Banana Berry Muffins
My aunt had some late blooming blueberries that I picked the other day, and I thought they would be perfect in these Banana Berry Muffins.
The recipe first combines bran flakes and buttermilk. For the buttermilk, I substituted 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar and 1/2 cup of regular milk. I let it sit in a bowl for 5 minutes and then added the bran flakes on top. It didn’t seem like enough milk, but I mixed the flakes with the milk and after they set for 10 minutes, the flakes were pretty mushy.
For the batter, I creamed butter and sugar together and then added the eggs one at a time. To that mixture, I added mashed bananas and vanilla. The recipe calls for ripe bananas. My grandmother always used totally black bananas to make banana bread, and I still think that creates the best flavor. The bananas I used weren’t all black, but they were definitely a bit beyond good eating. Anyway, the batter looked pretty gross as this point, like it was curdled, but as I stirred in (by hand) the dry ingredients, the batter smoothed out. >> After the dry ingredients, I stirred the mushy bran flakes and blueberries. The recipe calls for a cup of blueberries, but I added closer to two cups. The batter was fairly thick, so I ended up spooning it into the muffins cups and ended up with 24 muffins. For the topping, I doubled the amount of pecans but added the regular amount of brown sugar and cinnamon. It worked out to be about 1 teaspoon of topping per muffin. I baked the muffins for 18 minutes before a toothpick came out clean.
These muffins are absolutely amazing. They don’t taste like banana or bran, but rather like a wonderfully moist blueberry muffin with layers of flavor. The topping is sweet, with just a little bit of a crunch, adding great texture. I think the additional blueberries worked out too. There weren’t too many in the muffins, but I think if I would have added only 1 cup, there wouldn’t have been enough. The paper was a little difficult to get off the muffins the first day too, but much easier the second day. The muffins also seemed to develop more flavor the next day and become even more moist. I can’t wait to make them again!