Over-ripe Bananas?

I don’t know about you, but in my house we go through a lot of bananas. I mean, my toddler just loves them, and my husband and I find them to be a filling snack. So, normally we eat them all before they have a chance to get over-ripe. However, every once in a while we have a few that get over-ripe and none of us want to eat them. Rather than just throwing them away, I use them to bake.

Over-ripe bananas are great for baking with as when bananas are over-ripe they are higher in sugar and therefore your baking is much sweeter. Banana bread is always a good choice for baking with, and my mum has a great banana muffin recipe too (the one I normally use). This time though, I thought I’d have a go making my own recipe as I had other things in my house that needed to get used too. I had some pineapple that needed to be used up, as well as some rolled oats. The end result: Banana Oat Muffins with Pineapple Chunks! They were easy to make and a very filling and relatively healthy snack or breakfast.

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats

2 cups milk (approx.)

3 over-ripe bananas

3 eggs

1 ½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup brown sugar

2 ½ cups self raising flour

2 tsp bi-carb soda

1/3 cup oil

1 cup diced pineapple (I used fresh but you can use tinned – doesn’t make a difference – just make sure you drain it)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees (Celsius).

Place oats in a bowl and cover with milk. Set aside.

In a large bowl mash bananas to a smooth consistency. Add eggs and oil. Mix together. Add flour, bi-carb soda, brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix.

Now add in your oat and milk mixture. By now the oats should have absorbed all of the milk. Mix together until the texture is consistent.

Lastly, add in the pineapple chunks and stir through the mix.

Spoon mixture into pre-greased muffin tins and put in the oven for approx. 20 - 30 mins.

Ta-da! All done. This recipe makes 2 dozen muffins.

Depending on your oven, the baking time may vary. Personally, most of my baking needs longer as the seal on my oven needs replacing. If you want a sweeter muffin without adding lots of extra sugar, try adding in a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Because these muffins are quite moist they do need to be stored in the fridge and consumed quite quickly. However, you can also wrap them individually and freeze them and then they will keep for a couple of months.

Hope you enjoy!