FITNESS REVIEWS AND IMAGES: Cooking With Protein Pow: Do You Have A Recipe For Banana Nut Protein Muffins?

Thursday, 28 August 2014

Cooking With Protein Pow: Do You Have A Recipe For Banana Nut Protein Muffins?

New Exercise and Fitness Review

The name of these muffins is both descriptive and symbolic. They’re banana nut muffins because, yes, they contain banana and nuts. But they’re also called banana nut muffins because they were made by someone who is absolutely nuts for—you guessed it—bananas. See what I did there? Too cheesy of an intro? OK. Let me start again…

Too many protein muffin recipes out there yield what I like to call “muffin bricks,” or rock-solid muffins that feel and taste like cardboard. “It’s fine because they’re healthy,” people think as they chew through their heartbreak, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

You can end up with soft, moist muffins that taste like the real deal—as in, traditional sugar-and-butter-based muffins. All you have to follow a few simple rules:

Don’t use too much whey protein powder in your mix or, if you do, combine it with another powder, such as pea or rice protein powder.

Don’t rely too heavily on eggs or the egg can overpower your batter and you’ll end up with a rubbery texture.

Use a moisture-absorbing ingredient in your mix like bananas, cooked sweet potato, or applesauce.

Include some kind of flour in your batter like coconut flour, ground almonds, or oat flour.

Add a fat. Egg yolks, nut butter, and coconut oil are my three favorites.

Here’s a delicious recipe to get you started!

Banana Nut Protein Muffins

1 large ripe banana

1/4 cup vanilla or banana whey protein powder

3 tbsp peanut butter or hazelnut butter

1 tsp coconut oil

1/4 cup ground almonds

1 large whole egg

1 tsp coconut flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking powder

Note

If you like your muffins sweeter, add Stevia flavoring drops, honey, or a bit of coconut sugar to your mix. If you’d like to take your muffins to the next level, add some chopped walnuts or dark chocolate chips to the mix. Just make sure you mix these in after blending your batter in order to retain the texture.

Blend all ingredients together until they form a smooth batter. If you’re adding any extras like chopped walnuts or chocolate chips, mix these in with a spoon.

Pour batter into three medium-sized muffin tins or six small ones.

Bake at between 320 and 350 F (170 C) for about 20 minutes, or until muffins have cooked through. To check, poke them with a fork and make sure they come out clean. Be careful not to overbake.