Peanut Butter Banana Jelly Muffins

Need a PB&J sandwich to go on the road?  Well, this is for you then!  It's a lot healthier than the muffins and cupcakes I've made before because there is no butter or oil (Crazy!  I know!), there's a bit of banana in there for some vitamin K and whole wheat flour is used.  I like to eat these for breakfast in the car when I've inevitably left for work late and there's no time to eat a nice sit-down breakfast at home.  I used Concord Grape Jelly from Trader Joe's in this batch but strawberry, apricot, raspberry or even something exotic like pineapple would also be good.  Give it a try!

Tools needed:

• Stand mixer or large bowl with electric mixer
• Large bowl
• Sifter or fine mesh sieve
• Measuring spoons and cups
• Spatula
• Muffin tin
• Paper muffin tin liners (optional)
• Olive oil spray (optional)

Ingredients:

• 1 5/6 cup whole wheat flour (you can get 5/6 cup by adding one 1/2 cup and one 1/3 cup)
• 1 tbsp and 1 tsp of cornstarch
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup almond milk (regular milk, coconut milk or any other milk can be used)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup salted peanut butter (I used crunchy cuz I love the peanut pieces but you can use smooth as well)
• 1/3 cup pureed banana (if you don't want the banana flavor, use applesauce instead)
• 1/2 cup jam/jelly (it's about 1-2 tsp of jam/jelly per muffin)

Directions:
1.  Preheat over to 375 F.  Line muffin tin with paper muffin cups or grease the muffin tin with olive oil spray or butter.


2.  In a large bowl sift together flour, cornstarch and baking powder.  Set aside.


3.  In a stand mixer or a large bowl with an electric mixer, blend together the brown sugar, milk, eggs, pureed banana and peanut butter.  Add flour mixture to the milk mixture and mix together with a spatula until just blended or when there is no flour streaks (i.e. do not overmix!)

4.  Divide half the batter into each of the muffins cups - make sure you have half or more than half of the batter remaining.  Add 1-2 tsps of jelly or jam to each muffin cup and then cover with remaining batter.

 

5.  Bake muffins in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean of batter.  Allow for the muffins to cool in the tin for at least 10 minutes before removing them from the tin.

6.  Eat and enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker)