Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins

OK, so this recipe did not come from my Grandma's Recipe boxes, but I have a feeling that if I were to have made these and taken them over to her house, she would have asked for the recipe and it would have become a recipe in her box.  I am thinking it would have been in the "bread" section, or maybe the "dessert" section, can't say I have completely figured out her thought process filing everything in her boxes.  She would have liked these muffins because of the tropical flair, attributed to the macadamia nuts.  I have posted in my blog before about how she loved Hawaii, even though she never physically made it there.  I can imagine the conversation as we munched on these, about how the Macadamia nuts came from Hawaii, about how Bubba's family sent them to us for Christmas, along with a whole bunch of other "local" treats. She would have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation (and the muffins).  I adapted this from a June 1991 Bon Appetit recipe, incorporating my own tastes and the ingredients I had on hand.

Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp  ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp  ground cinnamon
3 large mashed ripe bananas
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1 cup sea salt roasted macadamia nuts, chopped


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease twelve muffin cups or line with muffin papers.  Sift flour and soda into large bowl. Add nutmeg and cinnamon.  Combine bananas, both sugars, oil, milk and egg in a medium bowl.  Mix into dry ingredients.  Fold in half of the nuts.  Divide batter among prepared muffin cups.  Sprinkle tops of muffins with remaining macadamia nuts.  Bake until muffins are golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.  Transfer muffins to rack and cool.

Bubba tasted these when he came home from baseball practice today and gave them a "thumbs up".  That's a new rating scale but I will convert it to a "passing" grade, or in the even older scale, it would have probably rated a "7".  He said he was looking for more macadamia flavor.