Super-Moist Banana-Nut Muffins

These muffins are the ideal snack, perfect for any time of the day! Super easy to prepare, you cannot possibly go wrong with them. Got the recipe from an online site.

The ingredients are divided into "wet" and "dry" -- you will need one small bowl and one big bowl, the wet goes into one bowl, the dry into the other bowl:

Wet ingredients (2 cups total):

2-3 ripe bananas
1 egg
1/3 cup MELTED butter or margarine
1 ½ tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. strong coffee (if you don't have leftover coffee, you can use water)
yoghurt OR buttermilk OR milk-- enough to make 2 cups TOTAL of wet ingredients (if you use 3 bananas you may only need a few tablespoons; if you use small bananas, you may need to add 2/3s cup or more, just add enough to make the total wet ingredients 2 cups!)

Dry ingredients:

1 ½ cup of all-purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 cup chopped nuts (I mix hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts)

Instructions

The trick (and there really is a trick) to making incredible muffins has to do with the mixing part. Read all of these directions through first, before you start doing anything, so you'll know what you're supposed to do.

First, preheat the oven to 180 C. Preheating is important -- the muffins should go into a fully preheated oven.

In the SMALLER bowl, put all of your wet ingredients -- make sure you mash your bananas thoroughly with a fork. Then use that same fork to completely stir in the egg and other wet ingredients.

In the LARGER bowl, put all of your dry ingredients and mix them with your large spoon. Make sure your ingredients are fully incorporated -- that is, you want the baking powder/soda to be completely distributed through the flour.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ones -- and fold them carefully with a few swift strokes. This is incredibly important. DON'T OVERMIX! There will even be places where the flour is still dry. I fold about 10 times -- carefully -- but the mixture will look lumpy and "not quite" fully mixed together. This is the way they're supposed to look.

If you mix it till it is the consistency of cake batter, you've gone too far and you'll end up with simply average muffins. Yeah, they'll still be good... but this recipe is for making *incredible* muffins.

:-)

Final Steps

Spray your muffin tin with Pam. If you don't have Pam you can grease them lightly or use muffin liners.

Spoon the (lumpy) batter into the muffin tin -- it's okay if you end up filling the holes all the way to the top. Don't pack the batter -- just spoon it into the muffin tin.

Sprinkle sugar on the tops! This sugar will make a glaze as they bake that is really fantastic.

Put them into your already preheated oven and set the timer for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, check the muffins with a toothpick -- does the toothpick come out clean? You may need to bake them for another 5 minutes. Ovens differ -- you'll know when they're done. They'll look fantastic! I usually have to bake mine for 24 or 25 minutes.

Let them cool for about 5 minutes, and then use a fork to carefully lift them out of the muffin tin. You can keep the muffins in the tin for 10 minutes so they'll stay warm (they really are best fresh out of the oven) -- but don't let them become cool while still in the tin -- they become difficult to get out.

Leftover muffins? (It's rare... but it happens.) Wrap them in a paper towel and pop them in the microwave for about 20 seconds.

Enjoy!