For some reason, when we buy bananas there is always one left behind that doesn’t seem to get eaten. If you have a banana turning brown on the counter, that is the best banana to bake with! If you don’t have time to bake it up in something yummy, put it in the freezer until you do. Once cold, the whole peel will turn dark brown, but just let it sit at room temp for a couple of hours and then slice one end off. The inside of the banana will easily slide out into a measuring cup, ready for you to bake with!
Actually this time I forgot to defrost the banana so I “defrosted” it in the toaster oven for 10 mins at 300 degrees while gathering everything else I needed.
Use 2 bananas for these Banana Oat Muffins:
Ingredients
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 shakes of salt
4 TB unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar (we used turbinado sugar)
1 large egg
1 cup mashed ripe banana
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup milk (we used almond milk)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together oats, flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and sugar until blended - the mixture will be sandy, rather than smooth. We used a hand mixer.
4. Add egg, banana and vanilla to lare bowl and mix until combined.
5. Gradually add dry ingredients to the large bowl, and stir mixture together until just combined.
6. Yummy mix-ins! We divided our mixture into 3 parts and added a different mix-in to each part: peanuts, chopped apple and raisins. Each of those 3 sections was poured into 2 jumbo muffin baking cups - making 2 banana peanut muffins, 2 banana apple muffins and 2 banana raisin muffins. Adding cinnamon or nutmeg to the apple or raisin muffins would be tasty too. Go easy with nutmeg, it’s strong!
7. After pouring into muffin tins (it’s OK to fill them up high), bake until the edges are golden and the centers are just set, about 25 minutes.
8. Let cool 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Serve at room temp or warm, plain or with butter or honey on top! Yum!
