Banana Oat Muffins for Pretending to be Ok with an International Pandemic

 

My friends, it is a time of stress.  In a situation where we find ourselves sitting at home with nothing but time and anxiety on our hands, coupled with a growing stockpile of hoarded food supplies, you may find yourself eating.  A bit more than usual.  Maybe a lot more than usual.  I’m not judging.  Leggings are pants, right?  We’ve got this.

Today felt like a good day to bake.  We had gotten a blanket of snow over the night, and we are officially on full quarantine for the foreseeable future.  I wanted to make something yummy.  Something nourishing.  Something the kids would like.  Something I could eat to maintain the illusion of health and control while sitting on the couch bathed in the sweet, sticky darkness of existential dread.

My kids like Banana Muffins, so I found this recipe  and tweaked it a bit.  I’ve never made the original recipe, so I don’t know if my version is actually better or not, but it *feels* better.  Because I generally assume my ideas are always better anyway.  So we’re just going to go with it.  Cheers to assuming our ideas are better without any significant supportive evidence.  Hey, we all gotta believe in something here.

Banana Oat Muffins for Pretending to be OK with an International Pandemic

(Makes a little over 1 dozen.  Don’t worry about it.)

1/2 cup Maple Syrup

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

4 large bananas, mashed

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 t salt

3/4 cup white AP flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

1 tsp baking soda

mini chocolate chips (optional, but what do we have to lose here anyway?)

Rainbow sprinkles (not so optional, obviously)

 

In a large mixing bow; combine maple syrup, bananas, oil, eggs, and vanilla.  Beat.  Beat it hard.  You’ve got some things to work out here.

Add in oats and whole wheat flour, stir to combine, and let it sit for a bit.  The wet ingredients will soak into the grains, softening the crumb and making them taste less like soviet rations.  That’s a good thing.

Combine white flour, salt, and baking soda, and stir into the wet mixture until it all comes together.  I gave it a firm stir.  You do whatever you need to do with that.

Have your pre-schooler add a generous pour of mini chocolate chips.  Just trust her on that one, chocolate is her speciality.  This is an area in which she knows more than you.

Spoon the mixture into individual muffin cups.  Don’t worry if a bit spills onto the edges, ok?  You can’t try to control everything here.  Chaos is very real and muffin batter is a good lesson in that.

Dust with magical rainbow sprinkles to make you feel better about the world.

Bake in a 325 degree oven.  Set the timer for 20-25 minutes.  Or don’t.  Time doesn’t even exist anymore.  They’re done when they are springy and slightly browned.

Give some to you kids to quiet them down.  Enjoy in the brief solitude they afford you.

You earned this one.