We made the Medusa Cream Ale last night, and it seems so wasteful to throw out the steeping grains (a.k.a. ‘spent grains’). I’ve added a cup to a 4c flour pizza dough recipe before – it makes a nice whole grainy crust. Anya has taken the ‘self service’ approach to bananas, but she leaves somewhere between an empty peel and 7/8th of a banana sitting on the kitchen counter. I’ve been collecting her banana bits in the refrigerator … so I wanted to make something with bananas.

Banana Muffins With Spent Beer Grains

5 T butter, melted
3.5 bananas
1/3 c dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 t salt
2 t vanilla
1 t baking soda
2 t Penzey’s apple pie spices
2 cups spent beer grains — this batch was from a light cream ale, you’ll get a different taste using grains from a darker beer
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Melt the butter in a large bowl
3. Mash the bananas into the butter
4. Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved
5. Stir in the egg, salt, vanilla, baking soda, and spices
6. Add the spent grains and mix well
7. Add the flour, half a cup at a time, and stir until no streaks of flour are seen
8. Scoop batter into muffin tin (I use a non-stick tin from Williams Sonoma and filled each one about 90%)
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a tester inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out without raw batter (a little moist is OK, uncooked batter not OK)