Cinnamon Banana Bread Muffins
With this recipe, I've found that it's perfect to use up those bananas, and transition from Summer to Fall seamlessly!
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.
Notes
Notes:
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.