Honorable Mention Recipe #5- Banana and Cinnamon Muffins

Well, Kim Barnouin has come through with another great recipe again, from her latest Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.  These muffins are SUPER fun to make and kids LOVE them (at least, mine did- especially my 4 year old- she couldn't get enough of them!).  I was definitely suspicious that a great muffin could be made with no dairy, no eggs, no butter- but I found out that it CAN!  These take a bit of time to pull together though- so make these on a lazy morning when you aren't in a hurry- they will be worth the effort, I promise!  First you have to curdle some milk, so you take some almond milk and add in some apple cider vinegar to curdle it.  In another bowl you mix together some unbleached all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  In yet another bowl (one of the negatives of this recipe- you need so many bowls!) you mix some earth balance with evaporated cane sugar with an electric mixer until nice and fluffy.  Then you add into that some soy yogurt, the curdled milk, and vanilla.  After you beat that for a bit you finally add in 2 large mashed bananas.  Finally you mix the wet ingredients into the dry and you've got your batter.  This gets poured into muffin tins and baked for about 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes you pull them out and top them with a crumble mixture (chopped walnuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon) and then pop them back in the oven to bake an additional 10 minutes (at 325 degrees).  The verdict?  Utter yumminess- I don't think that's a word, but that's what these are.  They are moist and flavorful and the topping is the PERFECT addition- it completes these and it's crunchy and sweet- OH SO good!  While these have the yumminess factor I do have 2 complaints (which knocked my rating down a notch)- number one- this recipe makes too much batter!  It makes WAY more than 12 muffins- so I ended up with just enough extra to fill up my mini-muffin tin as well.  If you happen to have one I suggest doing this, especially if you have kids- my kids loved seeing muffins just for them!  The other issue is that putting the topping on halfway through baking is SUCH a hassle and a MESS.  I understand why she does it (you don't want the walnuts to burn), but I think next time I'm just gonna take a chance and put the topping on from the start- eliminating a step and a messy hassle.  Don't let that stop you from trying these out though- they are really delicious!

My rating- 9