Banana Muffins

I had a few bananas on my counter that desperately needed to be eaten or used today so I decided to do some Banana Muffins.  Not only because it is such a simple, quick recipe to make but it makes your entire house smell just amazing.  If you want you can substitute some or all of the butter for applesauce to make it a lighter muffin as well as switching out the all purpose flour for whole wheat or using half whole wheat.  I wanted to do whole wheat but realized that they don't have whole wheat pastry flour at my only store here on base and I'd bet my life you can't get whole wheat pastry flour at one of the local grocery stores in town in Japan. Granted, even if I was standing there looking directly at it I wouldn't have a clue what it was since I can't read Japanese!  Looks like that is one of those items I'm going to have to have my mom ship to me from the states because I love using it and don't really want to go three years without it!

Banana Muffins

2 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

4 small very ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 c. fat-free vanilla yogurt

2 large eggs

6 tbsp. unsalted melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease your muffin pan.  I like to grease it with butter.  Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together in large bowl.  Mash the bananas in a separate bowl.  Add the yogurt, eggs and vanilla into the bananas and whisk until combined. Then pour in the butter to the banana mixture while whisking.  Make sure your butter isn't piping hot but has cooled a bit. Pour the banana mixture into the flour and whisk until just combined.  This is a thick and chunky batter so you may want to stir with a wooden spoon instead of a whisk at this point.  Use a 1/3 c. measuring cup and scoop into muffin pan.  This makes 9 good sized muffins.  Bake 22-25 minutes or until golden brown and a knife can pierce the muffin and comes out clean.