Hurricane Baking: Cranberry Banana Muffins

It seems like hurricanes and muffins are somehow intrinsically linked in my brain. As I sit here, cozy and safe in my apartment, watching strong winds bend the city trees nearly to the ground outside, I am experiencing a bit of déjà vu. It was last August, during Tropical Storm Irene, that I felt the need to get into the kitchen and make these peach pecan streusel muffins.  Irene was a bit of a non-event for us in Boston that day, but those muffins were very much a big deal. 

This morning, it was the same. For some reason, I NEEDED to bake something. Maybe these are basic human instincts, telling me that I need to hunker down and prepare foodstuffs in case we need them for sustenance. These are emergency muffins.

With some fresh cranberries languishing in the fridge and some very, very ripe bananas waiting for a higher purpose on the counter, I decided to get busy. From the pantry, I took down oats, pecans, and buckwheat flour. Brown sugar. White sugar. We were alarmingly low on butter. What kind of cook faces a major storm without a ton of butter on hand? Such an amateur move. Vegetable oil it was. 

The next thing I knew, the entire apartment smelled incredible and we were snacking on muffins by mid-morning. The oats, buckwheat flour and bananas made them hearty and rib-sticking. The cranberries and toasted pecans made them nutty and tart and very, very tasty.

The only downside? Since we’re pretty much stuck inside, these cranberry-studded beauties are disappearing quickly. So much for emergency preparedness!

Cranberry Banana Multigrain Muffins

Makes 12 large muffins

I played around with the flours I used in these muffins – as long as you have 1 ½ cups of flour total, you are good to go! I swapped in ½ cup buckwheat flour here, but whole wheat or other flours would also work well.

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup buckwheat flour (see headnote)

½ cup rolled oats

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup pecans, toasted and rough chopped

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

3 very ripe bananas (about 1 ½ cups), mashed

½ cup fresh cranberries (frozen will also work)

Pre-heat the oven to 400˚F and prepare a muffin tin with liners or butter/cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine flours, oats, baking powder and salt.  In a separate bowl, mix together the sugars, vegetable oil and eggs. Add the mashed bananas to the wet mixture and mix until just combined.  Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir together. Fold in the cranberries and toasted pecans.  Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins, dividing evenly among the cups. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the muffins have risen and the tops are golden brown.