Since it’s still November, I’m still allowed to make pumpkin things.  I recently had an early morning class field trip, so I decided that it would be nice to bring some muffins along.  I had a few very ripe bananas, so my initial plan was to find a good banana muffin recipe, but during my search I found something even better: a pumpkin banana muffin recipe.  To make the muffins a little more interesting I decided to add some chocolate chips and walnuts.  Basically whenever I can add nuts or chocolate, I will.

The muffins turned out fairly dense and quite moist which was great.  The original recipe called for whole wheat flour, or at least a combination of white and whole wheat.  I typically jump at the chance to use whole wheat flour, but in this instance I had just bought some white flour that I wanted to use up, so I used all white.  I love recipes that are adaptable to what you have on hand!

Pumpkin Banana Muffins

Yeilds 24 muffins, adapted from Alida’s Kitchen

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or 1 cup all-purpose flour/1 cup whole wheat flour)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1-2 cups chocolate chips (depending on how chocolaty you want it)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and line the muffin tins with liners, or spray with non-stick spray.
2. Combine dry ingredients: flour, sugar, spices, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl mix together pumpkin puree, oil, and mashed bananas with an electric mixer.  Gradually add eggs and vanilla until mixture is well combined.
4. Gradually fold in the dry ingredients to the wet, and finally add walnuts and chocolate chips.
5. Bake 13-15 minutes for normal sized muffins (a little shorter if you make minis).