Banana Muffins this time!

and you thought another banana bread? I think I finally found perfection with banana bread. We absolutely love that last recipe I tried, but I'm always open to try another! So with this week's brown speckled banana's I made Banana Nut Streusel Muffins. Rosemary posted the recipe over at gardenbuddies.

One word. KEEPER! These are fantastic, even with lousy baking skills such as mine, these came out so moist, so light and so good! I used brown sugar for the white, and maybe next time would use a little less sugar. and I added pecans. These are a really nice change from the banana loaves my family has come to expect! Thank you, Rosemary, these were delicious!

Banana Crumb Muffins

Source: posted Rosemary at gardenbuddies, original recipe from Allrecipes – Lisa Kreft

adapted There's Always Thyme to Cook

Printable Recipe

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 ( I used brown sugar, not packed)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan, or line with muffin papers. I used silicone muffin cups!

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 melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Mix in the pecans, if using. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

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.

Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Joining Mary's Mosaic Monday. For more mosaic's stop by the Little Red House!

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Banana Bread or something new?

Banana Bread or something new? I went with new!  I had a bunch of overripe banana's and my usual go to thing to do would be banana nut bread. But I do have a load of cookbooks and a lazy afternoon, so I set out to find something different to make with them before they turned to complete mush. A banana daiquiri would be nice, but I had about six banana's, those could make a huge pitcher, not sure I would last through dinner with that many cocktails. One daiquiri, two daiquiri, three daiquiri, FLOOR!  So I went with Banana Bran Muffins. From The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread. They sounded really good. Although so does a daiquiri now and again!

First off the bat, my baking never usually is completely successful, I have few complete successes in this department. This time, in spite of myself, I had a winner. No smoke alarm, no overflow, no mess. Just good, moist, dense muffins. OK, so I skipped a step, I didn't toast the walnuts. I didn't have wheat bran, I had oat bran cereal. When I measured out most of a one pound box of bran to get 2 1/4 cups, I got a little nervous. But I was already 5 banana's and two sticks of butter into this thing. and I dumped it all into the stand mixer.

Seemed like I had a lot of batter. I used standard muffin pans like the recipe said. Maybe my standards are lower? But I ended up with way more than 12 muffins. Fine by us, these are fantastic. And I'll freeze some and see how that works! 

 I used my colorful silicone muffin cups. Love these things!

I should have filled the cups a little more. They didn't run all over the place. They came out great.

The silicone muffin cups work like a charm. No greasing the pan or anything, and the muffins just slid out perfectly! These tasted amazing and we loved the burst of the mushy banana in the middle. This recipe is a keeper!

That gooey glob in the middle is melted banana! and it's good. Really good!

Banana Bran and Toasted Walnut Muffins
Source: The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread, by Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree.
Adapted by There's Always Thyme to Cook
Printable Recipe

Makes more than 12 large muffins

2 1/8 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups wheat bran (I used oat bran!)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 3/4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 5)
2 sticks (1 cup) + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 1/3 cups walnut pieces, toasted (or not!)
1 or 2 ripe bananas, sliced into 12 chunks

Preheat to 350° F.

In the large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, bran, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of the stand mixer, beat the mashed banana and the softened butter until mixed. It may look lumpy, but that’s fine. Add the eggs and brown sugar and mix until thoroughly combined.

Gently fold the flour mixture into the banana mixture, just until combined. Do not overmix. Then fold in the toasted walnut pieces. *I put it all in the stand mixer and mixed it on the lowest setting until it was combined. Take care not to overwork the batter.

Scoop the batter into the muffin cups. Push one banana chunk into the batter and cover the banana. The batter will be mounded over the top.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the muffin comes out clean. The muffin tops should be medium brown.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack. Serve within 8 hours for best texture, and wrap the remainder in plastic to keep fresh.

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Flashback Fridays! Coffee Cakes.

Fridays! Time for Flashback Friday with Suzy at Kitchen Bouquet! Check out Suzy's blog to see the other flashbacks from around the blog world. and don't forget on June 11th, Suzy will be hosting a good old fashioned Ice Cream Social! So get out your recipes for your frozen treats or grab a Ben & Jerry's from the freezer and join in. Details to follow in the next few days.

Today I'm flashing back to a really good Coffee cake recipe that I've been making for years. A teacher aide at my kids school when they were little brought it in one day and we raved about it. I'm pretty sure I posted this in my first long lost blog, the one that got deleted. Don't ever push that delete button just to see what happens. I found out it's pretty much permanent. I know I used one of the pictures in my banner. but it's a really great recipe and I thought I'd flash back to it because there is nothing like a really good piece of coffee cake!

It's my dad's birthday today! He loved nothing better than to come home after a bunch of errands and have an ice cold glass of milk and a slice of cake. His favorite was a Brooklyn Blackout Cake but he'd never say no to a piece of Coffee Cake, Pound Cake, Sponge Cake or just about any other kind of cake. He would have been 81 years old today.

Coffee Cake
from Mrs. Watson
Printable Recipe

TOPPING:
1 cup sugar
5 tablespoons chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons sweetened shredded coconut

CAKE:
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter (unsalted)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
2 cups sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla

FOR TOPPING: Combine all ingredients and set aside.

FOR CAKE: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 9 X 13" pan. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Cream butter with sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in sour cream and vanilla. Mix in dry ingredients until just blended. Spoon into prepared pan. Sprinkle with topping. Swirl knife through topping and batter. Bake until tester comes out clean, 45-50 minutes.





The recipe makes a really good muffin, too! I used a square crumb cake pan like this one from Amazon. You can use it for brownies, muffins, cheesecakes, whatever.

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A Banana Nut Chocolate Chip Muffin Loaf?

So what's a muffin loaf? 12 little muffins baked in a loaf. I am muffin and cupcake challenged. They burn, they overflow, they just don't work out. My kids always got store bought cupcakes. At one point when I was forced to bake cupcake cones for the very first time, I went up and down the aisles and kept looking for cupcake mix. I had no clue you got cupcakes from a cake mix. Baking challenged. and at that point I had never heard of baking from scratch in my house! That was something only my grandmother did. I learned my lesson. or I should say I burned my lesson. I went through a lot of cake mix for that first try at cupcake cones.

So now all my muffins end up as a loaf, my cupcakes come from a bakery and everybody here is happy.

I used a Banana Nut Muffin recipe from Elise at Simply Recipes. Hers looked fantastic. I was hooked. I wanted to add chocolate chips but I didn't have any, so I added in chocolate disks. That just doesn't have the same ring to it. Banana Nut Chocolate Disk Muffins? If you have muffin problems like me, then just bake in a loaf pan for about an hour until the toothpick comes out clean!

Ready to bake...




Fresh from the oven!



Still warm, oozing with melted, gooey chocolate! Perfection. This is a great recipe, full of flavor and a little less dense than the one I usually use. This one was raved about. It's a keeper. Goodbye old recipe! I may even get the courage up to make them into muffins next time. They'd have to be fantastic. If I don't burn them.

Grab an ice cold glass of milk and dig in...




Banana Nut Muffins
from Elise at Simply Recipes

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tbsp espresso or strong coffee (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup of flour
1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted or raw)
Method

No need for a mixer with this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

Mix in the sugar, egg, espresso and vanilla.

Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

Add the flour, mix until it is just incorporated. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

Pour mixture into a prepared muffin tin. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

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