- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making easy, delicious oatmeal banana muffins.
So let's get started.
First thing, set that oven to 375.
It needs to be nice and toasty.
And these guys come together in no time at all.
In fact, they're actually so easy,
that my kids love making this, as well.
Get two bananas.
They should look like this.
Not for eating, only for baking.
If you have those like yellow-green bananas
that aren't ripe at all,
you can still use those.
Pop 'em onto a baking sheet
and bake it 350 or even 375 until they're blackened.
It's about 10 minutes.
Then you'll mush 'em up and use 'em just like normal.
When you're using banana in a recipe,
you actually kind of wanna be exact-ish.
Like some bananas are tiny little baby bananas,
some are gigantic.
So I like to mash my bananas into a measuring cup.
It gives me an exact result.
Everything comes out just that much better.
Your bananas are adding flavor and texture.
There's a ton of water in here.
It just makes everything moist and amazing
without being oily and greasy.
Let's see if two will do it,
or if I need a little bit more.
If you add too much banana,
it's too much moisture
and they can be kind of gummy and collapsed
and be like underbaked in the middle.
So it's really better just to do one extra step
of measuring things out correctly.
Even though my mother would never do this.
She would just toss things in.
She doesn't like measuring at all.
But it always works out for her. She's lucky.
So close.
I'm gonna add another half banana in,
just so I can be right at the one cup mark.
Also, if you add a little bit less banana than you should,
you're not gonna get the 12 muffins,
I'm just gonna tell you right now.
So it'll still be delicious.
You'll still like enjoy the recipe,
but you might have one or even two muffins less.
That looks great.
I'm setting this aside.
And now it's time to get our dry ingredients.
But first, why not put your muffin papers in?
You don't have to use muffin papers.
You could just spray your baking dish,
but that's a recipe for heartache, in my opinion.
(bell dings)
It's time for our dry ingredients,
starting with 1 1/2 cups, or 180 grams,
of all-purpose flour.
I also want 1 1/2 cups of old-fashioned oats.
These are gonna give you a wonderful chew
and some body and substance.
It also means that you can add this into your kid's lunch.
They'll have a wonderful snack they enjoy,
but it's still a good source of fiber and everything else.
150 grams, 1 1/2 cups.
I also want 2/3 of a cup of granulated sugar, 133 grams.
I get a ton of questions about sugar in baked goods,
so I wanna go over it really quickly,
'cause it's so important.
Sugar's doing two jobs.
One, it's sweetening things up so it's delicious.
But it's also giving you a soft, tender crumb.
That melt-in-your-mouth texture
actually comes from the sugar.
Just like when you add lemon juice to a cake
and the acid interferes with the coagulation
of the egg protein there,
the sugar's doing the same thing.
So it's making weaker bonds
between the egg and the flour
and giving you that soft, melt-in-your-mouth crumb.
(bell dings)
I swear, I love these little canisters,
but they look exactly the same.
I'm like, which one is it?
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.
That only took me half an hour, ah.
I'm also using 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
And finally, one teaspoon of cinnamon.
I will say, you could use any spice you enjoy.
If you like nutmeg, have at it.
Cardamom, whatever you want.
Scale is done.
Grab a whisk.
We're gonna whisk this up.
Cinnamon and oats is like a match made in heaven.
And I said it earlier,
but like I love to put these
in Lachlan and George's lunch bags
as like their lunch snack treat situation.
And they really keep them full
because of the banana and the oats.
That's all mixed up.
In a medium bowl, we're gonna whisk together
a couple of delicious ingredients,
starting with 2/3 of a cup of milk.
If you're not a milk fan,
you could use almond milk, soy milk, whatever you like.
I'm also adding in 1/3 of a cup of veggie oil.
This gives you so much softness
without having to worry about them
coming out of the fridge and being hard.
Butter and veggie oil, they're both fats,
but the benefit of the oil
is that you can put 'em in the fridge,
they'll come out, and they'll be super soft right away.
A lot of butter-based desserts
just need to come to room temperature,
which can be a pain.
One teaspoon of vanilla will go a long way, so add that in.
Two eggs, and eggs here are our binding agent.
They're gonna hold everything together.
The yolk gives you some more richness, too.
If you don't want to use the egg,
you actually don't have to.
You could add in about 1/4 cup extra banana or so.
'Cause banana is also a binding agent,
in addition to it giving you that wonderful moisture.
There's a lot of egg alternatives I get asked about.
Banana is a great one.
You could use applesauce sometimes.
And flaxseed if you grind it up and you soak it in water.
Really, really like goopy-gluey,
and it mimics the texture of egg whites.
If you want me to do a whole video on egg substitutions,
you let me know in the comments.
It'll take some planning, but it could be really fun.
Now I'm adding in my mushed banana.
I'm gonna whisk this up just so it's incorporated.
I kind of like the texture of some of the chunks,
so I'm not gonna totally just puree it.
But I do want to get it well-distributed.
And if you like things totally smooth,
just mush the banana extra long.
All right, I just saw some like mega chunks in here.
You don't want the pieces that big,
so just squish them up with your whisk if you see them.
And now we can combine the wet and the dry.
And I should say, if you really don't like using veggie oil,
you could use olive oil for this.
You could use grapeseed oil, avocado oil.
You could even use butter, just melts it up,
and it'll taste delicious.
I grabbed a spatula because one of my pet peeves
is overmixing any kind of like a cakey batter.
When you do that, you're gonna activate the gluten.
Everything is gonna be just a little gummy and meh.
And especially if you're adding banana,
which can make things denser,
you just don't wanna overmix the batter.
(bell dings)
1/2 cup of chocolate chips is totally optional,
but the kids will go bananas for them.
I'm here all day.
You could also add in some toasted walnuts or pecans
or anything else that you really enjoy.
The batter's almost mixed in,
so now I'm gonna add my 1/2 cup of chocolate chips in.
In you go.
If you want to go extra dark
and use bittersweet chocolate, go ahead,
but any kind will work.
Just fold that in to distribute.
And as we fold, we're gonna finish mixing up
so there's no more streaks of flour left.
Grab your muffin tin.
One of my pet peeves in any muffin recipe
is when they don't tell you how much batter to put in.
It drives me crazy.
You're gonna fill these up almost all the way to the top.
They should be fairly full.
Using my triggered scoop.
This is about 1/3 of a cup.
My dream is to do this without spilling.
The triggered scoop really helps, though.
So divide the batter evenly.
They should be very full,
but if you mismeasured your banana,
I will tell you, you might have a little bit less batter.
Look how full and amazing these are.
These muffins will last in an airtight container
for four to five days,
or you can freeze them for up to a month
for maximum freshness.
It's a really easy like grab and go snack.
And the nice thing about baking
at a high temperature for muffins
is that you're gonna get a dome.
So dome up and have that amazing muffin top.
It works because the high temperature
is setting the edges quickly,
and then the top is coming up but the edge is set.
If it's a low temperature,
it bakes evenly and you have a flat layer.
So sometimes for cupcakes,
I really like to have a flat top,
'cause it's nice for decorating.
But for muffins, I always want that height.
Evenly distributed, basically completely full to the top.
And now you can finish these off in a couple different ways.
Toss some oats on top, like this, little sprinkle.
You could add some sugar, you could add cinnamon sugar.
You could even do a crumble topping.
So basically like an oat-based streusel topping,
which would be nice, as well.
If you want, you could add a few chocolate chips on top.
I'll do that just to show you what it looks like.
But I like these just to look like oaty banana muffins
with a hidden chocolate surprise.
But for you, I'll give you some extra chocolate chips
on top of one.
These guys are ready to go into the oven.
375 for 18 to 22 minutes.
It really depends on your oven.
I will say, they should be firm on top.
So if they're a little bit soft in the middle,
they're gonna be underdone and sink and be gummy,
and, meh, you don't want that.
So make sure they have a little bit of a spring back,
or you can use a skewer to test the center.
These are all beautiful.
The one topped with chocolate chips might be extra striking,
just gonna say.
Lachlan and George are about to sink their teeth into these
for an afternoon snack.
What?
I had to have a bite first.
That is so delicious.
Tons of banana flavor,
a little kiss of chocolate that's optional,
and the chewiness of the oats
all come together for a perfect snack.
I hope you get a chance to try this recipe.
And if you liked this video, check out my muffin playlist.