The banana's made me do it!!!



A great cookbook from my friend, Janine.

The banana's made me to it! That's what I told my husband when he walked into the kitchen and he "caught me" baking when I was supposed to be going downstairs to work out. But as I passed from my office and through the kitchen, I saw those two overly ripe, black bananas sitting on the counter (the ones I refused to throw away yesterday). The banana's called out to me--"Help me!"

Now I love to bake and I know that you need really ripe bananas to make a really good banana bread. But I didn't want banana bread, I wanted muffins. Hmmm.....what cookbook should I use? I started to head back to my office where I have my collection of over 1,000 cookbooks but then I stopped and remembered the "The American Country Inn Bed & Breakfast Cookbook" tucked inside my kitchen cabinet. My friend, Janine, had given this cookbook  to me several years ago. She said it was one of her favorites. I had found several good recipes in it before so I thought maybe I could find a good banana muffin recipe. 

Well, I found several banana muffin recipes...some had nuts, some had chocolate chips, some had blueberries. I thought, "Why not make a batch of banana muffins and divide it into three and make three different flavors?" So, I found what sounded like a really good banana muffin recipe, one that was easy and that I had all of the ingredients on hand.

On page 280, of this 1987 issue of  The American Country Inn and Bed & Breakfast Cookbook by Kitty and Lucian Maynard, I found the following Banana-Nut Muffin recipe from the B&B called The Lords Propriertors' Inn in Edenton, North Carolina.. This cookbook features--More than 1,700 crowd-pleasing recipes from 500 American Inns.

Banana-Nut Muffins - I'm renaming them Banana Buttermilk Muffins! (I do recommend real buttermilk)
You'll see below that I made some with nuts, some with chocolate chips and some with blueberries.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare muffin cups with paper or foil liners (or grease).
Makes 18-20 muffins.

Blend together:

1/2 cup oil (I used canola)
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs; beaten
3 bananas, mashed (I only had 2bananas)
3 Tab. buttermilk (you can make your own by adding 1 tsp. of vinegar to 3 Tab. of regular milk)
1 tsp. vanilla

Blend, "Sift" and gradually add to above:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

I tweaked the process just a little by the order of how I mixed the ingredients (already shown above); and I did "sift" the flour (which I rarely do). But after I blended everything with the hand mixer, I separated the muffin mix into three bowls of approximately 1 1/2 cup portions. To one bowl, I added some chopped walnuts; to another, I added some chocolate chips; and to another, I added some blueberries (best if they are slightly thawed--if frozen).

Oh, as I was placing the muffin tins in the oven, I told my husband, Mark, that I wasn't going to put any "crumbles" on top of the muffins this time--I didn't need the extra calories. He sighed, "They're not going to be as good." So I pulled them back out of the oven and set them aside while I made my "standard" muffin topping. It takes a few minutes but is well worth it. For the crumble, I put into a small (a cereal bowl works fine) bowl, 1 1/2 Tab. white flour, 3 Tab. white sugar (you could substitute brown sugar), 2 1/2 Tab. of chilled butter cut into small pieces. I cut through this with a fork and knife until crumbly. I added a dash of cinnamon for good measure. When it looked like the flour was blended in thoroughly, I put a heaping teaspoon of the crumble on top of each muffin before baking.

I like to use foil muffin cupcake liners in my muffin tins but a paper liner will do (or you could grease the muffin tins). I was able to make 20 nice size muffins (filled 2/3 full). I do suggest that you put the blueberry muffins in their own muffin tin as they may take longer than the other muffins to bake. Speaking of baking, bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until done (insert a toothpick or cake tester to check for doneness).

They ended up being "surprise" muffins because, other than the blueberry muffins, I couldn't tell which muffins were with chocolate chips and which ones were with walnuts! Oh my gosh--are they delicious! So much in fact, that I gobbled down two muffins before I realized that I should have photographed a muffin cut open with melted butter (of course) for this blog! Thus, the photo of the muffins that you see are still tucked neatly in their foil cups (most of them I put in the freezer--muffins freeze well). I recommend eating them warm with a little butter. (Of if you re-heat later in the microwave, be sure to remove the foil cupcake liner (if used) or you will have sparks and no muffin to eat!)

They are oh so light and flavorful! I think the banana muffins with walnuts are my favorite! Enjoy and share the recipe with a friend--and a link to my Blog!



They may not look fancy but trust me--they taste GREAT!