The Tastiest-Falliest Banana Crumb Walnut Muffins
How many times pre-pandemic did I make Banana Crumb Walnut Muffins? Zero. How many times during the pandemic have I made Banana Crumb Walnut Muffins? Too many. Let's get into it.
Pre-Heat oven to 375 - I'm putting this first because I always forget to pre-heat.
I'm also dividing the ingredients list based on sequence and process. I'm very guilty of not fully reading recipes. I just start measuring and dumping ingredients into the same bowl to later realize that I should have had mixed separately, completed in a different sequence, etc..
Ingredients: Bowl #1- Dry Ingredients
1.5 cups of All-Purpose Flour - I substitute Bod's Red Mill 1-to-1 baking flour to make them gluten-free
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt (salt is used as a flavor enhancer)
1 Tablespoon Apple Pie Spice
1 Cup Chopped Walnuts - SET THIS ASIDE FOR NOW
Ingredients: Bowl #2 - Wet ingredients
3 Mashed Bananas, mashed to your liking depending on your chunk, no-chunk preference
3/4 Cups White Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Egg
1/3 Cup Melted Butter - (Which is much easier for me to do now that I own a microwave for the first time in 6 years)
Ingredients: Bowl #3 - Crumb Topping
2 Tablespoons All-Purpose Flour - I substitute Bod's Red Mill 1-to-1 baking flour to make them gluten-free
1 Tablespoon Room Temperature Butter
1.5 Teaspoons Apple Pie Spice
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Cup Steel Cut Oats
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
Maybe 1/4 chopped walnuts - Optional
Step One: The oven is already preheated, thank goodness, so let's move on.
Step Two: Line a muffin tin with parchment paper baking cups or butter the tin.
Pro-tip: The parchment paper baking cups make for easier clean-up. So use em if you got em
Step Three: Since you already have your ingredients mixed in three different stainless steel mixing bowls, fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredient
Pro-tip: This also makes for easier clean-up, since now you'll still only have one yucky bowl
Step Four: Remember those walnuts I told you to set aside, fold those in now too
Step Five: Spoon mixture into muffin papers. I start by placing a tablespoon in each paper and coming back around with subsequent scoops to make sure the batter is evenly distributed
Step Six: Crumble the topping onto the wet muffin batter that is now sitting in the muffin papers. I approach this the same way. I crumble a little on each and come back around to make sure that brown-sugary-buttery-oaty goodness is evenly distributed on each muffin
Step Seven: Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until you can insert a toothpick and it comes out batter free
Pro-tip: Peek in on them after 15 minutes, do the first toothpick test after 18 minutes, different ovens cook differently and at different altitudes.
Bakers notes: Apple Pie spice. I'm not a huge fan of shortcuts in the kitchen, hence why I didn't own a microwave for 6 years. If I was being my prudish self I would have had separately measured out the cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cardamom, and ginger. I don't have time for all that and I'm sure the muffins come out just as good. Apple Pie Spice 1, Randall's prudish-self 0.
