Cooking with Klara: Banana Bread Muffin Variations

When I came in to work yesterday, there were a bunch of overripe bananas sitting on the counter. It’s incredible how quickly bananas go bad once summer hits. Most people find it frustrating, but I love it. It means I can make waffles or muffins that much sooner! So below are mine and Abby’s creations for the day: Banana bread muffins with a few surprises along the way :)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups of flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 over-ripe bananas, mashed (make sure they’re pretty dark in order to get a sweeter, richer taste)
• 1/4 cup yogurt (pick your flavor – we went with Strawberry because it’s the only yogurt Abby will eat)
• 1/3 cup of honey
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup of oil (we used Canola)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Mix-ins of your choice (we used strawberries and chocolate chips)

Directions

Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees. Then let your little ones fill the muffin pan up with liners. I wouldn’t try this recipe without liners – the muffins are so moist that they stick to the edge even with spray. Next you can have your little ones mixing together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Once the dry ingredients are mixed, place the bowl far out of reach – those rascals get into everything!

Now your kids can peel the bananas (Abby loves this part), and put them into another bowl. Then mash mash mash! Next you can let them add yogurt, honey egs, oil, and vanilla. Two notes here. 1. Don’t concern yourself with what flavor yogurt you use. You shouldn’t be able to taste the flavor through all the bananas. However, if you want to maximize on the yogurt flavor, use the base as a mix in (this is why Abs and I added strawberries to some of our bananas). It gives a great double layer to your muffins. 2. Eyeball the honey if possible. It will take forever to drain from your measuring cup and it won’t all come out. Honey is like the sweeter, yet just as stubborn, sister of Molasses.

Now you can let the little ones pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture, stirring until it is all well blended. Now add you can add your mixins if desired. We seperated the batter into four bowls, leaving one plain banana and then added either chocolate chips, strawberries, or both to the other mixtures. As a note…if you want to use chocolate chips, try using the mini ones. The normal sized chocolate chips can be overwhelming on this muffin, since the banana is sweet yet subtle.

Now simply fill the liners up with batter and bake for about 30 minutes! These muffins a great snack as they are super moist, but aren’t overly sweet. And they provide a great base for a whole world of variations :)