will happen quickly when it comes to eating fruits. What can I say? it takes all kinds of people to balance this world :-) I could see the golden yellow bananas turning brown on their way to final stage of life. I have multiple ways for overripe banana nirvana in my kitchen and chose to make some plump muffins this time for DD to munch on while doing her homework.

If you have not tasted or heard of muffins, they are cute little roundish things that is widely popular as breakfast staples. For the uninitiated, they may look like cup cakes but they differ a lot from cupcakes. Googling for gyan, I found that muffins are made by preparing dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, pouring wet ingredients over the dry ones (for muffin purposes sugar is considered as a wet ingredient) while cup cakes go through the 'cream them together ' concept with their ingredients. Muffins are not overly sweet like cup cakes and they are not frosted either. There are muffins made with eggs and without eggs.

I am not a vegan in my diet but as a personal choice I avoid eggs in recipes if there is a way out. This banana walnut cake is one of them, I have been baking this for a while now, started with a buttery recipe that called for eggs and have morphed it into a no-butter, no egg recipe by some trial & error and here is a perfectly soft, deliciously sweet muffin.

What do you need to make banana walnut muffins? 
Makes 12 big muffins
Wet ingredients:
4 ripe bananas
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup oil (I used saffola oil, replace with canola or vegetable oil or with butter)
Dry ingredients: 
1.5 cups AP flour or maida
1 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp baking soda
1/8 Tsp salt
1/2 cup + 1 Tblsp chopped walnuts

How do you make banana walnut muffins? 

• Mash the bananas really well or run them in your blender like I do to make a puree.
• Mix the wet ingredients together in a bowl. 
• Sieve AP flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in another bowl, make a well in the center. 
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and mix them in gently with a spoon. 

• Fold in 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts. 
• Preheat oven to 375F, line a muffin tray with muffin liners. 
• Spoon the batter to 3/4 in each muffin groove. 
• Add a few chopped nuts on top. 

• Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

• Enjoy the muffins warm or cold for a hearty breakfast or evening snack. 

Notes: 

• It is important to not use a hand mixer or even mix for a long time with spoon as it activates the gluten while also using up the baking powder/soda. This causes muffins to not rise properly and turn them chewy & tough. Mix the ingredients gently until they come together.
• I use brown sugar instead of regular sugar as it gives a nice brown color to the muffins and adds to the flavor. Myth buster: brown sugar is not a healthier option than white sugar. 
• I have made these muffins with AP flour, bread flour and a combination of whole wheat and AP flour and we love it every time. If you are using wheat+AP flour, use 1 cup wheat and 1/2 cup AP flour. 
• Walnuts is a personal choice and traditional option, replace it with any nuts of your choice - almonds, pistachio, pine nuts etc for crunch or omit them completely. 
• Add 1/4 Tsp cardamom powder for the distinctive Indian dessert flavor if you like, bananas & cardamom are a great pair. I don't add it since DD doesn't like cardamom.

I am sending these muffins to Nupur's What with my Cuppa event.