Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Banana Muffins - my over-ripe banana go-to

I love bananas, but the minute they get too yellow with brown spots I am over them.  For some reason I used to think that banana bread or muffins or some other recipe to use up over-ripe bananas would just be too difficult.  A while ago I decided to stop being wasteful and give the baking ago - turns out, its pretty simple!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
I decided to go with the Joy of Cooking's "Easy Quick Banana Bread" recipe.  My copy of the Joy of Cooking is actually my mom's from the 70's that I "borrowed" for a pie crust recipe a few years back and kept because it is a great resource for newbie cooks like me.

The Ingredients
The Necessities...
  • 1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
  • 2 1/4 baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
  • 1 to 2 eggs
  • 1 to 1 1/4 cup banana pulp - about 3 bananas
Old School Joy of Cooking - thanks mom!
First I blended together the flour, baking powder and the salt and set aside. 

Dry Ingredients
Next I mixed the shortening, lemon rind and sugar together until it was creamy - this is where that electric hand mixer I registered for would come in handy!

First "wet" ingredients
After the shortening was nice and creamy, I added the eggs - only 1 because the consistency seemed good to me, and I thought one more would have made the batter too wet.

Pre-Banana
After I mashed the three bananas up in a bowl with a fork, I added it to the bowl as well and mixed it together.

Bananas added
Since I had some chocolate chips left over in the cupboard, I decided to mix those into the batter as well.  You could also add some dried fruit or nuts if you want a bit of a different texture.  The wet mix was then mixed with the dry.

Ready for the pan
I know that the recipe was for bread, but I think muffins are a much better size, and it's easy to freeze a bunch for later - for instances like when guests come over and I need something quickly, or I am just being lazy ("guests coming over" sounds better though!)  I added about a tablespoon of batter to each greased mini muffin slot. 

Ready for the oven
Once the muffin pan was all filled, I placed it in a 350 degree oven for about 28 minutes - probably could have used a little less, but I was winging it because the recipe was for the bread, which had a baking time of almost an hour.

Ready to be eaten!
These were definitely a tasty treat for a Sunday morning when we did not feel like going out but wanted a special treat.  There were also plenty left over to store in the freezer for safe keeping.  While I have not studied the difference between a bread and muffin recipe, this bread recipe worked very well in a muffin tin, and I cannot wait to dig the extras out of the freezer!

Any other suggestions for overripe bananas?

5 comments:

  1. I love to make Banana Bread! I've never swapped the recipe for muffins but sounds like a great idea.

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  2. I love making banana bread or muffins with over-ripe bananas. People always say to freeze overripe bananas for baking or for smoothies but I have never tried it myself!

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  3. I usually make banana bread with overripe bananas... or I freeze them and chop them up and throw them in smoothies. (Frozen bananas + pb + vanilla yogurt + chocolate soymilk = amazing smoothie!)

    I am a chocoholic though and always have to put chocolate chips in my banana bread or muffins.

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  4. This is great. That is the recipe my mother used when I was growing up and it is delicious.

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  5. I make banana bread so much because we never eat bananas fast enough! I should make muffins sometime :)

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