Spiced Banana Muffins

I had about 4 bananas left over that no one had eaten, so they were way over-ripe. Don't throw these out if you can--this is a perfect opportunity to make some sort of banana concoction! Bananas are better used in baking if they're over-ripe, so if you have some and you know you will want to make something with them just stick them in the freezer until you're ready!

I'd made a banana bread earlier this summer and wanted to come up with a recipe for muffins. I compiled a couple, made quite a bit of adjustments, and this is my result. Here are all the materials I used:

Looks like a lot of stuff, but a bunch of those are spices. Essentially, a muffin is super easy to make. It's dry ingredients into wet into oven; very simple. However, there are a couple things that you need to remember if you're going to alter a recipe:

1) if you're adding liquid, cut any existing liquid in half or add more flour. In this case, I decided to add some of that whipping cream that I've had left over from two recipes (crepe cake and chocolate cheesecake). To compensate for added liquid I cut the butter amount in half.

2) If you're adding spices, don't worry too much. Just know how intense each one is. For example, cinnamon is one of those things that you can always add more of if you want. However, things like nutmeg and cloves, things with distinct flavors, should be kept in small quantities, i.e. less than a teaspoon.

3) Adding bulk material is easy too, although make sure you still have some batter! This could be fruit or nuts. Add 1/2 cups at a time until you have a good ratio (this is up to you).

First, dry ingredients. Mix them in a bowl as shown:

Voila. Duh. You knew this.

Next is the wet. Since the butter is to be melted, and you have raw eggs to consider, ALWAYS wait until the butter cools before adding!! If you don't you'll begin to cook the egg, which means you'll have chunks of egg in your batter. Gross.

For the wet mixture, put in all but the bananas first. Note: if you want to speed up the thawing of the naners after you take them out of the freezer, put in the microwave for about 2 minutes and mash them up. I did this on a plate with a fork, making sure to leave some chunks:

Then you have to fold these into the mix. You can NOT simply beat them in. This will mash up everything into such a fine consistency that your muffins will have the texture of concrete. Not good. So you need to fold the bananas into your dry mix. The best tool for this is a spatula. This essentially means you rotate the bananas around the spatula from the bottom of the bowl to the top, going in a circle that begins at the top of the batter and continues to the bottom. You do NOT mix around in a circle that is concentric with the circular top of the bowl, i.e. around the sides. If you do this right, you'll have everything mixed, but loosely.

Then pour into a greased muffin tin and bake until a toothpick or small knife comes out clean. However, the edges should also be browned as well as the top. If they're not, though the knife may come out slick the batter may still be mashy inside. Then just put in for more time. Enjoy!