Food & Swine

Banana Monster Muffins

Muffins: the perfect excuse to eat cake for breakfast.  I love muffins and I certainly love cake.  These delicious muffins are the perfect way to use up those ripe (or even overly ripe) bananas sitting on your counter.  There is an optional streusel topping recipe proceeding the full muffin recipe at the end of the post.  If you like a little extra crunch and flair, do add streusel.  I didn’t add any because I was out of butter AGAIN! (I actually made these muffins with a very light olive oil, yum!)

DON’T: ever overmix your quick breads.  Trust me, you want to only stir to incorporate this batter.  The end.

DO: Customize these muffins however you wish.  You’ll see there are 3 add-ins at the end of the post.  Granola that is crushed, coconut and chocolate chips.  Three cups of them.  Feel free to choose any other types of add-ins, I’ll give you some inspiration below.

*Raisins, Dried Cherries, dried cranberries, chopped nuts, different kind of flavored baking chips, chopped dried apricots, additional chopped banana… the list goes on!  The bananas surely can be replaced by 1.5 C pumpkin if you’d like but the texture just isn’t the same.

Today I went on my first Gator ride of the spring.  First time I have driven a vehicle since my surgery (I still haven’t felt that great yet) and it was nice to get out and around our place.  I can’t wait for green grass.

My Gator-obsessed buddy.

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Happy.

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*Full recipe at the end of the post!  Have a great weekend!

Assemble the dry ingredients: (flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, add-ins)

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Measuring salt into your palm is a little extra insurance to let you remember if you added it or not… especially helpful in yeast bread baking. Fun for kids too!

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Yes, all of them… even the add-ins, and fluff around with your fingers to mix.  (We’ll add them now to prevent overmixing later.)

Then combine all of the wet ingredients in a separate vessel. (Bananas, oil, eggs, vanilla, milk)

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Eggs are so fun to crack.  Why is that? (Do you like the messy state of my kitchen?  I have a biscuit recipe to share with you and I didn’t clean up after making them before we HAD to make muffins.  Love a kitchen mess, love it even more when my husband cleans up after me.)

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Add wet ingredients to dry and gently stir to incorporate.

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Scoop (use your ice cream scoop) muffin batter into lined muffin tins.  Top with streusel or just a little sugar or additional coconut.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. (This makes a lot of muffins!  I had 24 regular sized muffins and 12 mini muffins!)

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Cool a bit and enjoy!  IF I had butter I’d have gotten a photograph with a nice warm muffin and a huge pat of butter.  Next time friends.

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Banana Monster Muffins with Streusel Topping

Loosely adapted from Ina Garten’s Banana Crunch Muffin recipe By Cristen  www.foodandswine.com
Author: Cristen

Ingredients

  • 3 C flour
  • 2 C sugar
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 C granola crushed up
  • 1 C sweetened shredded coconut
  • 1 C chocolate chips
  • 4 ripe bananas mashed (or 3 ripe/mashed and 1 not-so-ripe, cubed) *I love finding a banana chunk in my muffin!
  • 1 C oil or melted butter 2 sticks
  • 2 eggs beaten lightly
  • 3/4 C milk any kind will do
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • *Additional coconut or sugar for topping muffins.

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder.  Whisk well.  Add granola, coconut and chocolate chips, stir to incorporate.  Combine mashed banana, oil, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla.  Add to dry ingredients, stir to combine.  Do not overmix.  Scoop into lined muffin tins, top with 1/2 tsp sugar or 1 tsp coconut and bake for 25 minutes in a 350 degree preheated oven until golden and slightly firm topped.  Serve warm, store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
  • Optional Streusel: Mix 1/4 C butter, 1/4 C sugar and 1/2 C flour, sprinkle 2 tsp of this mixture on each unbaked muffin.  *If you like streusel tops, this is pretty standard.  Feel free to mix a little coconut in here or even 1/4 C oats.
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4 Comments

  • Reply Beth Caple's March 21, 2014 at 11:33 pm

    I love your blog, Cristen! Where do you get those muffin liners? Thanks!

    • Reply Cristen March 21, 2014 at 11:36 pm

      Hi Beth! I get the liners from the King Arthur Flour website http://www.kingarthurflour.com or sometimes they carry them at my local grocery store (Hy-Vee). I think they make the muffins look even more important and fancy! Thanks for checking in on my blog. I appreciate your support! And Mike says HI!

  • Reply Laura October 13, 2015 at 11:31 pm

    Hi Cristen thanks for your recipe I can’s wait to make these for my family. Am I missing the print tab to print just the recipe? I really don’t want to print the entire post.
    Thanks for any help you can give..

    • Reply Cristen October 16, 2015 at 9:12 pm

      Laura: you are correct you’d have to copy the portion you want and CTRL + P I believe to print just that. I’ve struggled with WordPress Ultimate Recipe (in my new format) and have been shy about using it lately as each time I post a recipe it does not publish to my subscriber list, only a non recipe post. (Glitch after glitch, I tell ya! And I am reminded daily that I’m no technical queen, just a home cook.) I hope to get this sorted out, and until then, all I have to offer you is my apology and hopefully more good recipes. Thanks for the message! XOXO Cristen

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