Bad Banana

Bad Banana, Bad Banana..
Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when I come for you?

Ok so maybe I don't have a new hit on my hands! But what do you do when you have bananas going bad? Don't throw them out, they are perfect for baking with! I love letting some of the bananas we buy go brown because then I can make some of the best muffins with them. Everyone in the house loves muffins for breakfast and if I can hide good stuff in them, all the better for my picky eater Little Miss Bacon. From the time she started eating she hated bananas, but since she can't see the banana, she will eat these muffins by the handful in the morning. Mr. Bacon gave them two thumbs up when he sent me a text this morning saying "those banana muffins ROCK!" You know you have a winning recipe when everyone gobbles them up.

Banana Crumb Muffins:
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
3 med. bananas mashed
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg slightly beaten
1/3 cup oil

Crumb topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp cold butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 375*. In Bowl or mixer, combine sugar, oil, egg, and banana. Mix well. Add in cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, baking powder and flour. mix until all is combined. In separate bowl combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and cold butter until mixture looks crumbly. Place batter in well greased (I use olive oil cooking spray) muffin pan. If making regular size muffins (will fill 12 muffin tin pan), bake 18-20 min. During the last 5 min of baking, top muffins with crumb topping to prevent it from sinking into middle of muffin while baking. For mini muffins (my batch made 3 dozen!) place batter in greased pan and add crumb topping before baking. Bake 13-15 min. Cool on wire rack.

To make these even healthier, replace 1/2 cup flour with whole wheat flour. You can replace 1/2 or all of the oil with applesauce and you can decrease the sugar to just 1/2 cup. Next time I make these I will try out some of the healthier options. I usually replace oil with applesauce in my recipes, I just ran out in the house this time around.