Mmmm, mmmm....

Hello y'all! I got the chance to bake some yummy treats (for fun!) this weekend, so I thought I'd share my latest baking adventures with you. I got this nifty cupcake carrier for Christmas from my parents, so I thought, what better than to make one batch of muffins and one batch of cupcakes! Nate suggested I start putting out a tip jar in the break room at work next to my baked goodies...because my co-workers have got it made....

I don't know about all of you, but when I have some over-ripe bananas, I toss them into the freezer with visions of baked banana bread in my future. Instead of banana bread this time, however, I decided to make Banana Crumb Muffins. My mom gave me this recipe from AllRecipes.com as part of my Christmas gift, so what better time to give it a try than the first time I use my cupcake carrier. Click the link above for the recipe, or here it is:

Ingredients
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1.5 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. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping onto muffins.
4. Bake in a preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

I began by preheating my oven, lining my muffin pan with muffin cups, and mixing the dry ingredients together, as the recipe states.

Then I peeled my black skinned bananas (ha!) and mixed those in with the wet ingredients.


Then I poured the wet mixture into the dry mixture, and wha-la!

Easy cheesy! Into the muffin cups they went... Then I mixed together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon (I added extra) and the butter. I ended up using the beaters from my hand mixer to cut in the butter, as I cannot find our pastry blender anywhere. Has anybody seen it? We re-org'ed our kitchen again over Christmas break, so I have a feeling it got lost in the shuffle.

Anyway, I sprinkled the topping over the muffin batter and put them into the oven straightaway...

I set the oven timer for the full 20 minutes, as our gas oven usually takes longer than recommended to cook things. However, when the 20 minutes was up, a toothpick inserted into the center came out clean. In fact, they were a bit brown around the edges, so I think I could have baked them the 18 minutes and they would have been perfect.

Regardless, they came out looking like this...

Big, fluffy muffins (now I know why the recipe recommends only making 10) and the crumb topping just looked scrumptious.



Of course I tried one (just one!). I love the crumb topping. I think this will definitely replace my traditional banana muffin recipe as my "go to." As I suspected, I think I cooked them a little too long, as the inside wasn't quite as moist as I had hoped. Not bad, by any means, but I'll keep a closer eye on them next time. Maybe it's the darker colored pan that made the difference.

Next up in my baking adventures, chocolate stout cupcakes...