Banana Oat Muffins

These banana oat muffins rely on oat flour for an airy texture and natural sweetness. A coconut oatmeal crumble topping keeps things from veering in an excessively healthy direction.

Odes to Oats

We’ve written previously about our love of oat flour, for all of its nutritional magic and natural sweetness. The humble oat allows us to reduce our parental guilt at feeding our children cake for breakfast by about 75%. Not as effective as a full frontal lobotomy but, hey, we’ll take it.

Banana Oat Muffins: Recipe Inspiration

When our oldest was a toddler, we did the same thing almost every Saturday morning. A walk to our favorite cafe was followed by a shared banana oat muffin and a London Fog tea, followed by some quality time at the playground, where we would spend a panicky 30 minutes feeling certain that at some point he was about to fall headfirst off a slide. Then it was nap time. For both of us. While we don’t miss the endless panic of a firstborn child climbing things, we do miss the banana oat muffins. They were a dense, sweet muffin (or maybe cupcake?) topped with a half-inch layer of coconutty oaty crumble. This is our best attempt at replicating them, minus the screaming toddler.

Recipe Facts

  • Yield: 36 mini-muffins or 12 muffins
  • Active Time: 15 minutes
  • Bake Time: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients for the Banana Oat Muffins

For the muffins:

  • 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/6 cup white sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 large, very ripe bananas

For the coconut-oat streusel:

  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 1/3 cup rolled oats
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tbsp unsweetened shredded coconut

Instructions for the Banana Oat Muffins

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease muffin cups (if using a mini-muffin tin) or grease or line with cupcake liners if using a full-sized muffin tin.
  2. Pulse the oats in a food processor until finely ground (1-2 minutes).
  3. Add remaining dry ingredients (baking powder, baking soda, salt) and pulse until well combined.
  4. Add banana and pulse until banana is fully pureed.
  5. Pour in remaining wet ingredients (milk, egg, oil, vanilla) and pulse until combined.
  6. Pour the batter into the muffin cups, ensuring that each cup is no more that 3/4 full.
  7. Make the crumble. Stir together the oats, sugar, and coconut in a small bowl.
  8. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the oat mixture. Use your fingers to mash the butter into the oat mixture until the crumble topping begins to form clumps.
  9. Top each muffin with some streusel mixture.
  10. Bake for 10 minutes for mini-muffins or 20-25 minutes for full-sized muffins.

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