Whole Wheat Banana Bread muffins | Bake with Kids

Baking is a national hobby, thanks to the lockdown 🙂

We have honed our baking skills, since my 9-year-old has become totally passionate about learning to cook and bake. And she motivates me to try and experiment more.

A new addition to our kitchen is a sourdough starter which is yeast free. I have been religiously using it in all my cakes and pancakes and the results have motivated and amazed me. Thanks to Sangeeta Khanna for introducing this probiotic star which can be used so intuitively in all the cooking.

The banana cakes have been made quite often at home as it is the best way to use the gooey bananas. It often makes appearance in the kids’ lunchbox as I make sure to use whole wheat and no Maida. This one has very little sugar and generous dose of walnuts, pumpkin seeds and raisins. The texture is more Banana Bread like.

Ingredients:

1. Bananas – 3 ripened ( If you do not have ripened one, they can be microwaved for 4-5 mins)

2. Whole-wheat Flour – 2 cups

3. Eggs- 1 whole and one egg yolk (in case you want the eggless version, replace with baking soda 1 tbsp)

4. Sour cream- 1.5 tbsp

5. Sugar- ¾ cup (I used1/2 a cup here)

6. Baking Powder- 1 Tbsp (If not using sourdough starter)

7. Walnut, sunflower seeds, Raisins- 1 cup

8. Sourdough starter – 2 tbsp (If not using Baking Powder)

Method:

1. Mash the bananas. Add eggs, sugar, sour cream and mix nicely. It can be whisked at this stage.

2. In another bowl, sieve whole wheat flour, baking powder.

3. Add the dry sieved ingredients to the wet ingredients slowly and in batches. Mix using a spatula here. Whisking at this stage can cause the muffins to be really hard, as it can puncture all the air inside the batter.

4. Add the nuts to the batter.

5. Pour it in a greased muffin tray or can be bakes in loaf/cake tin.

6. Preheat the oven at 200C for ten minutes

7. Reduce it to 180C and bake for 40 mins at the middle rack. If you are baking in the loaf tin then it will take about an hour to cook.

8. A pro tip here is to cover the bread with a foil paper in a tent shape for the first 30 minutes and later cook uncovered.

Some good practices:

1. Mash Bananas nicely using a fork.

2. Make sure to fold and mix the batter when mixing dry and wet ingredients. Over mixing can make the bread to come out dense.

3. Whole wheat required a long time to cook so cook covered for the first 30 minutes so its cooked nicely from inside and later uncovered.

4. Unmould the bread muffins and let it cool on a wire rack. This helps it cooling from all sides

5. Slice the bread/cake only when it is completely cool.