Banana Muffins || Eatz

I love me some banana bread! My mom works at the local hospital and, sometimes, she brings back super ripe bananas because the hospital can't use them to feed their patients. She looked in the freezer this morning and found freezer bags full of bananas; I guess it's about time to make some banana bread. My mom likes to bake them in loafs or mini loafs (which look really cute) but I prefer mine in muffin form. I like to stick one in my purse (wrapped in plastic wrap of course) when I don't have time to eat breakfast. 

Got my music turned up and I'm ready to get my hands dirty!

Makes 30 cupcake-sized muffins.

1. Pre-heat your oven to 350°C with the racks in the middle. While you are pre-heating your oven, put your walnuts on a tray so that they are ready for toasting! When oven is done pre-heating ("beep"), stick your walnuts in the oven and set timer for 5-7 minutes. Take out and let it cool. Roughly chop the walnuts into chunks. Set aside

2. In a small sauce pan, melt your butter until it becomes a translucent liquid. Take off heat and let cool. You're going to see some white film/foam on the surface of your melt butter. Scoop it out and now you're left with clear melted goodness. Set aside.

3. Take out your mixer (bowl and wooden spoon if you are old school), and mix all your dry ingredients including the walnuts. Mix until well incorporated.

4. In separate bow, mash your bananas. If your bananas are frozen like mine, make sure that they are room temperature before mashing or it will take you forever! You can use your food processor if you like. Either way, do not mash/process it until it becomes a purée; if it looks like baby food, you've gone too far. Add your eggs, vanilla, and cooled down butter. Make sure it's cool or else you'll end up getting scrambled eggs in your bananas. Mix well.

5. Add your wet ingredient into your dry ingredients. Mixer: set it to the lowest setting. Using a wooden spoon? Fold your wet ingredients into the dry. Make sure that all your dry ingredients are mixed well in your batter; you don't want to have lumps of flour in your muffin. Your batter should look chunky; if you mix it until it's smooth, your muffins will have a rubbery texture.

6. Fill your pre-lined muffin pan with batter. I'm using a 1" cookie dough scooper and it was just around two scoops per muffin cup. If you're just eyeballing it, I would fill it just over 2/3 of the way. Top off each muffin with a whole walnut or chopped walnut pieces.

7. Put them in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes; rotate them half way through. Take a toothpick and stick them through the muffins to make sure that they're done. You know when they're all done when the toothpick comes out looking clean -- if there are crumbs stuck to it, put it back in for an extra minute or two.

8. Let them cool off in the pan for 5 minutes and then let them rest for an addition 30 minutes on a rack before putting them into containers.

There you have it! Best when it's serve warm with some butter. Mmmmm!

And if you live around the Vancouver area and you like your banana bread, check out To Die For for their amazing banana bread! I was able to meet Erin Ireland, the creator of To Die For Banana Bread, at her booth located in Chinatown's night market a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if she is there all summer or if it was just a pop-up but it was nice to hear how passionate she is and all the love she puts into her banana bread. Go to the website and they have a list of places where To Die For banana is being sold at. And seriously, it's TO DIE FOR! 


Good Eatz!
- V