November 4, 2007: Banana walnut muffins

Michael is again absent for a few days at a conference, and what's a girl to do? Go shopping for new jeans and bake with bananas, of course! These are lovely low-guilt muffins from Dayna, the Vegan Visitor. They are not 100% guilt-free, with oil and brown sugar in the mix and caramelised walnuts perched on top, but the bananas, wholemeal flour and rolled oats are the justification I need to make these my afternoon snack throughout the week. I even managed to plan ahead and buy the walnuts fresh in their shells from the markets on Saturday.

What I particularly like about this vegan recipe is that there aren't any of those weird ingredients like 'egg replacer' - three mashed bananas do the binding job very well on their own! They even popped out of the tray easily and neatly after a 5-minute rest. The result is a fairly solid and not-too-sweet muffin with extra chew-and-crunch amusement on top. Unfortunately my walnut pieces had a tendency to fall off at this stage, so if you're going to give this a go, make an effort to smoosh them into the muffin tops firmly before baking.

For the recipe, head to Vegan Visitor - I followed it to the letter.