Banana Nutella Muffins
I rarely make muffins these days. When my brother’s wife gave birth to my baby niece last week, I asked on Twitter for some suggestions of what kinds of food to take over to their house. A couple people mentioned taking some muffins and other snacky foods over there since they probably already have quite a few meals in the house.
I jumped on the idea of baking up some muffins. And since I always have frozen over-ripened bananas in the freezer, I grabbed a couple to let them defrost. At the same time, my little sister Linz was on her way to Boston to spend her spring break out here. She loves to bake and has some pretty mad skills in the kitchen. I love it when she comes to visit because we just spend hours in the kitchen cooking and baking.
She mentioned two things when we were at the store grabbing ingredients. One, she had tried risotto at a restaurant and wanted to try her hand at making some. And two she had never had nutella. We instantly added nutella to the cart and these muffins were born. FYI, she made her first risotto the other night (with shrimp, goat cheese, and asparagus) and it was amazing! These muffins have great flavor as the banana and nutella work together in perfect harmony. No one ingredient overpowers the other.
One Year Ago: French Toast Bread Pudding and a Giveaway and Coconut Layer Cake Filled with Lemon Curd
Two Years Ago: Homemade “Instant” Pancake Mix and Make Ahead Breakfast Burritos and White Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream
Three Years Ago: Sugar Cookie Bars
Banana Nutella Muffins
Banana and Nutella make a great pair!
Yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Nutella
1 banana mashed (about 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar.
In a separate bowl, combine Nutella, banana, butter, buttermilk, egg and vanilla.
Stir wet ingredients into dry just until combined.
Spoon into greased muffin tins. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted comes out clean.
Remove from pan to wire rack to cool.
Recipe from Miss in the Kitchen
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I love freezing dough but somehow most ends up in my tummy unbaked when I do that 🙂
What a great gift! I’m thinking that would be wonderful for all sorts of occasions. Thanks for the idea!
These are adorable and I love that idea! Two questions, though: 1) Were these as good as the cookies from the other recipes? and 2) When you freeze them, do you bake right from frozen?
Great questions Carly – As far as comparing them to the other cookies. I enjoyed the chocolate M&M cookies the best, but they were REALLY chocolatey. The other non-chocolate M&M cookies were a bit more chewy and they had nuts in them, so they had a different vibe. This recipe was more of a classic M&M cookie for sure.
As far as baking from frozen, you can def just go straight from freezer to oven. Bake them ~13 minutes instead of ~11 and take them out when they look done.
these were delicious!
they look so cute all frozen up 🙂
I love the pink and red M&Ms. Thanks for the idea of freezing the cookie dough.
I was going to ask you the same thing as Carly, well the first question. These cookies are cute. Your freezing method reminded me that I have a bunch of sugar cookies still in the freezer! Do you know how long cookies can stay in the freezer?
I don’t know how long they will last in the freezer. I have a tendency to forget about things in my freezer… I’d guess a couple months? Anyone have ideas?
What festive little cookies 🙂 I love them! I also like the fact that you froze them. I bet they were delicious. Make sure to enter the All Through the Year Cheer event for Valentine’s Day 🙂
I think that sounds like a great way to spend valentine’s day. It can be intimidating the way it’s so hyped up. The cookies look very festive, love ’em!
We don’t do “valentine’s day” either since my MIL was born on the 14th and daughter’s birthday is the 15th – besides, its more important to say you love someone everyday, not just one day out of the year. Love the idea about freezing the cookie dough in preshaped form and giving that away. Wonderful idea!
I am looking for cookies that travel well for my soldier adopted through Soldier’s Angels and these look like a winner!!
Mmm, these were so tasty! Happy Valentine’s Day!
These are just too cute!! I love M&M cookies too!!
http://www.singforyoursupperblog.com
Just had to add my two cents on the idea of giving cookie dough frozen and ready to be baked – genius! For some reason, I’ve never thought of that, even though I’ve given cookies frozen to people to be defrosted when they’re ready to eat. I love the dough idea!
YUM-these look absolutely delicious! I love the pink and red M&Ms!