bananas come to my house to suffer prolonged deaths
We buy a large bunch of them every week, but they’re just so easy to forget about. Jacob will go through periods when he wants to devour them. Currently, he is going through a “yuck” stage with bananas. When they get too brown to look at anymore (when I remember to look at them), they get stuck in the freezer and wait until I can come up with something creative to do with them. Lots of times, they even get thrown away. Very undignified.
Last night I flipped past Ina Garten making Banana Crunch Muffins. I’m not usually big into nuts, but it was enough to inspire me to find a new banana muffin for breakfast this morning. I found a recipe for Banana Crumb Muffins that looked good on bakingsheet. Let’s face it. I’m a sucker for any muffin with a crumb. The info Nic has on that page about bananas was really interesting, with some great links. For example, I learned that the plants that yield bananas are the largest herbs in the world, that bananas are actually berries, and that it’s indeed possible to live on a diet of bananas and milk alone. Fascinating stuff.
The muffins were delicious. I was expecting them to be like mini-banana breads, but they weren’t at all. They had a nice, firm texture, were not overly sweet, and turned out pretty. I love pretty food. They domed just right, and the crumb slightly browned nicely. I changed the recipe just a tad, as I didn’t have buttermilk in da house. While we’ll definately make this again, I think I might substitue butter for the shortening in the crumb mixture to see how the flavor and texture changes.
To go with the muffins we had hearty scrambled eggs (I don’t have a pan large enough to make an omlette big enough for 3 of us!) with diced ham, green onions, diced tomatoes and cheddar cheese. The breakfast was TttttHhhhhhhhIiiiiiSsssss good.
muffin
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2/3 sugar
3 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 t lemon juice added to milk to make 1/2 cup total (in place of buttermilk)
1 egg
2 mashed bananas, divided
1 t vanilla
crumb topping
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 t salt
3 T shortening
1 T mashed bananas
Sift together first four ingredients. Whis together the rest of the ingredients, reserving 1 T of mashed bananas for the topping. Stir together until just combined. Fill 12 muffin cups each 2/3 full. To make topping, whisk together dry ingredients, cut in shortening, add banana. Top each muffin with the crumb mixture. Bake at 350 for 18-21 minutes.
The batch makes 12 muffins, each with 229 calories, 7.3 g of fat and .9 g fiber, or 5.0 Weight Watcher Points. I used nonfat milk in this recipe and for the calculations.