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Better Bake These Banana Bread Muffins with Browned Butter Glaze

I haven’t posted anything in a couple of days because I have been busy trying to get caught up with work and because our oven when on the fritz the other day and refused to ignite. I was able to cook on the stovetop but we were pretty limited in what we could have, but thankfully my brother helped me out and I got the part to fix the oven and he was able to get it going again today, so I can get back to cooking meals and treats again tonight. In the meantime, I can let you know about a recipe I tried a week ago when I had some bananas that were passing their prime and needed something to do with them – fast. I knew I could make some banana bread or some banana muffins, but how about combining the two and topping them off with a nice glaze? That sounded even better and I came across this recipe at Cooking with Ruthie for baked banana bread donuts with a browned butter glaze that I chose to make as muffins instead. I am sure they make great donuts too if you have the right donut pan, but muffins were the easier way to go for me this round so that’s what I did.

Baked Banana Bread Muffins with Browned Butter Glaze

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup applesauce

3/4 cup sugar

2 whole eggs plus 4 egg whites

2 2/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 a lemon)

2 teaspoons baking soda

4 overripe bananas

1/4 cup butter

2 cup confectioner’s sugar

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons milk

In a large bowl, blend the butter, applesauce, sugar, eggs and egg whites with a hand mixer. Slowly add in the all-purpose flour, lemon juice and baking soda and mix on high for about 2 minutes to mix the ingredients well. The batter will appear glossy when it is done. Mash the bananas in a separate bowl and gently fold in the bananas to the batter until they are well incorporated.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using a muffin pan lined with muffin papers, fill each paper with batter until it is about 2/3 full. The batter should make 18 to 24 muffins. Bake the muffins in the oven for about 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pans on a wire rack for about minutes, then turn them out onto the wire rack to finish cooling.

For the glaze, melt the butter in a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat, watching the butter carefully to see when it reaches a medium brown color and has a nutty aroma. Remove the pan from the heat. Whisk in 1 cup of the confectioner’s sugar at a time, adding 1 tablespoon of milk as the mixture thickens to help thin it out. Adjust the milk as necessary so that it stays thick enough to stay on top of the muffins. Add the vanilla to the mixture and whisk until the glaze is smooth. Drizzle the warm glaze over the tops of the muffins. The glaze will set quickly so you want to work quickly while it is warm and pourable. Cool the muffins again and serve.

The muffins had that great banana bread texture and flavor so they came out perfectly, and the glaze added a touch of sweetness to the muffins that plain banana muffins did not have in the past. I think you could get even better flavor out of the glaze and jazz it up a bit if you added a bit of banana liqueur or some dark rum to give it a bananas foster type of flavor. Maybe next time around I will give it a try. I think these would be great donuts too, but I only have the mini donut pan and it would have taken several batches to make them, so I opted for muffins instead. This is a nice alternative to banana bread if you need something to do with extra bananas.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

A Couple of Recipes of Old Favorites

10 Mar

While I have been cooking regularly and keeping up with trying new things, I have been bad about blogging and putting them online. There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day to do everything I need to do anymore, which really only gives me the weekends to blog. Hopefully I can get around to more than just that, but we’ll see how it goes.

We did make a couple of things this week that are old stand by recipes that I am sure many people have made before. They are both very simple recipes that are not only easy to make but easy to clean up afterwards and they taste awesome. The first of these I made early on in the week and it was just a simple Shrimp Fried Rice. I love this recipe because it is a great one pot meal to make. If you have leftover rice already, most of the work is already done for you and you can get it done even faster.

Shrimp Fried Rice

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided

1 pound peeled and deveined small shrimp, thawed if frozen

8 scallions, whites chopped, greens thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled ginger

3 cups cold cooked white rice

2 large eggs, beaten to blend

1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a large, nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Season the shrimp with salt and cook, turning once, until just opaque in the center, about 3 minutes. Transfer the shrimp to a plate.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in the same skillet; add the scallion whites, garlic, and ginger. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the rice and stir to coat. Cook until the rice is crisp, about two minutes. Push the rice to one side of the skillet; add the eggs to the other side and cook, stirring and working them into the rice mixture, about 1 to minutes. Add the peas, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil and the cooked shrimp. Cook, tossing constantly until the shrimp and the vegetables are heated through, about 1 minute. Top with the scallion greens and serve.

I actually added some mushrooms and water chestnuts to this to make it a more filling meal. The original recipe I got from Bon Appetit calls for edamame, which I did not have, but feel free to add it if you like. The great thing about a dish like this is you can really add whatever you want to it to make it a meal. If you don’t like shrimp, add some boneless chicken or pork. You could go all vegetarian and just add some vegetables to it like snow peas, corn, zucchini or whatever you like. Since it is all one dish, clean up is a breeze.

The other recipe for today is one we make once in a while. It is for a simple, quick batch of Banana Muffins. We used Bisquick to make these and we had some overripe bananas on hand already, so it makes baking these quite simple.

Quick Banana Muffins

2 cups Bisquick baking mix

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 1/3 cups bananas, mashed (about 3 bananas)

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

3 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the baking mix in a medium bowl and break up any lumps. Combine the egg, bananas, brown sugar, milk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract with the mix and stir thoroughly until well blended. Fill paper lined muffin cups of a muffin tray until about 2/3 full. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes before serving.

Of course, these are great for breakfast with your morning coffee or just to have as an afternoon snack. We left the chocolate chips out for ours, but you can use them, or some walnuts or pecans if you like. You can really use other fruit too if you wanted blueberry or some other berry muffin.

That’s it for today. I promise to have some other recipes this week. I have made a bunch of things and have recipes for them, I just haven’t had time to post anything, so I will get to some of them this week for sure. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your Sunday and enjoy your meal!