Bake Banana Muffins If You Have Very Ripe Bananas

What ingredients do you need?

Spoon measures: a tablespoon here is one regular Korean table spoon, leveled off (about 15 ml), and a teaspoon is one teaspoon (about 5 ml).

How do you make them, step by step?

1. Preheat the oven to 218°C and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper cups.

2. Mash the bananas with a fork until the lumps are small.

3. Mix the melted butter, sugar, egg, milk and vanilla evenly into the bananas.

4. In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients with the salt and spices, then add them to the banana batter. Mix only until no dry flour is visible.

5. Divide the batter among 10 to 12 muffin cups, filling them right to the top.

6. Bake at 218°C for 5 minutes, then lower the oven to 177°C without opening the door and bake 16 to 18 minutes more. When a skewer in the center comes out without raw batter, take them out and leave them in the pan for 5 minutes, then finish cooling on a cooling rack.

What should you check to avoid failures?

• The amount of batter and the baking time vary with cup size. Check that the center is cooked.
• Do not use bananas that show mold or smell off.
• Do not taste raw batter that contains flour and egg, and wash your hands and tools afterward.

How do you judge the banana weight and ripeness?

Peel the bananas first and then weigh out 345 g. Sizes differ, so matching only the count of three can change the moisture in the batter. Use bananas ripe enough to mash easily with a fork, and tell brown spots on the peel apart from mold on the flesh. If there is an off smell or mold, do not mash it in to hide it.

It is fine if small pieces of banana remain. There is no need to keep stirring until the batter is perfectly smooth. In particular, mixing for a long time after the flour goes in to get rid of lumps can make the muffin crumb tough, so mash the bananas well before they meet the flour.

Why mix the wet ingredients and the flour separately?

Cool the melted butter to lukewarm before mixing it with the egg. If you pour hot butter straight in, the egg can partly cook, and if an egg that was not well beaten turns up later, you end up stirring more than necessary after the flour goes in. Mixing the wet ingredients evenly first makes it easier to finish the final mixing quickly.

Baking powder and baking soda are not the same powder. Measure each one, and scatter them together with the salt and spices in the dry bowl first. If you add flour clumped on one side as it is, the flavor and the rise can come out uneven. Lift the dry flour from the bottom of the bowl with a spatula, but stop mixing once the flour disappears.

How do you manage the oven temperature at the start and later?

Preheat so the oven reaches 218°C before the batter goes in. After the first 5 minutes, do not open the door to take the muffins out; just lower the set temperature to 177°C. Baking at a low temperature from the start, or holding the high temperature to the end, changes the baking conditions of this recipe. Setting a separate timer helps you not to miss the moment to change the temperature.

Do not judge the center to be done by the brown color on the outside. Push a skewer into a muffin in the middle and see whether wet raw batter comes out; if it does, bake a little longer and check again. Times can vary with the size of the cups and with the oven. Do not seal the muffins right after taking them out; let them settle briefly in the pan, then move them to a cooling rack.

How do you choose baking tools?

The photos in the steps above show a 12-cup metal pan. This does not mean it is the same model as the 6-cup silicone muffin molds listed below. If you choose silicone molds, check that the oven-safe temperature given by the maker includes the 218°C you start at. If you cannot find the allowed temperature, or it is lower than that, do not use them for this recipe.

Also check the inside size of the molds and how much batter they hold. Forcing 10 to 12 portions into only six molds may make them overflow, so prepare as many molds as you need or bake in batches. Preheat the oven again to the set temperature before starting the next batch. For soft individual molds, placing them on a flat baking sheet before filling them lowers the risk of spilling when you move them.