Happy Friday eve! Hope your week has been great! I’ve been a busy bee this week with work and home life, so I’m ready for the weekend! The husband and I are going to put in some raised garden beds, so that should be a fun home project over the weekend and on Sunday we’re heading to a friends baby shower where I’ll be making some treats, so stay tuned for that! But until then, you’ll just have to get by with these Banana Oat Cranberry Muffins!
These are a rift on a pervious recipe of mine (Banana Oat Muffins) and while the procedure remains much the same, I jazzed up some of the ingredients to make these muffins even more flavorful and intense.
So lets get started!
As with my previous recipe, and really all muffin recipes, it begins with a separation of wet and dry ingredients and then a quick combination of ingredients right before baking. You do this because over mixing, which we all have a tendency to do, can make for hard muffins. So it’s best to combine the ingredients right BEFORE you put the pan in the oven. Less time to mix = less time for tough muffins.
Now, like I said, while the procedure is much the same for these muffins as in previous muffin recipes, I added some more ingredients and substituted others. I wanted the chewiness of the oats and cranberries IN the muffins this time around so I added those to the dry ingredients prior to mixing. (tip: adding mix in’s to the flour will help them suspend, rather than sink, to the bottom of your muffins as the bake). I also spiced things up by adding a bit more cardamom and Chinese five spice to the mix. Yum!
Finally, I swapped the butter for 1/2 Cup Applesauce and 1/4 Cup Oil. I wanted these muffins to be moist but I also wanted to make them a little bit healthier by removing some of the fat. I still strongly believe that baked goods need SOME fat, but applesauce is a great substitute for oil in a recipe, I just wouldn’t substitute more than half the amount needed.
So all that being said, the end result is a muffin that people will rave over. I mean seriously, I brought these to work and people LOVED them. My husband also said they were addictive and he knows his baked goods.
So go forth and bake muffins! Enjoy!
XO,
Danielle
Banana Oat Cranberry Muffins
Ingredients
For Muffins:
- 2 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 overripe bananas mashed
- 3/4 Cup Brown Sugar Loosely Packed
- 1/2 Cup Applesauce unsweetened
- 1/4 Cup Canola Oil
- 2 Eggs
- 1/2 Cup Oats
- 1/2 Cup Cranberries dried
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon Chinese Five Spice Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Ground cardamom
For Topping:
- 1/3 Cup Oats
- 1/3 Cup Cranberries dried
- 1/3 Cup Walnuts Chopped (as desired)
- 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1 Tbsp. Flour
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, spices). Whisk to combine.
- In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with the brown sugar until only small chunks of banana remain. Whisk in eggs & vanilla. Follow with applesauce and oil.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined. Don't over mix or your muffins will be tough.
- Liberally grease 2 muffin pans and using a 1 1/2 inch scoop, fill muffin tins 3/4 full. This recipe yields 18-19 muffins, so one tin will have fewer muffins. ** Tip: Add a bit of water to the empty muffin spaces so that your pan wont burn in the oven. **
For the topping:
- In a separate bowl, combine all ingredients. Top the muffins in the pan. Add walnuts as desired.
- Bake at 350F for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes clean from the center of the muffin.
- Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Serve immediately or store in an airtight container for up to 3 days!
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