How to Make Protein Banyama Muffins as Fierce as Ru Paul

Because I love a challenge, I agreed to accept a giant vat of BioSteel Whey Protein Isolate, which is their brand name for protein powder, in order to come up with some tasty, protein rich recipes. Protein powder is not just for body builders and NHL hockey players, you know. It can be a godsend for people who need more protein and moms trying to sneak a bit into their picky kid's diet but the problem lies in the quality of the protein powders that are out there. Many other powders can contain stuff like processed soy, artificial flavours and sweeteners, fake colour and synthetic nutrients that are not all that easily absorbed by our bodies. BioSteel was developed by NHL trainer, Matt Nichol, who was sure he could do better and BioSteel was born. If it's good enough for Mats Sundin, it's good enough for me.

The classic way for mere mortals to use it is to throw some into a morning smoothie but that can get boring and not everyone likes smoothies so that's where I come in.

Now, there is no shortage of super healthy, no wheat, no sugar, no gluten protein muffins and cookies and pancakes out there and , frankly, they don't appeal to me at all. If you know me at all, you know that I am all about whole foods but MY whole food diet includes flour, butter, pork and sugar. My challenge was to make a delicious, wholesome enough but delicious treat that would be a joy to eat. Put too much whey powder in a recipe and the texture gets dry and weird and too little makes me wonder why I would bother?

I turned to one of my favourite muffin recipes, my crunchy banyama muffin because all that sweet potato and banana results in a muffin that is already really moist and forgiving.

#DrinkThePink when you've had a bit to drink

Although it's not something that BioSteel brags about, their sports drink might or not be amazing the morning after, say, an evening of revelry. We keep the concentrate on hand and carbonate it in our SodaStream. This electrolyte supplement meets all the right needs: It's gluten free, vegan and diabetic friendly, sugar, lactose and caffeine free and it gets it pink colour from beet powder, unlike all of the other sports drinks out there. Instead of sugar or artificial sweeteners, BioSteel uses Stevia, a plant derived sweetener that the people in Paraguay and Brazil have been using to sweeten their food for hundreds of years.

I was given some free product in order to develop recipes but was not compensated further. I was already a fan of BioSteel sports drink 

Protein Banyama Muffins

makes approx 18 muffins

1 cup mashed, cooked sweet potato 
3 smallish or 2 large bananas, mashed
1 cup dark brown sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
2 tbls milk
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, unsifted
1/4 cup + 2 tbls Vanilla BioSteel (whey protein powder)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare a couple of muffin tins - I get about 20 muffins out of this recipe. You can use paper liners or spray the trays with spray oil.

I pre-cooked the sweet potatoes in the pressure cooker. You can bake,steam or boil, mash and cool

Mix together the mashed sweet potato, mashed banana, sugar, oil, milk and eggs in a large bowl. Stir it until all the ingredients are completely mixed. In another bowl whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt before adding those dry ingredients to the wet. Stir the flour mixture in JUST enough to blend it fairly well - if there are still a few spots where the flour isn't wet yet, that's okay. 

Combine the nuts and seeds in a small bowl and pour in 3/4 of the nuts/seeds and just give it a few more turns. Over mixing the batter can lead to a tough muffin.Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full and sprinkle each with a bit of the nuts/seeds, pop the tins in the middle of your oven and cook for 18 to 20 minutes. Check at the 18 minute mark with a toothpick or a skewer - the skewer should come out clean and the tops will just be starting to brown up.Let them cool in the pan for about 5 or 10 minutes before you take them out and let cool to room temp on a wire cooling rack. Store, covered, at room temperature. They also freeze really well.

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