Banana Crunch Muffins

Sometimes those days arrive when you have a craving for a delicious sweet and in the corner of the kitchen you see some bananas getting a bit too ripe. Those days never happen to me because I absolutely love overripe bananas, but this time I sacrificed my bananas to make a nice treat for the family.

Now, I'll intro that I messed these up. Not really as they were still incredible, but my add-in didn't work the way I would have liked. I decided to use up old granola bars I made last week instead of making some granola or using pre-made granola. Next time I'll make some or just add in oats and nuts. Ooo, I bet a crunchy oats and nuts type of cereal would be fantastic!

On to the recipe.

Banana Crunch Muffins
adapted from Ina Garten, my hero

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
3 medium or large eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 large mashed bananas (if you want some chunks of banana in the muffin, dice one of the bananas)

2-3 cups add-in. Vary it. Granola, pecans, walnuts. I used a seed mix from Lidl. It had sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, cranberries... some other bits. I also broke up 2 homemade granola bars. Go crazy. Anything you think might be tasty with banana.

Direction

Preheat the oven 350F/180C.

Now, use muffin liners. Did you read that? Check it off in your mind? USE THE PAPERS. These muffins will stick to a muffin pan. You need those cupcake/fairycake/muffin cases.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

Add the melted butter and blend it together well with the dry ingredients.

Combine the eggs, milk, vanilla, and mashed bananas.

Gently fold them into the flour mixture until its combined. Don't overmix. Stop when it all starts to look wet.

Use an ice cream or cookie dough scoop if you want, to put the batter into the cases. This will give you even muffins with the exact same amount of batter in each muffin. Top with granola and sugar if you'd like!

Fold in your add-in. Gently. DON'T OVERMIX.


Bake for 25- 30 minutes. Let them cool before you eat them.

Banana Pecan Crumble-topped Muffins

Happy New Year and all that jazz. Things are getting back to normal here with Harper growing like a weed, Jane transitioning into true toddlerhood (buddha help us) and the holidays over. In the spirit of new year's resolutions, I'm posting a muffin recipe that sounds like it should be healthy, but is probably far from it :) My new year's resolution was to give up Diet Coke, because of the aspartame, and its going perfectly for me. Of course, instead I want to bake sweets and drink coffee instead. We all need our vices, yeah?

Okay, muffin time. PUT AWAY YOUR MIXERS! That's an order. Overmixing is the reason so many muffins fail.

Banana Pecan Crumble-topped Muffins
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

3 large ripe mashed bananas
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1/3 cup oil (I used Sunflower)
1 tsp of vanilla, give or take (or give some more!)
1/4-1/2 cup of pecans or walnuts

Cinnamon Oat Crumble Topping:
1/4 cup oats
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup white sugar (or all the same... I even threw in some demerera, you want 1/4-1/3 cup sugar total)
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp butter

Directions
Preheat your oven to 200C/400F. You are going to bake at 190C/375F. I'll explain later.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together.

Beat egg, oil, vanilla, sugar and mashed banana until well combined.

Create a well in the flour mixture and pour in your banana mix. Take a spatula and gently fold the dry into the wet ingredients. Just barely. It's okay, desirable, to have some flour visible and not completely wet.

Mix the crumble topping. Put oats, sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl and stir together. Cut in 2 tbsp of butter like you would to make pastry. My house is cold enough at the moment to just use my hands, but sometimes that makes the butter melt to much and two forks do the job. mash and mix it together until it forms crumbs.

Fill a muffin tin (this makes 12) with muffin cases and fill each one about 2/3 full. I use a large cookie scoop. Sprinkle about a tbsp or so of your crumble mix on top.

Okay, stick them in the oven. Turn the heat down to 190C/375F after 5 minutes. That burst of hotter air will help the baking powder activate and cause better rise in the muffins (and that light fluffiness you want!). Bake a total 20-25 minutes. Just test them with a skewer and take them out when it comes out clean.

Have with a delicious cup of coffee. So tasty.