Lauren’s Weekly Recipe

A few weeks ago, I bought an abundance of bananas not remembering that I would be going out of town for a week.  As you can imagine, by the time I returned, my perfectly ripe bananas and turned on me.  Many people look at this as a problem, I mean who would want to eat a black banana?  But for me, I see it as a perfect opportunity to do some healthy baking.

Overripe bananas make the perfect excuse to get creative with some of your favorite baked goods.  As this fruit ripens, the natural sugars enhance becoming so incredible sweet and moist.  When it comes to baking breads and muffins, I seek out the worst looking bananas that I can find.  The riper, the sweeter the outcome will be.

I made these muffins this past weekend and was pleasantly surprised with how delicious they came out.  The black bananas came to great use along with fresh local blueberries I picked up from the farmers market.  These muffins make a fantastic breakfast or a great snack.  Hope you enjoy!

Blueberry Banana Almond Streusel Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup oat flour
• 1 cup Shiloh Farms almond flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 3 overripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup almond milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup fresh blueberries

Streusel Topping:

• 3 tablespoons almonds (or any other nut)
• 3 tablespoons cold butter
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon).  In a separate bowl, mash bananas into a paste.  Add eggs, milk and vanilla and mix.  Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold in blueberries.  Pour into lined muffin tins.

For the topping: In a small bowl, place brown sugar and almonds and cut in butter using a pastry knife or fork until crumbly.

Add 2 teaspoons of the topping to each muffin top.  Bake at 350 degrees for 16-17 minutes.