Friday, November 13, 2009

Banana Muffins to the Rescue

As I've mentioned before, Avo has one major pet peeve: He can't stand to see bananas go uneaten. It pains him to watch them get so dark and ripe that he knows they are destined for the trash. Before they reach that dire point, he is generally driven to make a banana smoothie or banana bread (in fact, he baked some just last week).

To save him the angst and the effort of baking again, I beat him to it.

Since I knew he'd be seriously bummed out if he came home from last night to find the darn bananas still hanging around, I baked banana muffins (for the first time ever).

Lucky I found this easy, kid-friendly recipe online.


Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted

Directions


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat muffin pans with non-stick spray, or use paper liners (I like the liners). Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. Combine bananas, sugar, egg, and melted butter in a large bowl. Fold in flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Scoop into muffin pans.

3. Bake in preheated oven. Bake mini muffins for 10 to 15 minutes, and large muffins for 25 to 30 minutes. You know they're done when the muffins spring back when lightly tapped.

The most fun part of the process was mashing the bananas. I used a potato masher and really enjoyed pounding the bananas to a pulp.

The least fun part was melting a frozen stick of butter in the microwave. Apparently, I left it in for too long because when I opened the door to the microwave, it smelled like popcorn and there was very little butter left in the glass measuring cup. Where had it disappeared to? Was this some sort of strange magic trick? Unfortunately, not.

Rather, the entire microwave was coated in a thin layer of butter. In case you're wondering, cleaning butter off the inside of a microwave is a real pain.

The muffins, however, turned out perfectly (once I melted more butter, of course). I gave a couple of muffins to Ruby's teachers and in return, they gave me the ultimate compliment.

"Can you bake these for the entire class?" they asked.

"Um, sure. Why not?"

So it looks as if I've got more banana mushing in my future.

5 comments:

Bernie Bernstein said...

It's Me, Mom - I think you boiled the butter instead of just melting it. Next time, try to think in advance and leave the stick(s) of butter in the fridge overnight. Then, cut it into chunks, place in a glass bowl and microwave on 6 or 7 (not on high)for 30 seconds at a time (checking each 30 secs to see if the butter is melted. Glad they turned out okay. I LOVE banana muffins. You might add some chopped walnuts or pecans for banana nut muffins. Yum!

Giggly said...

I looooove banana bread. It's very hard for me to just eat a plain banana, so they often go bad. Banana bread to the rescue!!! I love all banana desserts. Banana cream pie, Chunky Money ice cream, Banana split...Mmmmmmm.

Undomesticated Me said...

As always, mom is right! But I wasn't planning ahead. I like to be spontaneous with my muffins!

And Giggly, thanks for stopping by.

Susan Blumberg-Kason said...

Your posts are always very timely with my kitchen dilemmas. Those three stray bananas will be put to use today!

Undomesticated Me said...

How did your banana muffins turn out, Susan?