Yummy Monday: Banana Muffins

We always have a ton of bananas in our house.  Little Man loves them, called them "Banas"  He's actually eaten 2 in a row, and asked for a third.  Now I'm not sure if you can overdose on potassium, and anything else wonderful that you get in bananas, but we usually limit his banana intake to two a day, just in case.

I digress.  Every now and then, we'll go thru a week where he hasn't devoured every banana in the house.  When that happens, the picture below is what happens to those forgotten bananas.  Now what happened to this fabulous summer recipe I promised you last Friday?  It's here, hidden in something as basic as banana muffins. 

The wonderful thing about banana muffins is their versatility.  Straight up banana muffins, banana nut, banana "crumb" chocolate chip banana, strawberry banana, blueberry banana.  I could go on.  So here's my banana muffin recipe, and below will be some ways to vary it to fit your tastes, and your summer produce buys.

2/3 cups of milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil (*health kick:  substitute 1/2 cup unsweentened applesauce*)

2 eggs

2 cups flour (*health kick: substitute whole wheat flour*)

1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

4 very ripe bananas

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and grease just the bottom of your muffin tins (or use liners).  This recipe will make 18 regular muffins or 72 itty bitty baby muffins, or any combination thereof.  For all intents and purposes, 6 regular muffins is equal to 24 baby muffins.

Mash bananas, milk, oil (applesauce) brown sugar and eggs in a large bowl.  Stir in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  To summerify (yeah, I just made that word up) this recipe add in:

1 cup blueberries OR

1 cup strawberries (chopped up pretty small)

To make this into a Fall recipe, add in:

1 cup finely chopped apples and 2 tbsp cinnamon

For the chocolate lovers, add in 1 cup chocolate chips

Fill the cups a good 3/4+ full.  I love a good streusel topping, however my waistline does not appreciate it as much.  I create a delicious "fake" streusel topping by sprinkling a little cinnamon on the batter once it's in the tins, and then about a teaspoon or less of brown sugar on top of that.  It gives the muffins just a little extra spice and sweetness.

Bake the baby muffins at 400 degrees for 9-10 minutes.  The regular sized muffins can be cooked at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.  In this photo you can see I added chocolate chips to the mini ones in this batch, and 3 of the 6 regular muffins with my faux streusel topping are already gone, mere minutes after I took them out of the oven!  Enjoy!