These muffins are a huge favorite of mine this time of year for a couple reasons: 1) anyone who has a garden has tons of zucchini, 2) they taste a bit like fall and 3) they are a super easy breakfast to hand my kids when we are inevitably running late to school drop-off. They also make great lunch "desserts" that have fruit and vegetables in them.
I don't think roasting the bananas is absolutely mandatory, but highly recommended. They blend in so smooth and the roasting brings out all the goodness of the banana flavor. The sour cream can also be substituted with plain or vanilla yogurt if you have to - vanilla yogurt will yield a little bit sweeter muffin, but each time I have had to just use what I've got they have come out just fine.
Aaron has also suggested that I add a crumble topping or toss in some chocolate chips. I do make a crumble topping for my banana bread and its wonderful, so I will include that recipe too in case you want to sweeten these up. I have yet to add chocolate chips though, but I'm sure it would be wonderful!
Roasted-Banana Zucchini Muffins
Yields 12 standard muffins or 6 jumbo
Ingredients:
- 2 ripe bananas
- 1 cup shredded zucchini, about 1 medium/small zucchini
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. each of ground cloves, nutmeg, and ginger (you can also use 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice)
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Butter a baking sheet and slice your bananas length-wise and place them on the baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until bubbly and fragrant. Remove and allow to cool on the baking sheet. Set aside.
Lower the oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, baking soda and salt. Mix and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add the roasted bananas, include as much of the syrupy juice from the baking sheet as you can. Mix until well combined.
Whip in the eggs and vanilla, until smooth.
Add the sour cream mixture and combine. The sour cream mixture will have puffed up a little from the reaction between the baking soda, salt and cream.
Stir in the zucchini. Finally, mix in the flour and spices until you have an even batter.
Distribute the batter evenly among a lined 12-cup cupcake pan. I use two cupcake liners per cup because I feel like it prevents the bottoms of the muffins from browning too quickly. If you are topping with crumble, put the topping on now.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown (add five minutes or so if you are baking jumbo muffins, a toothpick should come out clean).
Crumble Topping
Ingredients:
- 3 tbs. butter, melted
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
- 1/3 cup of flour
Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl. When the butter is cool enough to touch, use your fingers to crumble it into pea-sized pieces. Top the muffins with equal amounts before baking.
