Buckwheat Banana Muffins, Gluten-Free

Buckwheat Banana Muffins

2 ripe bananas, broken into 4 pieces each
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup Jules All Purpose GF Flour
3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Buckwheat Flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) Earth Balance Shortening Sticks (room temp., cut into pieces)
2 eggs (room temp)
1/3 cup milk (I used 2%)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 400° F.  Put bananas and lemon juice in bowl of food processor and pulse a few times.  Combine flours, sugar and baking soda and salt in a bowl with a whisk.  Add dry ingredients, eggs, shortening and milk to banana mixture and pulse until blended.  Take care not to over process.  It is ok if you have lumps in the batter.

Spoon batter into muffin cups or a greased muffin pan.  Place in preheated oven and bake for 20-25 mins.  Cool.

I have been making a variation of these banana muffins for nearly 30 years.  The basic recipe came from a 70's era bread baking book for the first food processors.  Now I make them gluten-free and I experiment with different mixes of flours.  I really like this buckwheat one.  They come out looking like chocolate muffins and they taste so good I start thinking they really have chocolate inside! Not sure why buckwheat has that faint chocolate-like taste, but it really seems to (to me, anyway).

I have also made these muffins sugar-free, egg free, dairy-free, or nearly fat-free.  Just be careful not to try to do all variations at once.  I find they work better when you only substitute one or two things at a time.  If you use butter, try using only half the butter called for and substitute 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce.  They seem too greasy to me with 1/2 cup of butter. The shortening in this version is fine.

Enjoy!
Karen, herself