Banana Crumb Muffins

Crumb-y

Crumby, sweet banana goodness.

Banana Crumb Muffins
adapted from Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and oil. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Details: I didn’t intend to bake today nor did I intend my next baking venture to be more banana muffins. I like banana muffins, but these are like the fourth batch of banana muffins out of the seven things I’ve baked in the last six months. In any case, we had exactly three large over ripe bananas (right amount for decent muffins or loaf) that we tried to eat yesterday, but I couldn’t finish them. I also woke up at 5:30AM this morning for no reason, and I am a morning baker. Perfect opportunity to bake, and I had never tried crumb muffins before.

The original recipe calls for melted butter, but most reviews on Allrecipes suggested oil. To be even more experimental, I used virgin olive oil which didn’t seem to take away from the sweetness of the muffins and lowered the fat content. As usual, I cut down the white sugar to somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup, but next time I will use exactly 1/2 because the large bananas and the topping make it sweet enough. I used 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, up from the 1/8 in the original recipe, because I didn’t have a 1/8 teaspoon which is more a dash of anything really. If you like things cinnamony (recent studies have showed it lowers blood pressure), it’s good to use that much and add a tiny bit to the batter as well. My oven only has degrees in increments of 50, so I usually move the knob between 350 and 400. I have no idea if that works, but I took the muffins out after 20 minutes. They still could have benefited from an additional two minutes since the muffins were a little too moist.

Still, the best banana muffins I have made so far. I’ll definitely make them again, and maybe even add some walnuts.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.