For the last two weeks, an increasingly pervasive, sweet fragrance saturated the air in my kitchen. Not from the stone-ware pitcher of lilacs sitting in the middle of the table but rather, from a bunch of bananas rotting on my counter. Even heavily perfumed french lilacs can’t mask the bouquet of decomposing bananas. When I walked into the kitchen this morning, I knew they were ready. Using under ripe bananas for tea breads, cakes or muffins is fruitless. The dense, moist, honeyed bite you expect will be parched and insipid. For years, I’ve thrown too-ripe-to-peel-and-eat, but not-ripe-enough-to-bake-with bananas in the freezer where I thought they would continue ripening. It turns out that the bananas didn’t get any riper they just turn black and get super slimy. I’ve been asked too many times, ‘are these banana muffins?’ There should be no doubt on the biter’s tongue what kind of muffin they’re eating. Which takes me back to the smell in my kitchen this morning. Lovely, naturally ripened, ready for the compost or ready to bake with, bananas. I decided to bake muffins…
BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP SKOR BIT MUFFINS
SKOR BIT CRUNCH INGREDIENTS:
½ cup flour
¼ cup sugar
½ cup skor bits
¼ cup butter, melted
MUFFINS INGREDIENTS:
3 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 large ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
2/3 cup butter, melted
1 ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
SKOR BIT CRUNCH STEPS:
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In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and sugar.
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Add butter and mix with a fork until crumbly. It will gather together like in a mass but keep mixing until it starts to crumble apart. You may have to crumble it apart with your finger tips.
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Once the crunch is completely cooled, toss in the skor bits
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Set aside.
MUFFINS STEPS:
- Spray muffin tin with a non-stick spray [ DO NOT USE PAPER LINERS ]. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix together mashed bananas, beaten eggs and melted butter until well combined.
- Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and gently mix, until all the flour is off the bottom of the bowl and no big pockets of flour remain. The batter will be thick and a little lumpy.
- Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins, filling all the way to the top.
- Divide Skor Bit Crumble between the muffin tops. Use your finger tips…
- Bake at 425*F degrees for 5 minutes.
- Keep the muffins in the oven, reduce oven temperature to 375*F and continue to bake for 20 minutes until tops are golden. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.
- Allow muffins to cool for 10 minutes.
- Store muffins at room temperature in an airtight container. They will also freeze perfectly.
THE LOVE: Make sure your bananas are stinky ripe!
Thanks for reading.
