Apple Banana Spice 7-Grain Maple Muffins

aka Banapple Spicaple Man-Repelling Muffins.

These were made up.

They have whole grains.

There is minimal sugar.

These are girly muffins.  Not manly-I-want-my-teeth-to-fall-out-from-the-first-bite-can-you-put-more-sugar-and-butter-in-here-pleasethanks muffins.



You know how it goes. I had a couple of bananas rotting sitting on the counter and wanted to make something with them. (True story, I once kept some bananas in the freezer for years waiting to get around to making banana bread.  Ryan was not impressed.)  I was flipping through one of my cookbooks and saw a picture of some 90’s blueberry muffins hanging out in a basket with a blue and white striped cloth.  To the side was a list of variations – Apple Cinnamon, Banana, Cranberry-Orange and I thought ‘hmm…why stop at 1 variation? I have bananas AND apples.’  So, as long as this recipe was going off the rails, I decided that a little 7-grain cereal never killed anyone and neither did a little maple syrup.

Apple Banana Spice 7-Grain Maple Muffins
(adapted from Betty Crocker Blueberry muffins)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 cup mashed banana (2 med)
1 cup peeled, chopped apple (1 small-med apple)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup 7-grain cereal (or oatmeal, or whatever)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt


1. Heat oven to 400.  Grease bottoms of 12 medium muffin cups or line with paper baking cups.
2. Beat milk, oil, egg, maple syrup, mashed banana, in large bowl with fork or wire whisk.  Stir in chopped apples.
3. Mix dry ingredients together.  Add to wet ingredients.  Stir until flour is just moistened.
4. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.  Bake 20-25 mins or until golden brown.

I made mine in a mini-muffin pan and there was enough left over for 3 jumbo muffins.  They’re pretty good, maybe a smidge dry but the apple chunks make up for it, and barely sweet.  I ate 6 as soon as they were cool enough to pry out of the pan because I'm a lady like that.