I Love using Bananas for Baking as evident from my Low Sugar Banana Muffins and Banana Walnut Bread. I have made these Banana Muffins with wheat flour instead of all purpose flour and it has healthy ingredients for a guilt free gluttony :) It is immensely moist with a crunch of generous walnut pieces. I have used minimal fat.
I used All-purpose flour and used additional bananas instead of the egg, so these are normal Banana-Walnut muffins, but of course the low-fat (less butter) was the pulling factor in your recipe. I increased sugar a bit to suit my sweet tooth :) I also skimped on the walnuts. However, the muffins were really nice. This is the first recipe I'm trying from your site and I know I'm coming back. Your Tofu-turkey is very tempting and so are many other innovative recipes. Thanks, DK for sharing your experiences :)
I've shared my experience here - http://tastyvegcooking.blogspot.com/2011/10/low-fat-banana-walnut-muffins.html
Dear DK, this is the only disappointing muffins I ever made. Even my first muffin came out so delicious. Not sure what the reason was. The muffins didn't come out of the liner very clean. The texture was missing. Didn't rise well. What can be the reason, any idea? The change I made was I used all purpose flour + cornstarch instead of whole wheat pastry flour. Also didn't add egg. Other than these two things, I followed the recipe as is. Feeling very bad that I had to trash my muffins :(
Wheat germ is the embryo of the wheat kernel and is immensely nutritious. If you are unable to get your hands on it, simply replace it with wheat flour :) --DK
Pastry flour is a relatively low-protein flour. Its the protein in the flour which determines how tender or elastic your baked goods turn out. For a comparison check: Bread flour, has between 12% an 13% protein, ( more protein more chewy and elastic the product will be. So Pizzas, Yeast breads even Naan come out perfect with this flour. Cake flour has low protein 5% to 8% (hence not elastic but produces beautifully tender goodies. Cakes (duh!) come out super spongy. Pastry flour is between the above two, edging more closer to cake flour at 8% to 9% protein,- so it gives little more body to baked goods yet is tender If you cant find pastry flour - use cake flour and all-purpose flour in a ratio somewhere between two parts cake flour to one part all-purpose and one part cake flour to one part all-purpose. Or else simply use 2 tablespoon of cornstarch and fill the rest of 1 cup with APF. In this case try the same wheat flour (or chapathi flour...) I havent tried with wheat flour and corn starch combo personally though.
By Jay on Nov 26, 2012
I dont think the atta flour did it. Was your leavening within due date? Sometimes the past date could also be an issue. But I generally tend to assume that hardness of a baked product could be due to 3 reasons. 1) There is not enough wet ingredients in the batter -i.e too much flour. Mostly increasing a little liquid tends to rectify the problem. The 2 large banana might not be large enough in your case. Next time around I will measure the Banana puree is cups just to be on the safer side. In fact I do it for my recent posts but will have to test it out with my old posts. 2) reason - The batter was mixed or stirred hard and for long. In most cases, a gentle mix or a folding of ingredients is enough. 3) reason - Overbaking or baking at a higher temperature. To avoid such problems its better to invest in an oven temperature which accurately measures if your oven is registering the correct numbers. Hope this helps --DK