Yummy & Healthy Banana Nut Muffins!

These cold winter days have me pining for a warm, comforting breakfast… Without tons of added sugar and butter.  Anyone who has met me knows I want it all, in all aspects of my life.  Why can’t I have a warm, filling, and healthy breakfast?  Oh, that’s right, I can!  These muffins prove it.  So bake these up, eat them cold or warm them up, either way they are sure to satisfy your wintery sweet tooth and your grumbling tummy, without adding extra lbs to your waistline.  So enjoy a batch of homemade healthy, without any guilt.  

Ingredients:

½ C quinoa flakes or rolled oats

¾ C protein powder

¼ C gluten free flour or preferred flour

½ Tsp salt

½ Tsp baking soda

2 large bananas

2 Tsp vanilla extract

½ C preferred milk

1/3 C sugar (I used brown)

½ C Chopped walnuts

Optional add ins:

¼ C Chocolate chips

¼ C blueberries

Directions:

1.     Preheat oven to 355 degrees.

2.     Prepare muffin or cupcake pan with preferred oil or butter.

3.     Mix all ingredients together, spoon into prepared pan.

4.     Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until edges are starting to pull from the sides, allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Super easy & super healthy!

Peanut Butter Brownie Cups

There's just something about brownies that everyone loves- mix that with peanut butter and it's called heaven on earth!  We decided to showcase one of the easiest but most delicious recipe that only takes about 20 minutes to bake- the Peanut Butter Brownie Cups!

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/4 cup Butter
• 1 tablespoon Water
• 1 large Egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 cup Flour
• 1 cup Peanut Butter Chips
• 1/2 cup to mix in
• 1/2 cup for topping
• 1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 3/4 cup to mix in
• 1/4 cup for topping
• 3/4 cup Creamy Peanut Butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º F
2. Grab a microwave-safe bowl and put in the butter, sugar, and water.  Microwave it for about a minute until the butter is melted
3.  Mix in your 3/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips into the mixture and mix, mix, mix until it's all melted!
4. Add the egg and vanilla and mix
5. Now add the baking soda and flour and mix
6. ...let it cool to room temperature...
7. Mix in 1/2 cup of peanut butter chips and 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips into the mix
8. Place the mixture into a greased muffin pan
9. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the inside is still gooey.
10. The center of the brownie cups will start to fall as they cool down, if they don't- go ahead and create a whole in the center of each brownie cup.
11. Place the creamy peanut butter into a microwavable bowl and microwave it for about 50 seconds until it is melted.
12. Pour the melted peanut butter into the center of each brownie cups
13. ...let it cool...
14. Take the remainder of the peanut butter chips and chocolate chips and sprinkle it on top of each peanut butter cups.
15. Loosen the edges and pop them out!

nom, nom, nom away!

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie... ever

The chocolate chip cookie, the mother of all cookies.  There's hundreds and thousands of recipes to make "the best one", but there's one special recipe that's been floating around that The Sorority Secrets will reveal today.  It's literally perfect; not too sweet, not too rich... if you like vanilla, you'll definitely like this recipe. Oh! and not to mention that it's always soft and gooey (Sakura doesn't like the other word for "gooey", so we won't say the word that rhymes with "joist")!

As we promised, this is a 2-in-1 post... so we have 2 secrets to reveal today!  The other secret is from our lovely reader and food blogger, Rhea Sommer.  We always see in recipes to use "room temperature ingredients", well do you know why? Rhea told us that it is important to use room temperatured ingredients because these ingredients bond and form air traps that expand while baking giving you a light and fluffy texture!  Make sure to use Rhea's secret when making these delicious chocolate chip cookies!  

Ingredients

1 Cup (2 sticks)- Butter *room temperature!*

1 Cup- Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup- Granulated Sugar

1 Teaspoon- Baking Soda

1 Tablespoon- Vanilla Extract (add 1/2 tbsp or 1tbsp more if you like Vanilla like we do!)

2 Large Eggs

3 Cups- Flour 

1/2-3/4 Bag of Chocolate Chips (depends on how chocolatey you like it!)

Directions

-Heat the oven to 375º F

1. Cream the butter with the beater. The texture of the butter is really important to your end result; make sure that it is creamed, not melted.

2. Add brown sugar, sugar, baking soda, and vanilla! 

3. Mix, mix, mix! Make sure that it's mixed really well. It will be a grainy texture from the sugar.

4. Add the eggs.

5. Mix, mix, mix.... and mix!  You will beat this section for about 5 minutes at the highest speed.  The baking powder and the eggs will combine to make the texture light brown and fluffy, almost like whip cream! (Taste to make sure that you added enough vanilla during this step after you mix!)

6. Add the flour and mix.  You're going to want to mix it until the batter is stiff enough that the batter won't stick on your hands.

7. Add the chocolate chips and mix again!

8. Roll them into quarter size balls and place them on the cookie sheets

9. Pop in them oven and wait 10-12 minutes!

Enjoy your yummy cookies!

Have a secret that you would like to share?  

E-mail your secret recipes to secret@thesororitysecrets.com