Whole wheat-oats-banana-chocolate-walnuts-olive oil muffins topped with Nutella...aah.. that brown muffin...


 Yes. That is how goes the nomenclature of any complex sounding dish in my home, or when the names are forgotten but the taste is reminded...

Brown waala muffin, white waala topping and yellow wala square khatta meetha cake (Dhokla). The husband always forgets names of the things he likes or wants to eat some day and ends up calling them like this.. Interestingly he never forgot the names of Golgappe, Besan ke laddoo or Halwa, as these are the things he has been having since childhood. Aloo ke parathe and Samose falls in the same category.

Anyways, he loves anything sweet but thank God he doesn't like his sweet treats too sweet. Just a hint of sweetness is good for him, especially if it is enhanced by some natural complex sweetness. Honey, Banana, Dates, Raisins, Apricots are good enough as sweeteners for both of us. I glaze such muffins or cakes with Nutella or Honey or Molasses sometimes at the time of serving to enhance the taste and appearance..

So if a few muffins would find Nutella as a companion, some of them will be dunked in Honey, some others in Date syrup or a slap of any marmalade or fruit preserve that I keep making in small amounts whenever a fruit is in abundance. Mullberry jam is a current favorite till the stock lasts.

This muffin is essentially for those who need to have something sweet as a routine, say once every day.  Complex sugars, wholemeal and nuts make it a low GI food and a little bit of sugar goes a long way. Otherwise if you are someone who wants muffins and cupcakes as food and are looking for healthier versions, I would say you should explore honey roasted nuts instead.

These muffins are the ones who break all rules of baking. Bakers swear by the power of measuring and weighing the ingredients and sticking to the recipe to the T. With these muffins I have often mixed the ingredients by just scooping out and pouring in roughly and they turn out to be great. BUT, that you do when you have been baking for a long time to know the consistency and flow of the batter and you do not miss any ingredients.If you are making these for the first time you have to follow the recipe, Though not to the gram.


ingredients....
(yields 9 medium parge muffins)

whole wheat flour (atta) 1 cup packed
oats 1/4 cup or a little more added to adjust consistency in the last stage of mixing
cocoa powder 1/4 cup
salt 1/2 tsp
baking powder 2 tsp
baking soda 1/2 tsp

olive oil or any oil you find healthy or butter 1/2 cup
(I usually add butter, this time there was not enough butter in my fridge)
fresh yogurt 1/2 cup or use freshly curdled milk
eggs 3
sugar 2 tbsp

2 overripe bananas
1/2 cup broken walnuts

procedure.....

Pre heat the oven at 250 C.
Mix the first six (dry) ingredients with a dry whisk in a wide bowl.
In another wide bowl, whisk the next four ingredients, that is oil, eggs, yogurt and sugar and whisk till smooth
Now mash the bananas and add to the wet mix, whisk to mix and then add the dry ingredients to make a thick batter. Check this picture to see how thick is this batter. Add a little more oats if required. Or a bit of yogurt if the batter is too dry to move the whisk.

And the walnuts too.Makes a lumpy batter.


 Spoon out into muffin liners or greased muffin pan. Keeping space for the muffins to rise.


Slide the tray into the oven, bring down the temperature to 180C and bake for about 25 minutes. Check after 20 minutes as it might get cooked if your muffin size is smaller.

Check with a skewer and take the tray out and let it cool.


 The frosting can be done at the time of serving. Marmalade, jam, honey, maple syrup, molasses all of these are great with these muffins.

You would like peanut butter as well. But these muffins are almost unsweetened. Good amount of cocoa make it deep dark and chocolate bitter and a little sugar that is added is just 2 tbsp, so it tastes like an unsweetened muffin, so a sweet topping works better than peanut butter. If you love peanut butter over it, sweeten the peanut butter or add some more sugar in the batter.

These muffins were loved by the husband. They are still in the fridge and he does not forget to grab one every day even after a super busy schedule. A friend liked it too.

These are not the super soft. melt in the mouth muffins as they look like in the picture. Firm and spongy texture I would say and a rich dark chocolate taste interspersed with walnuts. Nutella does a great job in balancing the sweetness and prettiness.


 The muffins were served to a guy who came to our place to change the UPS battery, he ate it lovingly too. I didn't ask him but watched closely his expressions as I had already told him that these are unsweetened muffins. He was careful while taking his first bite but ate it gladly. He liked them apparently. The kind of person (the worker class) who would never ever taste a home baked or healthy version of a muffin. So I am sure most people would like it.

So there is mostly a positive vote for these muffins. I myself don't eat them much, this is something I bake for the husband. Hence the feedback from others is being recorded here :-)

Hope you all like it...

Comments

  1. wow!...this is healthy muffin idea i can definitely try :)

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  2. This is delish!!!! I need to bake these for the chocoholics at my home... :)

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  3. Hi,

    I have a quick question about your blog, do you think you could e-mail me?

    Jillian

    ReplyDelete
  4. This looks yumm....Can I also bake this like a regular cake?

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    Replies
    1. Why not Lakshmy? Regular cakes can be dressed up like anything and everything, it is the healthier cakes that need more fine tuning :-)

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    2. I baked this in a normal cake tin on Sunday and it turned out to be awesome!! I just doubled the amount of sugar to make it sweeter. It is my new favourite cake...My family loved it as well. I am trying all these healthy recipes to fill the brunch-box of my toddler. . Thanks a ton Sangeeta!

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