I am the QUEEN of letting perfectly good bananas go to waste. So in an effort to counter my own personal madness, I am constantly on the hunt for ways to use my ugly, but super sweet and delish bananas. That’s how The Best-Ever Gluten Free Banana Nut Muffins were born.
After a quick little Google, I stumbled upon Sugar Spun Run’s recipe for The Best Banana Muffin. They looked incredibly amazing and with streusel topping-gasp-my fav! I had to give them a try. One problem. They weren’t gluten free! With my proclivity for culinary tampering, I give you what I dare say are just as good, if not better than the OG muffin, The Best-Ever Gluten Free Banana Nut Muffins.
I adapted these banana nut muffins using Bob’s Red Mill 1-1 Baking Flour, and then zhoosed them up a bit.
The addition of cardamom to the batter gives a unique flavor that complements the bananas really well. Cardamom isn’t often used in traditional American baking. It mainly comes from India (some from Guatemala), and is largely featured in Indian and British (because colonization) dishes. You can find it in grocery stores with expansive spice sections. I didn’t even know what cardamom was until I saw it frequently used on British cooking shows, and now I buy it in bulk. Because as the saying goes, “I put that sh*t on everything!”
But the cardamom doesn’t stop there. It’s also in the streusel. With a pillow-soft muffin, we need some texture to keep things interesting! Walnuts and turbinado sugar add a little crunch to the muffin and the streusel, respectively. Just a little heads up! This recipe was written so that the muffins are much bigger than SSR‘s. I did this so that you only have to use one muffin pan. So be sure to get the big ol’ tulip style (or bakery style) muffin liners, so your muffin batter doesn’t escape and get everywhere! If you don’t own them, and don’t want to buy them, fill a typical muffin cup three quarters full and top with streusel. Bake as directed, but cut the 20 minutes at 350 down to 10 minutes and begin to check for doneness then.
Best-Ever Gluten Free Banana Nut Muffins
Equipment
- Muffin tin with paper liners
- High power blender or food processor
- Medium bowl
- Small bowl
- Pastry blender
Ingredients
Muffin
- 3 Overripe Bananas
- 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
- 1/4 cup Unsalted Butter Melted
- 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
- 1/2 cup Brown Sugar Packed
- 2 Large Eggs At Room Temperature
- 1 Tbsp Vanilla extract
- 2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten free 1-1 Baking Flour Blend
- 1 Tbsp Cardamom
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/4 cup Milk
- 1/2 cup Walnuts
Streusel (optional-but I believe this MAKES the muffin)
- 1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1-1 Baking Flour Blend
- 1/2 cup Brown sugar Packed
- 3 Tbsp Turbinado sugar
- 1 tsp Cardamom
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/4 cup Unsalted butter Still cold
Instructions
Muffins
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
- Place peeled bananas in a high powered blender or food processor (only if it’s liquid sealed), and blend until smooth.
- Add canola oil and melted butter and blend again.
- Dump in granulated sugar and brown sugar, blend again.
- Add eggs, vanilla, and milk and blend until incorporated.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cardamom, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture and pulse until just combined.
- Add walnuts, and quick pulse 2-3 times, until the walnuts are chopped and incorporated.
- Using a medium cookie scoop, fill the muffin liners. The liners should be between half and three quarters full
Streusel Topping
- In a small bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, cardamom and salt. Whisk or fluff with fork.
- Using a pastry blender, cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly.
- Using a tablespoon, sprinkle topping over each muffin. You may have some streusel left over, depending on how lightly you would like your muffins coated.
Bake
- Bake muffins on 425F for 10 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 and bake another 10 minutes on 350F.
- Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of the largest muffin, making sure no wet batter is still in the center.
- Cool and enjoy.
