I hope you are all healthy and well :)

Of great nutritional value, topocho banana is a very popular variety in my hometown. I love this variety for snacks and desserts because when boiled with peel and then sweetened along with a little vanilla essence, it takes on a taste and texture similar to a puree of chestnuts and marzipan.

You'll usually find topochos made into salted preparations like tostones (one tostón is made by re-frying flattened discs of plantain) or in a good hot broth, and not so often, you'll see it used to thicken soups and stews (grated).

You can also eat it simply steamed or boiled in water and see how soft and tasty it is, and how well it goes down in the stomach.

Eating topochos regularly will help your bones and muscles, as it has several important minerals (calcium, phosphorus, zinc, and magnesium); topochos are also high in vitamins B6 and C, so eating it will do good to your skin, hair and nails as well as other tissues in your body.

Today I want to share one of the many recipes that I have come up with to make good use of the load of topochos that my comadre brings me from her back yard every time they harvest them.

They are soft muffins prepared with a cooked dough and nuts. You can say they are energy muffins, ideal to go with your coffee for breakfast on a busy day.

One of the great advantages of the recipes with bananas and plantain is that they are excellent substitutes for wheat flour, which I am very happy with, because I'm a little allergic to gluten. But even if you are not allergic, you can benefit from this kind of recipe, for they are lighter and sometimes, more delicious :)

• 3 cups of unripe topocho banana puree (boil the bananas x 5 minutes in water to cover them, with a pinch of salt)
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• 1/3 cup cane sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence

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• Enough walnuts, almonds, and pistachios to decorate.
• Enough margarine to grease the muffin tray.

The first step is to make the puree. To do this, wash the topochos well, cut off the ends and make a slit along the peel to facilitate cooking. Then put them in a pot and cover them with water; add a pinch of salt and let them cook over high heat. Count 5 minutes after boiling. Once they have cooled, you can remove the peels easily.

It's very important that you wash the pot while it's still warm, as the resin that these unripe bananas give off is very sticky.

With the help of a fork, mash the cooked topochos. It will be very easy to achieve a homogeneous dough, but I don't worry if there are little pieces left; I like it better this way.

Sometimes, like in this case, when the dough is dense and I'm not using any yeast, I like to add a little vinegar and baking soda to give it a little air.

This bubles really help.

Add the cinnamon, coconut milk, oil, vanilla essence, and cane sugar. Mix well with a paddle or by hand.

Grease your favorite muffin baking tray with enough margarine. You won't be needing any liners.

You'll find that the dough is a bit sticky.

So grease your palms with margarine to make the balls that will go in the baking tray.

Roll the balls over the crushed nuts so that they are encrusted in the dough. Then place them in the molds and press down just a little on each ball with the back of the paddle to help them take shape.

As you can see below, I rolled two balls in the walnuts, two in the almonds, and finally, two in the pistachios.

In a preheated oven at 400°F, with top and bottom heat, let the muffins bake for 25 minutes.

They grow by approximately 25%.

...And you'll how easily you can unmold them after 5 minutes.

Place them on a wire cooling rack, for they turn sweeter as the cool.

As I love cane honey, I put some on top. This cane honey syrup is flavored with orange zest (if you wish, you can see how I prepared it here).

It's a soft but not spongy muffin. The texture is dense and melts nicely in the mouth.

Bon appetit!

Thank you so much for your visit :)

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY(https://giphy.com/create/gifmaker) for all them.