Strawberry Banana Muffins

About five minutes after I stepped out of the office door to leave on Friday evening, I started to get sick. I spent Saturday and most of Sunday in bed and between being sick and daylight savings time, feel like I've had my weekend pretty much stolen. I chose this recipe because I had everything on hand but the bananas, which I ran up to the corner store for. Apparently I'm still sicker than I thought because when I prepared the muffins this evening I left the melted butter in the microwave. So while I think this recipe has a lot of potential, what I'm bringing to the office tomorrow will be...hardy. In case you're wondering, I'm chilling the melted butter in the ramekin, hoping it will come back to a usable consistency.



Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted -- and not forgotten in the microwave!
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)
1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries (cut into small pieces)
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C). Position rack in center of oven. Line the muffin pan with paper liners or grease with butter or a vegetable spray. Set aside.
2. Melt the butter. Set aside and don't forget!
3. In a medium sized bowl whisk together the brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and mashed banana. Add the melted butter to the brown sugar mixture and stir to combine.
4. In another large bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gently fold in the strawberries, making sure they are coated with flour. This helps to prevent the strawberries from sinking during baking. Do not over mix or the strawberries will end up coloring the batter red. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir only until the ingredients are just combined. Do not over mix the batter or tough muffins will result.
5. Fill each muffin cup about two thirds full of batter. Fill any unused muffin cups halfway with water to prevent warping of the pan and/or over browning of the muffins. Place in the oven and bake until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 12 regular sized muffins.

DETOUR -- Strawberry Banana Bread

Normally I make muffins but I decided to change things up a bit and make banana bread. Strawberries are very much in season right now and it would be a shame to waste the opportunity to use a tried and true recipe. In addition, I went to a local strawberry farm on Saturday and, apart from seeing a fact witness to one of our cases there, got some pretty ripe strawberries. So without further delay here is my recipe, of long lost origins, for Strawberry Banana Bread.

Ingredients
2 stick softened unsalted better
2 cups sugar
2 cups ripe bananas, mashed
4 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 cups flour
1.5 pounds fresh or frozen strawberries, sliced



Directions
1. Grease two loaf pans and pre-heat oven to 325
2. Cream softened butter and sugar
3. Incorporate mashed bananas and scrape down bowl
4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly
5. In a separate bowl combine salt, baking soda and flour
6. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients
7. Gently fold in strawberries
8. Bake 60-75 minutes