Easy and Quick Banana Bread Mini Muffins (and Pancakes too!)

Hello and good morning! I hope everyone is doing well and has a relaxing weekend ahead. I wanted to pop in with a post about one of our favorite breakfast foods: homemade banana bread mini muffins.

These muffins only require one bowl to make, bake in 15 minutes, and freeze really well. And they’re kid approved!

Click HERE to jump to the recipe or keep reading for more details.

This recipe makes more than muffins!

One of my favorite parts about making quick breads is that you can make whatever kind of bread you want: bread, muffins, mini muffins, and even pancakes and waffles.

If you have kids, it’s fun to mix up the options for them. Plus the pancakes are delicious. I’ve set out the approximate cooking times for different bread options in the recipe below. I usually make mini muffins because they’re so quick to bake and then I also make two mini loaves of bread for freezing. The mini loaves also make really cute gifts for neighbors and friends.

Plus the muffins are customizable. You can add whatever nuts or fruit you want to the base batter. My kids like the straight banana recipe, but I personally love my banana bread with pecans. I’ve also made it with fresh blueberries and raspberries.

Why I don’t usually post recipes

I don’t do a lot of recipe posts on the blog anymore because I personally don’t have much luck with recipes I find online, and I feel like I need to build some trust before I recommend a recipe.

This is one of those trust-building recipes. (As is this recipe for Chili Con Queso Soup if you are interested in something more savory).

These muffins are so delicious and so simple to make that it won’t take much effort on your part to try them out. And I always know that if all of my kids like a recipe, then there’s a good chance other people will like the recipe too because I have the pickiest kids ever. This mini banana muffin recipe checks all of the boxes.

Where is the recipe from?

To give credit where credit is due, this recipe is adapted from the banana nut bread recipe from the 1970s cookbook, Cooking With a Cuisinart.

My aunt also deserves credit too because she would make loaves of banana bread for my sister and me and freeze it and mail it to us while we were in school. Best gift ever for a college student. When I saw the cookbook at the famous Powell’s Book in Portland several years ago, I snagged a copy so I could continue the banana bread tradition for my children.

A food processor is not required

Naturally the Cooking With a Cuisinart cookbook assumes you will use a food processor to make the banana bread. This is the way I make the muffins because it really saves a lot of time. However, a food processor is not required. Just follow the steps and either mix everything in by hand or with an electric mixer. If mixing by hand, you’ll want to cut the chilled butter into small pieces and mix it into the bananas with a fork. Or use a pastry cutter (Amazon link here).

Additional Notes:

Bake the batter as soon as possible (unless you’re making pancakes)

When I was photographing my process for this blog post, I noticed something. I usually bake all 48 mini muffins at the same time because both mini muffin pans fit in my oven side-by-side. For photography’s sake, I delayed baking the second batch. The first batch of muffins I made turned out perfectly. The tops had a nice golden-brown color to them, and they were dense but not overly so. On the other hand, the second batch was very poufy and the tops did not darken in color. They also had bunch of holes.

Why the difference? I let the batter for the second batch sit out longer and the chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar started before I put the muffins in the oven to bake. The second batch of muffins still tasted delicious, but they weren’t as good as the first batch. Lesson learned to put all of the batter in the oven as soon as possible.

Banana Bread Pancakes

The premature rising dilemma wasn’t a complete flop, though. It gave me the idea to leave the batter out a bit longer when making banana bread pancakes so that the pancakes would be light and fluffy when they cooked on the skillet. I let the batter sit for about 15-20 minutes before adding it the griddle.

Freezing the muffins

As I’ve mentioned, these muffins also freeze very well. And the bread does too. I put extra muffins in a quart-sized freezer bag. For bread, I first wrap it in plastic wrap and then put it in either a quart-size freezer bag or gallon-size bag depending on whether I’m making mini loaves or a 9×5 in loaf.

To defrost, I just pull the bread and leave it at room temperature overnight. You can also do a quick defrost of the muffins in the microwave by microwaving the muffins at half power (“power level 5”) for 10 seconds at a time.

Cleanup

You can probably imagine how crazy things get around here with four kids under five-years-old. I love this recipe because cleanup is so easy. You just keep adding ingredients to the same bowl, so there’s one bowl to clean at the end. And you can throw the muffin pans and/or bread pans in the dishwasher when you’re done. I also go out of my way to avoid dirtying excess dishes.

I cut the butter on the butter wrapper with a butter knife, use the same knife to level out the flour, and then crack the eggs on the butter wrapper. The butter wrapper makes a great spoon rest too. The measuring cups only require a quick rinse, and I use the 1/4 dry ingredient measuring cup for measuring the water.

Banana Bread Mini Muffin Recipe

Without further ado, here is the recipe!

And that’s a wrap!

Let me know if you have any questions, or if you end up trying the recipe, what you think. I’d love to know if you have any other ideas for additions to the bread. I want to try adding different spices to it like nutmeg, but I’m afraid the kids will balk. Happy baking!