Eggless Banana Walnut Muffins

MIL is staying with us this month - I had to really persuade her to come this time, since she was quite reluctant to make the trip from Coimbatore. Age related hearing loss has made her a little reluctant to socialize. But she did come finally and its been nice to have her here with us. My daughter especially seems to bloom a litte bit more every time one of her grandparents is around.

We took her out for lunch last weekend (Punjab Grill - very good food and great service - pleasantly surprised) and while walking around the mall, she spotted some cupcakes at a cafe. She asked about them but they had egg in them, so I decided to make some eggless muffins at home. Banana muffins seemed the easiest and she likes nuts, so decided to modify this recipe of mine for white chocolate walnut muffins, to make some banana walnut muffins.

It barely took me about an hour from start to finish. I packed a couple in my daughter's tiffin the next day and she couldn't stop beaming with delight at the chocolate chips. This is a light muffin but nice and flavourful.The sugar can be brought down a notch since it was a little sweet for me.

Eggless Banana Walnut  Muffins

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (I would bring this down by a couple of tablespoons)
1 banana (medium)
3 tbsp milk
3/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup maida
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
salt - a pinch
1/2 cup walnuts (toasted on a skillet or in an oven, peeled and broken into half) You could use chocolate chips, I did that for half of them because my daughter wanted some.

1. Blend the banana with the milk and vanilla essence with the hand blender into a puree.
2. In a bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar with a hand blender till light and fluffy. Add the banana puree and then blend again.
3. Sift the flour with the salt and the baking powder into thebowl of batter and fold in gently till just combined. Do not overmix
4. Fold in the walnuts (or the chocolate chips) reserving a few to decorate on top. Pre-heat the oven to 180C (350F).
5. Grease a muffin pan or line them with cupcake liners. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the muffin pan and bake for 15-20 minutes (took 20 minutes for me). A toothpick should come clean when poked into the muffins.
6. Let stand till cool and then unmould from the muffin pan.