This is, without a doubt, one of my favourite recipes.
It's super easy to make, uses up those bananas that are looking too sad to eat but you'd feel bad about throwing away, and the result is incredibly delicious. I make these quite often and people love them. Whenever I bring a batch to the office or my hubby gets a wiff there are trips made to get the kettle on.
This is actually a quickbread recipe, one I've been using to make banana bread since I can remember. Well, sort of. I decided to try give it a few tweaks to attempt to make them a touch healthier and lighter. I've replaced the butter with sunflower oil and decreased the sugar. You could also add bran to up the fibre content.
The struesel topping, on the other hand, was just my way of adding more flavour and texture. The hit of cinnamon goes so well with banana, they're the perfect couple! We'll ignore that it adds butter to the muffins. (It's only a very small amount of butter!) (Oh yeah, and sugar. But, shhhh!)
Reduced sugar and no butter, these are still exceptionally tasty.
Streusel ingredients ready to be mixed up
As I said, I've taken these to work a few times, and I always get back comments of major approval. They're moist, light, not too sweet, and the crunchy struesel topping adds another taste and texture to the muffins that make them that little bit different. I actually think I'm going to make that my muffin signature.
Now, you don't have to have the struesel if you want to keep these as lean as possible. You can also substitute any other of your favourite nuts for the pecans, they just happen to be my favourite. Even try adding sunflower or linseed.
I like to roast the pecans. I find this gives them a much better flavour and do the same for carrot cake. I simply pop them in the oven while it's busy pre-heating and as soon as I can smell them, they're ready! If you don't trust your nose, roast them for about three to five minutes at 180°C (or 160°C fan assisted). Trust me, this makes all the difference to these muffins.
Mmmm, crunchy cinnamonniniininii tops!
This is a simple one bowl method and you can mix them up and have them baked in no more than 35 minutes, so you can have them on the breakfast table in no time at all, still hot and steamy.
Breakfast, lunch or an afternoon snack, these always hit the spot.
Cinnamon Streusel
Ingredients
1/2 cup Plain Flour
1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar, lightly packed
60g Unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
Pinch of Salt
Method
- Lightly whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl
- Add the softened butter and rub into dry ingredients with your fingertips
- OR
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until combined
- Tip: There should be no dry ingredients left. At this stage it doesn't matter if there are large clumps.
- Refrigerate until needed
Banana Pecan Muffins
Makes 12 large muffins
Ingredients
2 cups Plain Flour
3/4 cup Granulated White or Gold Sugar
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
3/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
Pinch of Salt
1/3 cup Sunflower or Canola Oil
2 Large Eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup Milk (full cream, low fat or skim)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
4 large Ripe Bananas, mashed
100g Roasted Pecans, roughly chopped
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan assisted)
- Line a muffin pan with liners
- In a large bowl whisk together the dry ingredients excluding the pecans
- In a small bowl or jug, combine the wet ingredients excluding the banana
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix together until just combined, either with a whisk, wooden spoon or with an electric/stand mixer
- Stir in the mashed bananas
- Gently fold in the pecans
- Spoon the batter into liners
- Break up any large clumps of streusel mixture with a fork and sprinkle mixture on to batter
- Bake until top of muffins spring back when lightly pressed, about 20-25mins (a toothpick won't come out clean as it's a very moist muffin, but shouldn't come out with any raw batter)
- Remove from oven and leave to cool for 10-15mins before removing muffins from tray and cooling on a wire rack
- Enjoy still warm or compeltely cooled!
Other Tips:
Will keep fresh for 2-3 days when kept in an airtight container at room temp, although the streusel topping may lose its crunch
