I have been baking these fruit and nut filled muffins for over 20 years. When I revisited this recipe recently I had forgotten how good they are. With chopped apple, a mashed banana, sweet dried cranberries, and crunchy pecans, these are like eating an exciting cornucopia of fruit and nuts rolled together in a muffin. The use of whole wheat flour gives the muffins a nice dense texture, while combining it with one half white flour gives an edge of cake-like lightness. With all of the fresh and dried fruit in them, these muffins don’t require a lot of sugar, so they make for guilt-free baking and eating. And, best of part about these muffins is the fact that they are so easy to make!
Ingredients:
—1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
—1 cup all-purpose White Flour
—1/2 cup granulated Sugar
—2 teaspoons Baking Powder
—1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
—2 teaspoons Cinnamon
—1 teaspoon Ground Cloves
—1/4 teaspoon Salt
—1/2 cup Buttermilk
—1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
—1/2 cup mashed Banana (1 ripe Banana)
—1 Egg
—1 cup Dried Cranberries
—1 pared, cored, chopped Apple
—1/2 cup chopped or broken Pecans
NOTE: This recipe makes six jumbo, 12 regular, or 36 mini muffins. Also, when I make these muffins, I leave the skins on the apples. You can remove them if you like, but the skins do add both color and crunch.
Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat and white flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ground cloves and salt. Add the dried cranberries, apple and nuts to the dry ingredients.
In another bowl mix the buttermilk, vegetable oil, mashed banana, and egg. Mix the liquids into the dry ingredients until it is blended.
NOTE: Do not be alarmed that this is not a batter you can pour. With all of the fruit in it, it will be quite lumpy.
Spoon the chunky batter into six greased or paper-lined jumbo muffin cups, or 12 greased or paper-lined regular muffin cups, or 36 greased or paper-lined mini muffin cups. There is so much fruit in these muffins, that the dough will rise minimally, so feel free to mound the fruit and dough batter high in the middle of each muffin.
Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes for mini muffins, 20 to 25 minutes for regular sized muffins, or 35 minutes for the jumbo muffins. The ultimate test for “doneness” of any muffin is revealed by stabbing the middle of one of them with a toothpick. If you can pull the toothpick out “clean,” it is done baking.
Cool the muffins one minute or two before removing them from pan. They are absolutely wonderful warm and fresh from the oven!