I Have a Confession...

So, I have a confession. I've never actually made muffins from scratch. I know, right?! I've made them from the box, and I used to work in a bakery where the dough would come premade and we would fill the tins and bake them. But making them from scratch - never. Until today!

Bananas usually get eaten pretty quickly at our house. However, my son has not been too keen on them lately and now my daughter didn't seem too into them either. So I had two bananas left and they were in the beginning stages of being too ripe to enjoy. I thought about making banana nut bread. But then I thought banana nut muffins might be really yummy!

So I googled "the best banana nut muffins" and got a recipe that sounded really good. I tweaked it slightly and this is what I came up with:

2-3 ripe bananas

one egg

1/3 cup melted butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp lemon extract

2 Tb strong coffee or espresso

6 Tb milk (if using 3 bananas, cut this to 3 Tb)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

*recipe adapted from HERE

Preheat your oven to 350. You'll need two bowls, one for wet ingredients, and one for dry ingredients. Mash up the bananas with a fork in the wet ingredient bowl. Stir in the rest of the wet ingredients (egg, melted butter, vanilla, coffee, milk).

Put all of your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nuts) into the other bowl. Stir, making sure that all the ingredients are combined well.

Next, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Do not stir at this point - you want to FOLD it slowly and carefully around 10-12 times. Your batter will be lumpy - that is how you want it.

Now you can fill your muffin tin! This recipe made 12 muffins. I used cupcake liners for mine, but you can spray your tin with cooking spray or a small amount of shortening to prevent sticking. I find the liners to be much easier with clean up - and much easier to get out of the tin.

Sprinkle some sugar on top of your batter. Be generous - it makes a delicious glaze on top while baking!

Bake them for 18-20 minutes at 350. I have a gas oven and it seems to bake more quickly than an electric, so mine were done after 18 minutes. Depending on your oven you may have to go a little longer. Test it with a toothpick.

These are so moist, and the sugar on top really adds to the delicious-ness.

If you don't devour them straight out of the oven (my 2 year old daughter gobbled up two of them right away), wrap them up and save for later - pop them in the microwave for a few seconds... maybe add a dollop of butter and enjoy!

Keep it sweet!

Elizabeth