Every week I buy a bunch of bananas and every week my kids eat a good amount of them and leave several behind. I think they leave at least three behind on purpose so I will make them these muffins. They love them for breakfast or snacks. They are great as is and also good warmed up with a pat of butter on them.

The recipe comes from Ina Garten’s cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, this book is chock full of many great recipes but the page my book naturally falls open to is this recipe. I think I have made it over a hundred times. I have adapted the recipe to fit my families taste. They have the most wonderful crunch on the muffin top if you leave them uncovered. Something you must try.

Here’s my adaptaion of her recipe:

3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 pound (2 cubes) melted and cooled butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2-3 bananas)
1 cup medium diced banana (1 banana)
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. Put flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into your mixer and combine the dry ingredients until they are fully mixed. Add the melted butter to the dry mixture while mixing to fully combine the butter. At this point the butter should be on all of the dry mixture and it should look crumbly.

Combine the eggs, milk, vanilla and mashed bananas in a large bowl. I do this in my 1 quart pyrex measuring cup because I can smash the bananas in there and measure them and then add the other ingredients. Less dishes makes me happy. Life is all about the little things. Add the wet mixture to the flour and butter mixture and mix well. Do not overmix at this point or your muffins will be less light.

Fold the diced banana, oatmeal, and coconut in by hand. Scoop the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tops are brown a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, remove and cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.

This recipe makes anywhere between 18 and 24 muffins.