Recipe Hack: Pumpkin Banana Muffins

Our weather here continues its seesaw between lovely and fridgid.  Saturday I was running around in a tank top and shorts and today I heard tell of snow on the other side of town.  It truly is the end of all things.  Which means that of course it is time to introduce my husband to Harry Potter and refuse to believe that we have anything to do today other than hide on the couch and knit on my OWL.  And bake, of course.

Chris and I have this constant battle.  As soon as a banana goes slightly brown he is ready to pitch it, but I hold on to them until they are liquefied in the hopes that I'll find a use for it.  I saw this recipe today for Oatmeal Banana Muffins, but of course I don't have half of the ingredients.  What I do have is a bag of Chia Seeds, two overly ripe bananas, and one lingering can of pumpkin puree.  So of course I improvised.

I took the concept of the Chia Egg from the Tone It Up recipe and substituted it into this recipe from Alida's Kitchen for pumpkin banana muffins.  The resulting recipe hack included:

1 cup each whole wheat and all purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar (half the recipe amount for brown sugar)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Sprinklings of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg (no pumpkin pie spice here)
2 mashed bananas
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup vegetable oil (we don't use canola often)
2 chia eggs (made with 1 tablespoon chia seed to 3 tablespoons warm water per egg)
1 teaspoon vanilla

I only baked these for thirteen minutes because our oven is annoying, but the end result was quite tasty.  I gave one to Chris without telling him what was in it and he gave them a rousing review.  They probably don't have that much of a health advantage over a regular muffin, but they did feel more substantial.  I can see us subbing these in as a quick breakfast alternative if we are out of basics like butter, milk, eggs, etc.  Because in your house those might be staples, but around here we always end up with the most random assortments.

And these had the added benefit of matching my OWL sweater.  It was meant to be.