Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins
By: Cari Snell
Published: Monday, November 30, 2009 - 1:32pm

Ingredients




2 very ripe large bananas
cup scant 2  (300ml) whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon bking soda
pinch of fine sea salt
1/2 cup light brown sugr
cup scant 1 ¼  buttermilk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
 cup light olive oil (or melted butter) - I used butter
7 ounces (200grams) fresh blueberries
1 teaspoon raw brown sugar

Preparation

1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees an line a muffin tin with paper or silicon cups. 2 Peel bananas and mash them in a bowl. Set aside. 3 In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and light brown sugar. Make a well in the center an add buttermilk, beaten egg, olive oil (or butter) and bananas. Combine until just mixed. Do not overmix! Add in blueberries and give a couple of stirs. 4 Spoon batter into muffin cups until full and then sprinkle the tops with raw sugar. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown. 5 Let cool a few minutes in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

About


A few mornings back, I cracked open my recently purchased cookbook, "Healthy Appetite" by Gordon Ramsay with optimism and enthusiasm. Gordon may not be the easiest guy to work with, or at least, that's my assumption after watching a few episodes of "The F Word", "Hell's Kitchen" and "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares", but the guy is one heck of a chef. Interestingly, Ramsay's first career was that in professional football as a player with the Glasgow Rangers but he moved on after 3 years to complete a course in hotel management. Fast forward to the present and Gordon Ramsay has authored a variety of top selling cookbooks, opened numerous award winning restaurants, received a total of 16 Michelin Stars, starred in a variety of successful TV shows, and last but not least, filmed the most current season of Hell's Kitchen in Araxi Restaurant and Bar, located in our own Whistler, BC. In this season's Hell's Kitchen, 19 chefs fillet their way up to the prestigious position of Head Chef in order to be given the honor of working side by side with Executive Chef, James Walt. Oh, if I could have been a fly on the wall during those tapings!
But back to the cookbook. There are a variety of recipes I want to try from "Healthy Appetite" and this one took the honor of being first. I admit, I wanted to start with a simple recipe, nothing too complicated and upon first glance at these muffins, I was instantly drawn in to the the fact that the recipe calls for whole wheat flour instead of white. I also loved that blueberries were required because 1) they are chalk full of antioxidants, 2) the more fruit I can get my kids to eat, the better, 3) blueberries are currently in season, 4) our local blueberries are absolutely amazing in flavor and 5) at the moment they are really, really inexpensive. 
From Gordon Ramsey's Healthy Appetite