Despite being a fairly frequent banana eater, I inevitably end up with the last few bananas in the batch turning brown before I’d planned.  It’s a safe bet to assume there are at least a few brown (ok, black) bananas hanging out in my fridge at any given time.  I usually throw them into a batch of homemade granola bars or whip up some whole wheat banana bread or muffins, but sometimes you feel the urge to be a little bad.  Something tells you it’s time to pull out the gobs of butter, the heaps of powdered sugar (gasp!) and good ‘ol fashioned white flour.

A moist, spiced banana cupcake topped with a cinnamon-spiked cream cheese frosting is the perfect solution.  You don’t have to tell anyone that the cake is spiked with dark rum or that the frosting is so melt-in-your-mouth delicious that you had several spoonfuls just to test it’s flavor.  We get it.  Some days are just made for being bad.

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It’s a tragedy that I’ve been sitting on this recipe since the beginning of apple season (oh, let’s say September) and it’s now full-fledged winter around these parts.  Fortunately, I’m happy to report that despite my belief that the fall is strictly the best season for apples (which it really is), I’ve been informed that apples are truly a season-less fruit thanks to international shipping and year-round growing seasons!  (Shhh! Don’t tell the local eaters about my apples from New Zealand!)  That slightly lessens my guilt over not sharing this recipe sooner.  Carbon footprint guilt?  Well, that’s another story.

With a yogurt base, these apple muffins are moist, tender and spotted with diced apples that truly melt in your mouth.  Topped with toasted walnuts, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, these make a delicious quick breakfast or afternoon snack.  Made with whole wheat flour, low-fat yogurt and olive oil, these muffins land much closer to the Good-For-You side of the scale rather than the Just-Kill-Yourself-Now prepackaged muffins from most chain coffee shops.  Healthy-ish and delicious?  Ok, sign me up.

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Crepes get a bad wrap.  Notoriously difficult to make, most people wouldn’t dare attempt them at home.  My easy, one-step solution for that: Lower your standards.  Don’t expect picture perfect crepes every time.  Don’t expect paper thin, French perfection.  Expect something that will taste divine, be filling and healthy … yet perhaps not perfect.  Honestly, in all the times that I’ve made these, I think they’ve come out perfectly thin, flat, and round exactly zero times.  And you know what?  They still tasted fantastic each time!

As a peanut butter lover, I can honestly say that these crepes have a distinct, yet not-over-powering peanut butter flavor.  They can be made sugar-free by replacing the sugar with Splenda (which I always do).  They contain no flour (gluten-free!) and are primarily egg pancakes, so they are very low on the glycemic index and are perfect for people looking for a sweet breakfast without all the carbs.  I drizzle mine with some agave nectar, but you can replace that with maple syrup or powdered sugar.

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Who doesn’t love a hot, gooey, sticky cinnamon roll?  Who also doesn’t have 24 hours of forethought and planning to make them happen from scratch?  Sorry, Alton, but prepping dough overnight and waking up before the rooster in order to have breakfast feels a little … well, prehistoric, to me.  As a result, I’ve been relatively obsessed with the idea of cinnamon roll muffins for awhile now.  The thought of cramming all that gooey cinnamon goodness into a neat little muffin cup (and cutting out the hours of preparation … and painful waiting!!) was almost too much to handle.

I finally narrowed my search down to two different recipes.  One recipe was invented by Nicole over at Baking Bites and adapted into muffin form by the always delightful Joy the Baker.  This version uses a yeasted dough that only calls for minimal rising time (if I can wait 15 minutes, you can wait 15 minutes).  You just scoop the dough into muffin pans and press the cinnamon sugar filling in with your fingers.  The other recipe doesn’t use a yeasted dough and instead uses a fairly basic muffin dough that can be rolled out, filled with the good stuff, cut into two inch pieces and baked in a muffin pan.

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