Nutella-Banana Muffins

Is there anything better than coming home from school and getting a snack of fruit, milk and a warm muffin? I try at least once a week on Fridays to have a just-out-of-the-oven treat ready for the children. Today, I was out of chocolate chips, but had lots of Nutella (a love of mine from Childhood - thank you, Mom!). So, I thought I'd try using Nutella in my favorite Banana Quick Bread Recipe, and just substitute some Nutella for some of the bananas. The children and their playmates loved them.

1 Cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
Almost 1 Cup unsifted bleached all-purpose flour
Almost 1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
1 big ole mashed banana
3/4 cup Nutella
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup buttermilk (or I use regular milk)
1/2 cup veg. oil - or use 1/2 c (1 stick) melted butter
1 t pure vanilla extract


PREHEAT place an oven rack in the lower third of oven and preheat oven
to 325 degrees. Grease and flour or spray with cooking spray four 3 by 5 1/2 inch mini
loaf pans (I sometimes just use one big loaf pan), or you can use muffin pans or mini muffin pans.

COMBINE the mashed bananas, eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together right on top of banana mixture. Stir as briefly as possible (so the gluten doesn't develop making the muffins have a dry texture) until no dry flour bits show.

Divide batter evenly between baking pans.

BAKE

For small loaf pan: Bake for 33 to 38 min. or just until breads spring back when
slightly touched in the center, or when a wooden toothpick inserted in the center

comes out clean.

For Large Loaf Pan: start checking after 50 minutes.

For Regular Muffins: start checking after 22 minutes.

For mini-muffins, check after 15 minutes.

Cool for a bit (if you can wait) and Enjoy!