Strawberry-Banana Muffins

In the past week, Kristin and I had a great problem: too many strawberries.  We'd bought some at the grocery store, and then Kristin's mom gave us a whole ton of them from a local fruit farm.  Even the grocery store ones were great, but the local berries were just fantastic - juicy and sweet and just slightly tart.  The trouble was that we just had altogether too many of them.

We decided we ought to bake something, and went out in search of interesting recipes.  We found a couple of strawberry-banana things - a bread and some muffins, in particular.  Neither recipe seemed quite ideal, though.  So finally, we decided to stick with what we know is good.  We adapted my family's trusty Banana Bread and it turned out so, so well.  The muffins were soft, moist, and wonderfully flavorful.  Now I can't wait 'til we have too many strawberries again so we can make another batch.

Here's what we used: flour, sugar, strawberries, bananas, baking powder, baking soda, eggs, margarine, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt.

First, you'll need to create the ever-photogenic bowl of white powder.  Mix together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl.

In a second, larger bowl, combine the margarine, egg whites, sugar, bananas, and vanilla.  Mash up the bananas with a large spoon, potato masher, or other weapon of choice until they're pretty well distributed through the rest, but still chunky.  The mashing and smashing should do pretty well at mixing the rest, but give it an extra stir to be sure.

Pour the dry bowl into the wet and mix well to combine.

Chop your strawberries down into nice small pieces.  We ended up using somewhere between 1 1/2 and 2 cups of chopped berries, all told, and even a tad more could still have worked fine.

Gently fold the strawberries into the batter, and you're ready to go.

Fill greased, un-lined muffin tins about 2/3 full with batter.  We initially used the muffin tins un-lined because we (mistakenly) thought we were out of muffin cups.  It ended up that we weren't, but I think this is still the best way to go, here.  The muffins are so moist that I think they would really stick to muffin cups and you would pull off a lot of the outside when removing the wrapper.  This way, you get maximum muffin.

Bake the muffins for 16-20 minutes at 350 degrees.  18 minutes on the nose did it for us.

Let them cool for 5-10 minutes before you take them out of the muffin tins, then devour promptly.

Recipe: Strawberry-Banana Muffins
Prep Time: 10 Minutes | Cook Time: 20 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 18 Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 3 Egg Whites
• 1/2 cup Margarine, melted
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 3-4 ripe Bananas
• 2 cups fresh Strawberries, diced

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease muffin tins.
2. Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. In a large bowl, sugar, margarine, egg whites, vanilla, and bananas.  Mash bananas with a potato masher or heavy spoon until thoroughly mixed.
4. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix well.
5. Dice strawberries and gently fold into batter until well distributed.
6. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full with batter.
7. Bake 16-20 minutes until brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
8. Cool 5-10 minutes in muffin tins before serving.