I’ve been craving something spiced and cozy, that will make my house feel welcoming and warm.
I’ve collected ripe bananas and have peeled and smashed them prior to putting them into a freezer safe Ziploc, and freezing them. Now, I have a gallon-sized Ziploc bag in my freezer of smashed bananas!
As a Lacto-Vegetarian household, we substitute banana for eggs in sweet treats like baked goods. Sometimes the texture is strange, and sometimes the flavor of the banana really shines through, even if we don’t want it to… but this recipe calls for lots of bananas AND their sweet flavor.
With this recipe, I’ve found that it’s perfect to use up those bananas, and transition from Summer to Fall seamlessly!
What you need:
– 1 3/4 cups of mashed banana
– 2/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar
– 1/2 cup oil of choice (vegetable, canola, olive)
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 2/3 cups bread flour
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1 tsp ground cinnamon
– 1 tsp ground nutmeg
– 1/2 tsp salt
Steps:
Preheat your oven to 375˚F.
You’ll start with your Muffin pan. Choose your method: spray your muffin pan with cooking spray, use cupcake liners, or use another preferred non-stick method. I put the batter right into the sprayed pan, which creates crispy sides and edges on the muffins, and no waste when consuming the muffins.
In a medium bowl, mix your bananas, sugar, oil and vanilla extract until combined well.
Add the remaining ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt) to your wet ingredients and mix until just combined, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.
Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cups in the muffin tin, each one should be 3/4 or almost full.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and muffins are rounded on top. If the toothpick has wet batter on it, put the muffins back in for 5 minutes at a time, keeping an eye on them.
Remove the muffins from the oven and let them cool in the muffin pan for 5 minutes. Move them to a cooling rack and cool until you’re able to handle them with bare hands.
Here’s where you can get creative. You can let them cool and eat as is, add butter on the tops, or even dip them in a cinnamon sugar mixture (1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon mixed together in a bowl; you’ll want to spread melted butter over the tops before dipping in cinnamon sugar mixture to ensure that it sticks).
If some leftovers survive the day, store your muffins in an airtight container in your refrigerator for up to 1 week. The tops of plain top muffins will get more moist and sticky each day.
Tips/Changes:
You can use a whisk to mix the batter if you’d like, but I find that a rubber spatula works best to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl so as to avoid dry flour clumps in your muffins.
You can also add chocolate chips and/or chopped nuts into your batter just before pouring into the muffin pan if that’s your style – use your ‘measure with your heart’ method (or about 1/3 cup or so, total). These additional ingredients may call for a change in baking time, so just keep an eye out on them.
You can use all-purpose flour instead of bread flour, but I have found that using bread flour results in a fluffier muffin.
Add a 1/2 tsp of ground clove, allspice, or pumpkin pie spice if you are looking to really spice it up!
DO NOT over mix your batter — overmixing causes dense, heavy muffins. You want to fold the batter onto itself until there is no more dry flour left. If adding chocolate chips or nuts, add them at this step, just after you’ve dissolved all flour, and before pouring into the pan.
You can use a stand mixer, but make sure to keep the speed low and slow so you can avoid overmixing.
If you make these yummy, fall spiced, cinnamon banana muffins, comment below and let me know how they turned out! Let me know what worked for you and what you’d do differently — you can share if you added any ingredients or toppers, too!
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Cinnamon Banana Bread Muffins
Equipment
- 1 Muffin/Cupcake Pan
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 Cups Mashed Banana
- 2/3 Cup Lightly packed brown sugar
- 1/2 Cup Oil of choice vegetable, canola, olive
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- 1 2/3 Cups Bread flour
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp Ground nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp Salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375˚F. Spray your muffin pan with cooking spray, use cupcake liners, or use another preferred non-stick method. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix your bananas, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract until combined well.
- Add the remaining ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt) to your wet ingredients and mix until just combined, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.
- Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cups in the muffin tin, each one should be 3/4 or almost full.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and muffins are rounded on top. If the toothpick has wet batter on it, put the muffins back in for 5 minutes at a time, keeping an eye on them.
- Remove the muffins from the oven and let them cool in the muffin pan for 5 minutes. Move them to a cooling rack and cool until you’re able to handle them with bare hands.
