Brown Butter Banana Spice Muffins

I said yesterday that I thought brown butter was my new obsession and I'm no liar...I present to you: Brown Butter Banana Spice Muffins.

With almost all of the Joy the Baker muffins I made gone because I sent them off with Kyle for Teacher Appreciation, I knew more muffins with brown butter needed to be made...

Unfortunately for me, I had used all my berries and had forgotten to get peaches at the hypermarket when I got groceries. But, not one to be deterred, I looked around my kitchen to see what I could put in the brown butter muffins I NEEDED to make.

Though I'm sure that a basic muffin made with brown butter would probably have been delicious, I wanted to add another element to play off the nuttiness of the brown butter. And that's when I saw the bunch of bananas sitting on my counter...perfect!

As the butter was browning on the stove top and I was mashing bananas, I knew I still couldn't leave well enough alone. I NEEDED yet another element for these muffins. That, was a no brainer: an oat crumble!

These muffins came out heavenly! They are surprisingly light and supremely moist. The spice supports the brown butter without being up in your face and the oat crumble adds a nice little chew.

I'm sure that you could add more spice if you should like or a bit of chopped nuts to either the batter or crumble. I encourage you to use this recipe as a jumping off point to test your muffin boundaries.

I hope you enjoy them as much as my boys and I did!

Brown Butter Banana Spice Muffins

Makes 18-20 muffins

Ingredients:

MUFFIN BATTER

1/2 cup butter, browned
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup plain yogurt

2 medium bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking sod

1/2 tsp cardamom
1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

OAT CRUMBLE

1/4 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 TBSP butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

1. Melt the butter in a pan until all the milk solids  fall to the bottom and turn a beautiful golden brown and it smells nutty.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the browned butter and sugar. Add the eggs, smashed bananas, yogurt, and vanilla, mix well. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda cardamom, cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg and salt, stir into the butter mixture until smooth. Pour into prepared liners or greased muffin tins.

3. In a small bowl mix all of the oat crumble ingredients together until clumps about the size of small peas form. Sprinkle over prepared muffins.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean. Cool in the muffin tin for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.