Going Bananas!

A couple weeks ago, I had eight black bananas sitting on my counter. The obvious choice would have been to make banana bread, but it's not my favorite thing to eat and if I'm going to consume the calories it better be something I want! When I have a couple ripe bananas to use, I usually make Strawberry Jello Salad that my husband loves so much. But I had 8. EIGHT. That's a lot of black bananas. So I turned to my peeps on Facebook (I finally joined FB- yay!) and my friends came through for me with these two recipes. 

First off, I have to tell you why I had so many dang bananas. My husband likes to eat a bowl of frozen fruit at night and he likes to add a banana to it to break up the cold. Well he was out of cherries so he quit eating the bananas. They started to turn brownish and he didn't want them anymore so he bought fresh green ones. I used up a couple in smoothies, then a couple more in peanut butter banana sandwiches, then the new bananas that he bought started to get speckles on them and he quit eating those too! At this point I was staring at bananas on the counter that got darker by the day and they started to smell. They needed to be used and I'm not a fan of freezing them. 

Chocolate Chip Banana Coffee Cake- Go HERE for the recipe. 

Allie from Eat at Allie's suggested I make muffins but that's not what I was craving at the time. I wanted something a little more indulgent so I called my banana loving friend Ingrid from 3B's. Without hesitation, she recommended a banana coffee cake with a chocolate chip streusel. Funny thing about that recipe, is that I recommended it to her over two years ago! The recipe came full circle and I made it. Danelle from Let's Dish made it too! The house smelled heavenly and it was delicious. A couple mornings later, I made Allie's banana crumb muffins to take to a friend. I saved a few for us to have for breakfast and they were equally good and simple to make. All that to say that, I now have two  new banana recipes and you do too! Enjoy my friends. 

Banana Crumb Muffins adapted from Eat at Allie's

Printer Friendly Version 

For The Topping: 

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

For The Muffins: 

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

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cups*.

Make the topping: In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon.

Use a fork to cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Place in refrigerator until ready to use. 

Make the muffins: In large bowl, mix the mashed bananas with the sugar, egg, vanilla and melted butter. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until just combined. 

Use an ice cream scoop to evenly disperse the batter into prepared muffin cups.

Sprinkle crumb topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated oven for 17-19 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

*Makes 12-14 muffins. 

If you have any great recipes to use up ripe bananas, please let me know!