A mixture of healthy and dessert-y! These Banana Oatmeal Muffins combine fresh fruit and plenty of oats with some sugar and cinnamon for the perfect guilt-free dessert, sweet breakfast, or snack! 

THE INGREDIENTS: 

Bananas: Here’s our star! Bananas are an all-around hero in this recipe. They provide flavor, moisture, and structure to our muffins. We’d say 2 bananas is the perfect amount in this recipe. To reduce or to increase the bananas in this recipe would not just change the flavor, but it would completely alter the texture! The riper, the better in terms of baking with bananas so try to leave your bananas on the counter til they have some brown spots. Then you’ll know they’re ready for baking! 

Oats: Many muffin recipes have more flour than oats. We thought maybe it was because the muffin would just taste like oatmeal otherwise. When we started to experiment with muffin making, however, we were surprised! Oats suck up more moisture than flour, which is how we don’t get a soggy mess even though we added some bananas to this recipe. Not only that, but 2 cups puts them as a star while still giving that classic muffin texture you were expecting. 

Flour: As much as we love oats, they can’t be the only dry ingredient in this recipe. Flour adds gluten and structure to our banana oatmeal muffins, allowing them to rise and still have the nearly-cake like texture many crave. 

Brown Sugar: Bananas may be sweet when they’re ripe, but we also wanted to help them out! Brown sugar has a signature flavor, unlike white sugar. That flavor pairs very well with fruit and cinnamon spice-two things in this recipe! Brown sugar also adds a bit more moisture, so brown sugar contributes to the overall texture of these muffins. 

White Sugar: Talk about a happy accident. When running out of brown sugar, we were worried our muffin recipe would not be how we wanted. Swapping ¼ cup of brown sugar for ¼ cup of white sugar turned out to be a change we could get behind! It adds sweetness without as much flavor or moisture, letting the bananas really shine both ways in this recipe. 

Butter: Here’s where things get controversial. Not really, though. People have different opinions, even when it comes to eating the same thing! Butter adds fat to cakes and muffins but overall leads to a drier texture than oil does. That’s perfect if you already have a wet batter! Although some of us like a muffin made with ¼ cup of melted butter, we acknowledge some may find it nearly right but a smidge dry. That’s why we compromised and now have a half-butter, half-oil muffin! Best of both worlds, if you ask us. 

Oil: Oil brings fat and is the key to avoiding a dry muffin! If you like your muffins extra moist, like our own homemade banana bread recipe, feel free to replace the butter in this recipe with more oil as well. With that being said, we believe the classic muffin texture is best achieved with half butter and half oil. 

Egg: Bananas may be a common substitute for an egg in baking, but this recipe just doesn’t happen to be vegan. Sorry! An egg binds all of the ingredients together and helps ensure a cohesive final product. 

Baking Powder: Do you want muffins or hockey pucks? If you want hockey pucks, you might be on the wrong website. If you want muffins, continue on! Baking powder gives our muffins a nice rise. It doesn’t need an acid to go along with it because it is already an acid and leavening combo. Even though it looks like we add a lot, don’t worry! Baking powder is not like baking soda, where too much leads to that awful metallic taste. You can go over the top of baking powder, but you’ll have to trust us that this is not over the top. 

Cinnamon: Bananas just aren’t our favorite fruit. Add some cinnamon, though? Game changer. Cinnamon helps balance and improve on that strong, ripe banana flavor. Other warm spices make welcome additions or replacements. Think allspice, nutmeg, clove, ginger, et cetera. Adjust as desired. 

Salt: As we usually say on our dessert posts, salt just helps make you appreciate the sweetness a little bit more! Don’t worry, this amount of salt does not make these muffins taste savory. 

KEY INFORMATION: 

How Do You Mash a Banana For a Baking Recipe? It is crucial that you mash your bananas before continuing with the recipe. Otherwise you’ll get a chunky dough and the batter won’t have enough liquid. For ideal mashing, we recommend one of the following methods: a quick whirl in a food processor, using a potato masher, or getting your hands dirty and pressing them in your own hands. Supplement with a rubber spatula to get any remaining chunks before continuing with this recipe. 

Does Ingredient Order Matter When Making Muffins? Yes! Adding things out of order can really change a muffin. For the reasons that we’ve stated directly above, the bananas must be mixed first. From there, you have to add all of the other ingredients at once and mix. Otherwise, you risk a too-chewy muffin. Want to know why? Now you’ll have to read directly below! 

Why Shouldn’t You Overmix Muffin Batter? Flour has gluten, which is really important in a lot of baking recipes. One example is these muffins! However, the more you mix a batter with flour, the more gluten develops. This is great for chewy pizza doughs, but bad for muffins. You want a soft, almost cake-like texture, after all. By dealing with the bananas first, less mixing is needed to get everything to come together once the flour is added. From there, don’t just keep stirring! When it’s combined, it’s done. 

What Goes With Banana Oatmeal Muffins? We’ll address this two ways: as a dessert and as a breakfast. Muffins are traditionally enjoyed alone, but you could break the rules and add a bit of a frosting or glaze on top. At that point, though, isn’t it a cupcake? Good ideas would be peanut butter frosting, a melted marshmallow on top, or a chocolate glaze. Muffins also make a good nontraditional ice cream topping. 

On the other hand, maybe banana oatmeal muffins are just a part of your breakfast spread. Feel free to have them as an oatmeal or cream of wheat topping. If you like a savory breakfast with a sweet ending, why not make our sheet pan breakfast hash with ramekin baked eggs?