Passionfruit Banana Muffins #MuffinMonday

With well-ripened bananas for sweetness and fresh passionfruit pulp for a little added zip, these passionfruit banana muffins make a great breakfast, mid-morning or after school snack.

Often when I make banana muffins, I add some lemon juice and/or zest. That hint of tartness brightens them up. Ditto for passionfruit! The bonus with passionfruit is the little crunchy seeds that make a satisfying pop as you chew them. Some people strain these out, but why?

If you are a fan of banana muffins, you might also want to check out my Peanut Butter Stuffed Banana Muffins, Banana Honey Muffins or my fancier Bananas Foster Muffins.

Passionfruit Banana Muffins

If you only have canned passionfruit pulp, you can use it as a substitute, with perhaps a little added lemon juice to add a bit more tang.

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups or 218g flour
1/2 cup or 100g packed soft dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3 very ripe bananas (about 10 oz or 285g by weight when peeled)
2 tablespoons fresh passionfruit pulp (about 30g)
1/3 cup or 80ml light vegetable oil
2 eggs

Optional for topping: 2 tablespoons amber sugar crystals

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your muffin pan or line it with paper cups.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt together. Make sure to mash out any lumps of brown sugar.

Mash the bananas with a fork then add in the passionfruit pulp, eggs and oil. Whisk until thoroughly combined.

Fold your wet ingredients into your dry ones until they are just mixed.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups and sprinkle the tops with the sugar crystals, if using.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool slightly in the muffin pan before removing to a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Check out the other lovely muffins my Muffin Monday bakers have for you today!

• Coffee Cake Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Red White and Blue Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Passionfruit Banana Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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Peanut Butter Stuffed Banana Muffins #MuffinMonday

Peanut butter stuffed banana muffins are baked with our favorite banana batter filled with a good teaspoon of peanut butter each, then dipped in a sweet peanut butter glaze. These guys are a special treat for breakfast, snack time or even dessert.

Whenever I have bananas that are past their best, I can’t bear to waste them. My go-to recipe when my girls were still at home was banana cake, a light and fluffy after-school snack they both enjoyed. (Want something approaching muffins? Bake the batter as cupcakes.) Nowadays I am more likely to mix up some muffins.

If bananas are your favorite, check out these other recipes you might enjoy:

• Homemade Banana Cream Pie
• Banana Fritters
• Banana Pecan Bundt with Bananas Foster Frosting
• Banana Coconut Pineapple Bundt

For this month’s Muffin Monday, I decided to kick those banana muffins up a notch or two with the addition of peanut butter, but not mixed into the batter since that might overpower the banana flavor. Instead I froze 12 teaspoons of peanut butter and tucked them in the batter, where they became a lovely soft surprise.

Peanut Butter Stuffed Banana Muffins

Make these muffins with or without the peanut butter stuffing or the peanut butter glaze for a simpler treat, but if you’ve got just a little extra time, I recommend you make all three. The peanut butter can be popped in the freezer the night before, if you are baking these for breakfast.

Ingredients
For the muffin batter:
12 teaspoons peanut butter, frozen separately
3 ripe bananas
1/3 cup or 75g butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the glaze:
1 rounded tablespoon peanut butter
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup or 130g powdered sugar
pinch fine sea salt

Method
Cover a plate with cling film or waxed paper and scoop out 12 teaspoons of peanut butter onto the prepared plate. Put the plate in the freezer until ready to bake, but for at least 30 minutes. The peanut butter never gets completely hard, even if left overnight but it does firm up nicely.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by lining it with muffin papers. I also like to give the muffin papers a quick spray of nonstick cooking spray to help them release the muffins after baking.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, use a fork to mash your three very ripe bananas. Whisk in the butter, eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl and fold until just combined.

Scoop a little more than half of the batter into the 12 muffin cups. Remove the teaspoons of peanut butter from the freezer and poke one into each of the muffin cups.

Top with the remaining banana batter making sure to cover the peanut butter completely. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown in the preheated oven.

Meanwhile, make the peanut butter glaze by mixing all of the ingredients together in a small bowl.

Remove the muffins from the oven and set them aside until they are cool enough to handle, then remove them from the baking pan and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

Once the peanut butter stuffed banana muffins are cool, dip the tops in the glaze.

Set aside to dry. I had plenty of glaze so I actually dipped mine twice. Because more peanut butter is always a good thing.

Enjoy!

Check out all the other lovely muffins my Muffin Monday baking group is sharing today!

• Banana Nut Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Butternut Squash & Apple Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cheezy Garlic Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Papaya Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Peanut Butter Stuffed Banana Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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Spelt Banana Bread #BreadBakers

This delicious spelt banana bread is made with plenty of brown sugar, ripe bananas and nutty tasting spelt flour, for a treat that tastes decadent enough for a holiday snack.

Spelt is one of the so-called ancient grains, which are supposed to be healthier than their modern counterparts. It’s not gluten-free but it is lower in gluten than normal wheat with a nutty flavor that works well in baked goods. If you like baking with spelt, you might also like to try these wonderfully fudgy brownies, coconut energy muffins or a nutty, spiced yeast bread.

You’ll notice that by weight, this banana bread is equal parts brown sugar and spelt flour. This is deliberate. The brown sugar is what pushes it into the treat category, beyond just banana bread. It’s super easy to make, using what I like to call the modified muffin method: Wet ingredients (plus sugar) in one bowl, dry in the other. Fold together and bake.

Spelt Banana Bread

The decorative sprinkle of pearl sugar is not essential but it sure does make the spelt banana bread more festive.

Ingredients
3 very ripe bananas
1 cup, packed, or 200g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 120ml (4fl oz) buttermilk
1/2 cup or 113g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 cups or 200g spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Optional (DO IT!) to decorate: Pearl sugar

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. Line a loaf pan (9 x 5 inch or 13 x 23cm) with baking parchment or grease it thoroughly with butter then flour. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mash your ripe bananas with a fork. Add in the brown sugar, eggs, buttermilk and butter. Whisk thoroughly to combine.

In another small bowl, whisk together the spelt flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Tip the dry ingredients into the bigger bowl. Fold until the dry ingredients are just combined with the wet.

Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan. Those are brown sugar lumps you are seeing.

Sprinkle the top with pearl sugar, if using.

Bake in the preheated oven for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke the center of the bread. If it starts to brown too much, you can cover the top with foil.

Leave to cool in the bread pan, then turn out and slice to serve.

Enjoy!

This month all of our Bread Bakers are using whole grained flours to bake our holiday breads. Many thanks to our host Kalyani of Sizzling Tastebuds for this great theme.

• 100% Whole Wheat Bread from Cook's Hideout
• Eggless Whole Wheat Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls from Spill the Spices
• Gingerbread and Oatmeal Bread from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Kamut Cloverleaf Rolls from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Key-Shaped Challah with Finger Millet from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Khameeri Puri from Sneha's Recipe
• Oats Whole Wheat Bread from The Mad Scientist's Kitchen
• Santa Lucia Buns from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Slovak Pasca from Ambrosia
• Spelt Banana Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Whole Wheat Grissini from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Whole Wheat Stollen from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Wholewheat Garlic Flavoured Monkey Bread from Sizzling Tastebuds

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

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Brown Sugar Banana Bundt Cake #BundtBakers

This delectable Brown Sugar Banana Bundt Cake also boasts browned butter in the batter! If you've never tried browned butter in a cake, prepare yourself. You are about to fall in love with the rich flavor it adds.

This month my Bundt Bakers group is sharing "back to school" cake recipes that slice up nicely and/or freeze well so that they are great in lunch boxes. One of my girls’ favorite treats when they were still at home was a light and fluffy banana cake straight from our favorite family cookbook, the 1980 edition of Good Housekeeping.

I can’t tell you if it freezes well, although though there is no reason it should not, but it never lasted long enough. I can tell you that it wraps up nicely for a snack at recess or lunch. For this month’s bake, I decided to take that original recipe and kick it up a flavor notch or two by browning the butter and switching out the white sugar for brown.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups or 280g flour, plus a little for flouring pan
1 1/4 cups or 250g sugar
1 1/2 cups (3-4) well-ripened bananas
1/2 cup or 115g butter, softened, plus a little extra for greasing pan
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan. Here's an affiliate link to the pan that I used: Nordic Ware Jubilee Bundt. Isn't it a beauty?

Heat the butter in a small pot until it starts to brown. Remove from heat immediately and set aside to cool. Full instructions can be found here at The Cooking Actress. The talented Kayle has been my mentor in all things browned butter.

Into large bowl mixing bowl, put your peeled bananas.  Give them a quick whirl to mash. Add in the eggs and beat again briefly.

Now measure all the other ingredients onto the bowl.  With mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, scraping the bowl often.

Now beat on high for five minutes, occasionally stopping to scrape the bowl again. Pour batter into your prepared pan.

 Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean.

Cool your Bundt cake for 10 minutes and then turn it out of pan.

Serve sprinkled with confectioners’ or powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month’s host, Wendy from A Day in the Life on a Farm for her behind the scenes work and for choosing such a fun theme. Check out all the back to school Bundts we are sharing today:

• Applesauce Bundt Cake from I love Bundt Cakes
• Autumn Honey Apple Bake & Slice Bundt Cake from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Brown Sugar Banana Bundt Cake from Food Lust People Love
• Hummingbird Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze from Love and Confections
• Morning Glory Bundt Cake with Yogurt & Granola Topping from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Peanut Butter and Jam Bundt Cake from The Queen of Scones
• Persimmon Pudding Cake from Sneha's Recipe
• Pistachios, Blueberries and White Chocolate Bundt Cake from Bizcocheando
• Sesame Seed Bundt Cake from Katin špajz
• Twinkie Bundt Cake from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Zebra Bundt Cake from Patty's Cake

 

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on the BundtBakers home page.

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Browned Butter Pecan Banana Muffins #MuffinMonday

If you have never browned butter to use in a recipe, you are in for a real treat! These browned butter pecan banana muffins are made with browned butter soaked pecans which I've swirled into rich banana muffins. They are a great breakfast or snack. Or, in fact, anytime!

I fear I may have a problem, friends.  In fact, an intervention may be necessary already.  Our muffin ingredient for today is banana.  But somehow, all I could think to add was browned butter.  Oh, sure, you say, lots of things go with banana.  Peanut butter and bacon.  Chocolate.  Caramelized sugar and rum.  Walnuts.  Apples and carrots.  Even honey. 

All of which I’ve done.  Because those are all awesome combinations.  So I added my new love, browned butter and a healthy helping of pecans.  The result was a rich, delicious muffin.  Because it’s impossible to make a bad banana muffin and that’s the truth.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups or 280g flour
1 cup or 225g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda
2 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
2 well-ripened bananas
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/2 cup or 115g butter
1 cup or 130g whole pecans
2 eggs, preferably room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your large 12-cup muffin pan by greasing lightly or lining with muffin papers.  This batter will fill more than your standard muffin pan.  Either use a larger one or tall muffin cups that will hold their shape, like the ones pictured.

Brown your butter, following these instructions, right here, from The Cooking Actress:  How to brown butter.   When the butter is browned,  pour your pecans into the hot pot and stir like crazy and then turn it off.  Leave the pecans in the browned butter as it cools.

Once it has cooled, take out 12 pecan halves for decorating the muffins before baking.  

Yes, I took out 13.  I like to have a spare.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

Mash your ripe bananas with a fork.

Add in the eggs, vanilla extract and milk and whisk with the fork.

Pour in the cooled browned butter and pecans and whisk again.  I kept using the fork for this because a normal whisk didn’t work so well with the pecans.

Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ones and stir a couple of times.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups.

Top with the reserved buttery pecan halves.

Bake in your preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes in the pan then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Pin these Browned Butter Pecan Banana Muffins! 

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Light Banana Cake

The only recipe you need for your old bananas! Lighter than banana bread, this banana cake bakes up beautifully as cupcakes, sheet cake or a layer cake.

Hands up if you’ve had this experience: You buy a bunch of bananas. The family eats them all, every last one, in about two days. You buy another bunch of bananas. These remain largely untouched until they are deemed too speckled-brown to eat. Yeah, I figured I was not the only one.

When my girls were little, I made banana bread out of the old bananas. It suffered a similar fate to its main ingredient. Fresh out of the oven, everyone LOVED banana bread. Everyone wanted a warm slice or two. The next day, it might as well have had a poison label attached. Outcast, has-been, rejected. Until I discovered banana CAKE. It’s lighter, fluffier, more desirable apparently, than banana bread. This one they’ll eat for a couple of days, until it’s gone.

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups or 280g flour
1 cup or 225g sugar
1 1/2 cups (3-4) well-ripe bananas
1/2 cup or 115g butter or canola oil
2 eggs, preferably room temperature
2 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Confectioners' or powdered sugar to serve

Method
Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Grease and flour the bottom and sides of your baking pan/s. (Two 8-in round, one 9X12-in rectangle or one 12-muffin tin plus one 6-muffin tin)

Into large bowl, put your peeled bananas. Give them a quick whirl to mash.

Now measure all the other ingredients (except the powdered sugar) into the bowl.With mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, scraping the bowl often.

Now beat on high for five minutes, occasionally stopping to scrape the bowl again.
Pour batter into pan/s and bake for 20-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cake or muffins comes out clean.

Cool cake/s for 10 minutes and then turn out of pan/s.

Serve sprinkled with confectioners’ or powdered sugar.

Enjoy!