Banana nut muffins

 

When bananas are over ripe and brown......make muffins!  Recently my husband and I have been eating a lot of bananas.  Every weekend I buy about two bunches of bananas.  This past week I started putting strawberries in my morning oatmeal instead of bananas so the extra bananas became brown and over ripe.  I set them aside and let them sit for about another week.  The more brown a banana gets the sweeter it is, but be careful you don't want it to start liquefying on your kitchen counter.  In this recipe I added walnuts to the batter and garnished each muffin with a walnut.  Walnuts are an optional ingredient so feel free to mix it up with a different nut or not have nuts at all.  I like the Walnuts because it gives the muffins texture and an added flavor.

Ingredients:

4 ripe bananas 

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

4 eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

about 1/2 cup whole walnuts

mush up the bananas in a bowl with a potato masher.  In another mixing bowl add the sugar and butter and cream together.  Then add the eggs buttermilk and vanilla and mix until smooth.  The batter will be a bit lumpy but don't worry about it.  Add in your mashed bananas.  Rinse out the bowl you used for the bananas and dry it.  In this bowl add the rest of the ingredients except for the nuts.  Whisk it so that all of the dry ingredients are mixed together.  Slowly add this to your banana mixture while mixer is on a low speed.  When all ingredients are mixed together fold in the chopped nuts using a spatula.

lightly spray a muffin tin and use muffin cups.  Fill each muffin cup almost to the top.  Place a whole walnut in each muffin and garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  The batter should make about 24 muffins.  Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees F and cook the muffins for about 25-30 minutes.  To make sure they are done insert a toothpick into the center of one, if it comes out clean they are done.  Allow them to cool for about 5 minutes and enjoy!