Banana Bread Muffins

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One of the recipes I am trying to perfect or adapt to my own is a good banana muffin recipe. I have a muffin pan, and I am going to use it. This is my third try with it, the first weren’t so good, but these muffins were different but still good. It is more of a bread-loaf texture than a conventional buffin muffin; you can make this into a 9×5 loaf as well.

Banana Bread Muffins
adapted from allrecipes.com’s Sarah’s Banana Bread Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup of applesauce or vegetable oil
1/4 cup walnuts or shredded coconut
1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 350’F. Place muffin cups in tin or grease with butter.
2. Mix sugar, egg, oil, vanilla until creamy and light yellow. Add bananas and nuts/coconuts. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir until completely smooth. Spoon into tin.
3. Bake for 20-30 minutes until golden brown and toothpick poked into centre of muffins comes out clean.

Review: I was apprehensive because the dough was very sticky, but they rose wonderfully in the end. I wish I added more nuts (put less than 1/4 cup in) because it’s great with a crunch. I want to try the coconuts next time and maybe 4 bananas instead of 3 to make them more moist. The additional vanilla and cinnamon made the flavour more complex.

Additional Notes:

  • You can use chocolate chips or oats to substitute the walnuts/coconuts
  • The applesauce makes this recipe much less fattening. The original recipe calls for 1 cup sugar which many people find a tad too sweet especially if you use more than 3 bananas and use applesauce and the coconut.
  • This is something I always forget, but if you have a dark muffin tin like I do, try setting the oven to 25’F less than the recipe calls for.
  • With muffins, even of the “bread” and forgiving variety such as this, avoid over mixing. My dough was not necessarily smooth, but sticky and mixed enough.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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