Sour cream & olive oil banana muffins and my promise to you

This is a healthier version of the banana bread muffin I posted about a while ago. But wait!!! Don't go just because I said the word healthy! I hereby promise I will never post a "healthy" recipe unless it tastes really good and somewhat sinful. I am the kinda girl who believes that to call something dessert, it needs its fair share of butter, sugar and - more often than not - chocolate. If I'm gonna have dessert, it has to be worth the calories.

Now, I am by no means against using the occasional whole grains, dried fruits, apple sauce, honey or yogurt, as substitutes, but it is more for depth of flavor and interesting textures. Sure, your young ones will not be able to tell the difference and if you are feeding them cake, muffins or cookies on a daily basis, by all means make it a healthy snack. But in my world treats are called treats because they are supposed to be special (and not something you indulge in all the time) and a little butter and sugar will not hurt anybody. If you want healthy, give your kid an apple! Because the truth is, no matter how good a healthy cookies is and no matter how hard you try to convince me, it will never have the buttery sweetness of the real thing. And a gooey, rich homemade brownie is still a million times better for your children than the candy, soda and tons of other junk food kids are consuming daily all over the world. Especially if you bake it together as a family.

In these muffins, out go the chocolate chips and almonds of my other post, in come sour cream (yes, I am still buying tons of it to make sure my local supermarket keeps stocking up in the belief that all customers are loving this new and quite exotic product) and olive oil.

Believe me when I say you will not miss the butter in the least and the sour cream makes these the moistest muffins I have baked so far.

Last but not least, after a few requests and in an attempt to facilitate readers, I created a page with links to several conversion tables for any doubts you may have while trying out these recipes from all continents!

Ingredients

2 cups flour

3/4 tsp salt

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ cup olive oil (or any other vegetable oil)

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ cups over-ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup sour cream

2 eggs

Preheat your oven to 350° degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin tray. Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Then, in a separate bowl, mix together the oil, brown and white sugar, followed by the vanilla extract, the mashed bananas, the sour cream and eggs.

Stir in the dry ingredients until they are combined and pour the batter into the muffin tray, filling only three quarters and for approximately 20-25 minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack.

Adapted from the Cookbook Chronicles