Banana Berry Muffins

These past few days I had the absolute strongest craving for banana muffins, maybe I had a potassium deficiency, or maybe I just wanted something sweet, but regardless, I went to the store and picked up a bunch of bananas to make myself a little treat. I wanted to put some berries in it, and vaguely remembered having some frozen blueberries or mixed berries in the freezer, so I moved some bags around and voila! A Trader Joe's bag of mixed berries appeared. Mission partially accomplished! I put the muffins together and then tried my hand at making a crumb topping. This was my second attempt at making a crumb topping, the first attempt ended...poorly. I think I let the butter get too melty and it just turned into another layer of dough on top of the cake, but this attempt came out quite well! It just goes to show that you learn something from every failure. I hope you all enjoy these lovely baked goods and that you're successful in your crumb topping attempts!

Ingredients:

Muffins

3 Large Bananas, ripe

2 Eggs

1 and 1/2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Berries, fresh or frozen

3/4 Cup Sugar

1/3 Cup Butter, melted

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Crumb Topping

1/3 Cup Sugar

2 Tablespoons Flour

1 Tablespoon Butter

1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, mash the bananas together until they are completely blended into a paste. Mix in the eggs and sugar, then beat in the butter until the mixture is well blended. In a separate 

medium-sized bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. Add the dry mixture to the banana mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition, until all of the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the batter. Stir in the berries.

To make the crumb topping, mix the sugar, flour and cinnamon together in a small bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces, roughly 1/2 inch in length and width, and put the pieces in the bowl as well. Then gently stir the mixture just enough to coat the butter pieces in the sugar mixture, about 3 spoon strokes.

Pour the batter into a thoroughly-greased muffin tray that holds 12 muffins. You also can use decorative liners if you'd like. Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of crumb topping over each muffin. Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins are golden brown and the crumb topping has turned into a crust.