Pumpkin-Banana Bread Muffins

At the end of four, miserable days with a broken oven/stove, (college housing...) I came home last night to see it was finally fixed! I was so happy because all day I had been dreaming about making my favorite banana bread recipe with some bananas I had that were getting a little too ripe. Banana bread was made in my house constantly when I was growing up, and was one of the first things I learned to make from scratch. Since then, I've branched out from our traditional recipe to find the PERFECT banana bread, and let me tell you, this is the only recipe you will ever use again! It is the most moist and flavorful banana bread I've ever had. Continuing with my all-things-pumpkin obsession, I decided to switch things up a little bit (in addition to my current lack of a loaf pan) and turn my banana bread into pumpkin-banana bread muffins! Yummmyyyyy. 

All I did was substitute the 1 cup mashed banana with 1/2 cup mashed banana and 1/2 cup pumpkin puree, as well as add some traditional spices that tend to go with pumpkin recipes. I'm assuming you could probably get creative and use this basic bread recipe and substitute a lot of different things for the banana like zucchini or maybe even cinnamon applesauce! I love taking recipes and trying to make something new out of them. And who cares if it doesn't turn out perfectly, it's always fun to experiment and discover something new and amazing like I did last night! :)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup mashed bananas (about 1 medium sized, ripe banana)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. cloves
• Cinnamon-sugar mix to sprinkle on top
• Optional: 1/2 cup chopped pecans or chocolate chips, etc.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325° and line two regular size muffin pans with 16-18 cupcake liners, or grease one 5 x 9" or two mini loaf pans. 
2. Mix together vegetable oil, eggs, buttermilk*, pumpkin puree and mashed banana. I actually didn't have buttermilk on hand, so I let 1 cup milk + 1 Tbsp. lemon juice sit for 10 minutes, and took the 1/3 cup amount from that. You can also use plain yogurt in equivalent amounts.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together dry ingredients (granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg). Add to pumpkin and banana mixture.
4. Stir in chocolate chips, pecans or other additional items if desired!
5. Pour into loaf pan or muffin liners about 3/4 full. I was excited to be able to use up my Halloween cupcake liners and some fun fall sprinkles! But my best idea was to top these muffins with a cinnamon-sugar topping. It really makes a huge difference and they come out of the oven smelling like cinnamon donuts from the cider mill! Mmmmm... I love fall.
6. For muffin size, bake for 25-30 minutes (I baked mine for 28 exactly but they could have stayed in another couple of minutes). For mini loaf pans, bake for about 30 minutes. For a regular loaf pan, back for at least 1 hour.**I haven't actually baked this banana bread recipe in a regular sized loaf pan yet, and the baking times from the original recipe have been far too short. The original recipe says 1 hour for a 5 x 9" loaf pan, but it might take longer! So check at an hour but don't be afraid to keep on baking it!

I also like to let my banana bread sit overnight before digging in. I'm not sure the reason for this, perhaps to keep it as moist as possible (although that's not too difficult with this recipe), but it's something my mom always told me to do, so I still do it! It's not as important for the muffins though, I couldn't help but eat one right after they came out of the oven!

 I found these cute Dean Jacob's Autumn Accents sprinkles in the little Halloween display at HomeGoods - same place I found the mix for the chocolate Jack-O-Lantern sandwich cookies! I swear HomeGoods has the cutest things sometimes, and everything's always discounted!