Banana Almond Butter Muffin

The goal for this new year is to use very less sugar in whatever I bake.  While going through many sites, I came to know that honey can be substituted as sugar along with fruits which are naturally sweet. I tried this muffin recipe this weekend and it came out spongy. I took the basic banana peanut butter recipe from allrecipes.com and changed the ingredients according to this muffin. Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:

1. All Purpose flour - 1 cup
2. Aashirwadh Atta - 1 cup
3. Egg - 2 ( I used 1/3 cup of egg whites)
4. Buttermilk - 1/3 cup
5. Olive Oil - 1/2 cup
6. Mashed Banana - 1 cup
7. Almond Butter - 2 tbsp
8. Sugar  - 1/3 cup 
9. Honey - 2 tbsp (generous tablespoon)
10. Vanilla Essence - 1/2 tsp
11. Baking soda - 1 tsp
12. Salt - 1/2 tsp

• Pre heat oven to 325 degree and line the muffin pans with paper muffin liners or grease it with olive oil.
• Take the dry ingredients flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl and mix everything well.
• In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk, egg whites, oil, honey, sugar and vanilla essence really well
• Mash the banana and almond butter together and bring it to a paste consistency.
• Add the oil mix to the dry ingredients and mix it will.
• Add mashed banana and mix all of them well. 
• Scoop the muffin pans with the batter and bake it for 25 to 27 minutes. Do the toothpick test to make sure the muffins are cooked fully.

Notes:

original recipe is based on

• all purpose flour and I substituted half of it with whole grain wheat flour.
• 1 3/4 cups of sugar and no honey.  I used honey and just 1/3 cup of sugar.  It had just enough sweetness to enjoy.
• I whisked the yogurt to buttermilk instead of using store bought buttermilk.  So it was not really thick or thin.
• I wanted to incorporate almond butter as much as possible in my recipes so that my girls can have it. Original recipe had peanut butter.