I am one of those individuals affected little by caffeine. A breakfast of coffee and muffin is nice but if the muffin is enhanced with espresso, that’s even better. I am anticipating a few days away from my kitchen so it was once again crunch time to use up all the perishables. I thought I counted my bananas right when I did weekend grocery shopping but it appeared Costco-fever strike again and I had two extra. That can only mean one thing, banana quickbread time!
Of course I love banana bread as much as anyone but it takes an hour of baking time for a regular-size loaf. When the clock is ticking, instant gratification counts. I did a quick search of my cookbook library using Eat Your Books and Heidi Swanson’s (101 Cookbooks) recipe for Espresso Banana Muffin from Super Natural Cooking came up. Did I mention how much I love my library on Eat Your Books? Making all my cookbooks digitally indexed and searchable is possibly one of the best fifty dollars I spent. Instead of gathering dust on the shelf, I get the most use out of my ever-expanding cookbook collection.
The batter was quick and easy to put together. Although the recipe instructed to cream the butter and sugar, I opted to make it using the classic quickbread method using melted butter. With 2 teaspoon of baking powder in the recipe, the physical leavening from creaming is not really necessary. I was one banana short of getting 1 1/2 cup of puree so I supplemented with unsweetened apple sauce. Similarly with the yogurt, I used a mixture of Greek yogurt, buttermilk, and sour cream to fulfill the 1 cup requirement.
This muffin was very moist and tender the day it was baked. The espresso flavour could have been more assertive but the aroma of was a mouth-watering mix of coffee and baking that fooled me into thinking my kitchen turned into the local cafe. I like the fact that 100% whole wheat flour was used in this recipe with no compromise to the texture. This is definitely a wonderful standby for a decadent breakfast. Who doesn’t want to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee and muffins?
