Banana Nut Muffins

I once heard someone saying that they didn't like banana bread because it's always dry and tasteless. I thought "what planet are you from?". I had never had dry or tasteless banana bread. Then recently I had it from a mix and in that moment I experienced dry and tasteless banana bread. In 30 years of life I had never had bread from a mix and now knew why. Three thoughts came to mind 1) maybe had they added REAL bananas to the mix, it would have helped A LOT! 2) banana bread is not hard to make...why not make it from scratch? 3) I am now really hungry for the real stuff!

I have a go-to banana bread recipe that I use, but I wanted  to "play around" with creating a muffin recipe. I was ready...had my pen and paper handy and started measuring away. The kids helped, we baked them and they smelled wonderful! Before the muffins even cooled down the kids ate them up like nobody's business...I had to steal 1/2 of the last one so that I knew what it tasted like. But something just wasn't right....what is it? Something was missing...it's moist, great texture, nice banana flavor but not...hmm...not sweet...oh, the sugar! I left out the sugar! And the kids still LOVED the sugar-less Banana Nut Muffins! Even so, obviously I had to make them again, to finalize the true recipe. Yep, perfect! And if you've tried my Very Merry Blueberry Muffins you know I like a sweet crunchy top, which these have!

If you only have 10 minutes to whip up some quick bread...please give these a shot. It will be worth it! If not I have some in my freezer because a 2 yr old and a 4 yr old could not possibly eat another dozen muffins! Even if this batch did have sugar in them!

Banana Nut Muffins

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 bananas, mashed with a fork (Use 3 bananas if you dare! I would!)

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Crumb Topping (optional but totally worth it!)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ cup butter, melted

Handful of chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400. Spray or grease muffin pan. In a medium bowl mix the first four ingredients. In a small bowl, beat egg, milk, oil and vanilla. Then stir in the bananas and the sugar. Add the banana mixture and walnuts to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Divide equally into the muffin pan. I use a large ice cream scoop and they come out perfectly equal every time.

Now for the crumb topping mix flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter, mix well. Add in walnuts if you choose. Spoon evenly over the muffins. Bake for 20 minutes.


Eat them up while they are nice and warm! Enjoy my friends!

Warmly, 
Mary