Recipe, Rehabilitated

Nigella's muffins were a bona fide debacle, and their failure haunted me for several days. Then the weather went to hell, my semester started, J. plodded deeper into his own teaching death march, and I forgot about them.

But we survived the aforementioned calamities and rolled on into what looks like it will be a cozy and relaxing three-day weekend. Buoyed by the amazing fact that The King's Speech is no longer 80 miles away but finally showing at our very own multiplex, I was looking for a way to kick off our respite in style (which, for us, usually means with something yummy).

This thought brought me, alarmingly, back to the muffin disaster. Dismissing it, I started to gather the ingredients for blueberry oatmeal muffins, but I couldn't get rid of the memory of the banana butterscotch misfortune (and those of you who know me IRL can attest that "just let it go" is not a concept I'm very successful at enacting).

Instead of going back to the scene of the crime and revisiting Nigella's flawed recipe, I grabbed the ingredients for my favorite healthy banana bread, tweaked them a bit for muffins, then added butterscotch chips to the batter.

I paced while they baked. But I'm oh-so-pleased to report that they are PERFECT.

So here's MY recipe for Banana Butterscotch Muffins (and they're vegan, whole grain, mostly sugar free, ridiculously quick and easy -- and delicious):

2 cups whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1.5 tsp. baking soda
.25 tsp. salt
2/3 c. Baking Splenda (you can use sugar, but add 10 minutes to the baking time)
1/3 c. canola oil (I use Smart Balance oil)
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 c, water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. Butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 12 baking cups.

Sift together flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.

Whisk together (or use an electric mixer) Baking Splenda and oil in a medium bowl. Stir in mashed bananas and combine thoroughly. Mix in water and vanilla.

When the wet ingredients are well mixed, add in the flour mixture and Butterscotch chips.

Fill muffin tins with batter and bake for 21-25 minutes, until they are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Happy Weekend!!