Pecan Streusel Topped Banana Muffins

My great grandma made the best banana cake on the face of the earth.  It is exactly what banana cake should be and I love it.  Jake loves it too, especially when I let him eat it for breakfast.  In fact, he refers to it as "breakfast cake" and requests it often.   The other day he asked me to make it again and I decided to make muffins instead to make them single serve.  I made a few changes to make them a little more breakfasty and then added a pecan streusel because it sounded like a delicious idea.

I usually line my muffin tins with paper liners but when I make banana cake I just spray the pan with baking spray so I did the same thing for these muffins.  They came right out of the pan with no trouble at all so I don't think you need to line your muffin pan.  I made a couple in silicone muffin cups and they didn't come out as cleanly so I recommend using a regular old muffin tin.  Now that you know what you will be baking these lovelies in, let's talk about how to make them.

Beat together a stick of butter, a couple of eggs, and some vanilla.  Add in a little buttermilk to keep your muffins nice and moist.

While your mixer is doing its job, start sifting your dry ingredients: white whole wheat flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  You are going to sift two times.  I like to lay out two sheets of wax paper.  I set my sifter on one sheet of wax paper, measure my ingredients directly into it and sift away.  Then I move my sifter to the other sheet, pour the dry ingredients back into the sifter and sift again.  This way I don't make extra dishes.

On the extra piece of wax paper, mash up a couple of bananas.  That's right, I reuse the wax paper and avoid another dish, I'm always thinking ;)

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the mashed bananas to your wet ingredients until everything has been added.  Then continue to beat your batter for two minutes.

Use your mixer time to make the streusel.  Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter.  In a small bowl, mix together the melted butter with chopped pecans and equal parts flour and dark brown sugar.  Try not to spoon it directly into your mouth (this is the hardest part of making these muffins).

When you mixer has finished making your muffin batter for you, take an ice cream scoop and scoop your batter into the sprayed muffin tins.  I filled mine pretty full so they baked over quite a bit.  You may want to fill them a little less.

Spoon your streusel all over the top.  I used a heavy hand with my streusel because it tastes so good.  I left three muffins without it because I wasn't sure if Jake would eat them with the streusel, he prefers things healthier (weirdo).

Bake your muffins at 350 for 25-30 minutes.  I was in a hurry to head out the door so I pulled them out of the muffin tins immediately onto a cooling rack.  I would wait a minute or two if I were you, but I only broke one so if you can't wait you'll be okay to pull them right out.

These muffins are oh so good!  The pecan streusel adds that extra layer of flavor and texture and the muffins themselves are banana baked-good perfection (if I do say so myself).  Whip up a batch for breakfast, snack, or dessert.  You will be glad you did!

Pecan Streusel Topped Banana Muffins
For the muffins:

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 medium bananas)

For the streusel:

• 2/3 cup chopped pecans
• 2 tbls. butter, melted
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1. Spray muffin tins with baking spray and preheat oven to 350.
2. Beat together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla for 1 1/2 minutes on medium speed.
3. Add in buttermilk.
4. Sift together dry ingredients two times.
5. Alternate adding dry ingredients and mashed banana.  Once everything has been added, beat for two minutes on medium speed.
6. Meanwhile, combine streusel ingredients.
7. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop batter into muffin tins.  Spoon streusel on top.
8. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes.  Cool slightly before eating.

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