Banana Oatmeal Muffins! (And Baking Tips!)

You know that random feeling you get when your body tells you it’s craving dessert? But then a couple of moments later your brain steps in and says, “you really don’t need all that sugar and carbs”
We all have these moments craving desserts and then pushing the feeling down because we’d feel guilty squeezing in a cake or a cookie after breakfast or in between lunch and dinner. But what if there was a way to get your dessert and breakfast in one?

Banana Muffins are delicious on their own, but add in oats and you’ve hit the jackpot! Whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, and advanced bakers, we’re going to walk you through this process and show you how to bake like a pro even if you have no idea how to crack eggs!

Science. Baking can be intimidating for some people. Maybe those mishaps (and that one time you almost burned down your kitchen from trying to bake a cake) still haunts you til this day. First, it’s important to note that baking is different from cooking. Sometimes you don’t have the free will to throw everything together in a bowl and hope it turns out good. There’s a science to baking that doesn’t necessarily transfer over to cooking most times. The baked good turning out right will depend on accurate measurements, liquids, and flour ratios. The standard recipe for a muffin is different than the standard recipe for a cookie or cake. There are chemicals that are included, and when heated it needs to be at the right time and temperature so it can be baked to perfection.

Mixing Bowl Basics. But the good news is, after you’ve done some baking with 2-3 easy recipes, you’ll see how simple it really is. You will start to get the hang of measuring, mixing, and then begin to customize your desserts by: adding toppings, flavors, and even substituting butter/eggs/sugar. Most baked desserts will usually need 1-2 bowls for mixing. A bowl for dry ingredients and a bowl for wet ingredients.
Dry ingredients are ingredients like flour, baking soda/powder, salt, and spices that are combined in a bowl. If you were to stick your hand into a bowl of dry ingredients, you’d be able to easily dust it off using your fingers.
Wet ingredients are usually butter, vanilla extract, and eggs mixed together to create a liquid mixture. If you dipped your hand into a bowl of wet ingredients you’d have to use a napkin or cloth to wipe off the residue.

Mixing methods. After you have your bowl of wet ingredients and a bowl of dry ingredients, pour the wet into the dry and you combine. Some recipes will call for pouring dry ingredients into wet ingredients. It’s all about the author of the recipe and the endless trials they’ve been through to get it just right, so it’s important to follow the recipe exactly as it’s written to ensure accuracy. Another key detail to mixing is to not over mix. When you over mix flour, gluten forms. Gluten will create a firmer texture in your baked good. We all know muffins, cakes, and cookies to have a soft warm texture so let’s keep it that way! Once you see that all of your ingredients have been mixed well and prepared well, you can put the mixture off to the side and get ready for the final step.

Baking Time. Different desserts call for different baking time. For example, loafs and breads need to be baked longer. Cookies can be baked fairly quickly. Cakes and muffins can be found somewhere in the middle. Baking temperatures will most times be set at the standard 350 degrees. You want to place your pan in the oven somewhere the heat can be evenly distributed. So not too far back/close to where the heat will be dispersed. Usually (in a standard conventional oven) the middle of the oven on a rack set 2nd to highest will be fine. Double check to see where to place the racks on your oven in case it is different from the standard conventional.
Setting a timer on your phone or oven will help you monitor how long to bake your desserts for. *If you see a baking time range in your recipe (ex. 20-22 minutes), check with the least amount of time first to see if it needs to bake longer. If it does, place the food back in the oven and leave it in and check back within the next few minutes on your time range.

Of course you have some recipes that require more steps, more ingredients, and a little more attention to detail. It all depends on the recipe curator. But nonetheless, these simple tips can keep you from making mistakes on more challenging or easy recipes.

Muffins are definitely the “cupcakes” that you can eat at anytime of the day without feeling guilty! You can have it for breakfast, snack, or dessert. Really, would people judge you if you ate a muffin for breakfast instead of a cupcake?

This recipe is sweet, tasty, and also a bit healthy. We reduced the sugar content because bananas have a sweet flavor on their own. Instead of sugar, we added honey because honey is a natural sweetener and tastes so much better with bananas in anything baked!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 stick butter (3/4 cup)
• 2 medium eggs (or 1 large egg)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2-3 tbsp raw honey
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/3 cup almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 medium size extremely overripe bananas

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Add all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt) together into a bowl & mix.
3. Beat the butter together with the brown sugar. Add one egg slowly into the mixture & mix well.
4. In a separate bowl mash up the bananas. Pour the banana mixture into the wet ingredients. Add the honey, syrup, and vanilla extract. Combine both bowls of wet ingredients and mix until smooth.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients slowly mixing. Lastly, add the oats and mix until all incorporated and well combined. Add the oats lastly and mix until well combined.
6. Pour evenly into 11-12 muffin liners, and sprinkle some oats on top of a few for decoration. Place in oven for 20-22 minutes.

*Slide a toothpick/fork/knife into one of the muffins, if it comes out clean (with no batter) then your muffin is finished cooking!

Believe it or not, that’s it! You can use this recipe for breakfast with friends, a tasty snack in the middle of the day, or a dessert item after that extremely hard workout.

Comment down below what kind of muffins you’d like to see us create!