Anyone else have bananas getting overripe in a day or two? I always buy bananas and, if we don’t eat them fast enough, I usually freeze them in chunks to use in smoothies or banana “ice cream”. But sometimes they get even too ripe for that. And that is one of the few times in the summer that I turn my oven on. Because way overripe bananas make the best banana bread (but in the summer I do muffins because they take about a third of the time in the oven).
Every time I make muffins, I double the recipe. Chances are high that I have a friend who could use a quick snack or breakfast and, if not, they always freeze well. Since each of my kids has specific flavor faves, this time I mixed up my double batch and divided the batter into thirds to make 3 different kinds of muffins. And it was a huge hit. Each child has a different favorite so I’m totally set for snacks for the next several days.
Base banana muffin recipe for 24 muffins (originally found in Genius Kitchen):
Cream together 1 cup of butter with 2 cups of sugar (I use about a cup and a half of sugar just to cut back a bit). Add 6 mashed bananas, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 4 beaten eggs. Mix together. In a separate bowl, stir together 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt. Blend dry ingredients into wet being careful to not over mix.
Three varieties. ***Note, the base recipe is amazing on it’s own so if you want a plain banana muffin, go ahead and follow the baking instructions. If you want different varieties, separate the batter into three bowls.
Chocolate Chip. In this bowl of batter, I just added a good handful or two of chocolate chips. You can add cocoa powder to make them extra chocolatey but I like to keep it simple.
Lemon. Add 1 teaspoon of lemon extract to the batter. AFTER BAKING AND COOLING, mix together one Tablespoon each of sugar and lemon juice and heat until sugar is dissolved. Poke holes in tops of muffins (I used a toothpick) and drizzle with lemon syrup.
Cinnamon Crunch. Add 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon to batter. Mix 1 Tablespoon each of white sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon and coat the tops of the muffins with the mixture.
Then bake them all together at 350. It took mine about 28 minutes to bake, but all ovens are different so I would start checking at around 24 minutes to gauge your time. You’re looking for a nice golden brown top. Enjoy! And don’t tell my kids I ate TWO of the lemon muffins for dessert tonight!
