Banana Muffins (Cook’s Illustrated)

Cook’s Illustrated covered banana muffins way back in 1997 and I liked those muffins the last time I made them. But in this month’s issue, I was excited to try their latest formulation, especially since they offered several different variations, including peanut butter and sesame-chocolate!

The recipe comes from the May/June 2021 issue of the magazine. To get a finished product with a nice fluffy crumb that can handle all the moisture from four bananas, they use bread flour. I must say, their intensively researched recipes do provide consistent results, as I made three batches of these over the past few weeks, and they’ve all turned out.

Batch number one was just a plain banana walnut muffin. These were very good right out of the oven, and the entire dozen was gone in 24 hours. So fast, that I didn’t even get a picture! For the next batch, I tried the Sesame and Chocolate Chunks variation, pictured below. The super dark colour was my fault: I missed hearing the oven alarm and left these in for 20 extra minutes. Still, they weren’t bad, with a nutty but slightly bitter flavour from the tahini. The rest of my family didn’t like these very much.

The last batch we made was also quite delicious, with natural peanut butter, and finely chopped peanuts added to the batter. They were surprisingly mild in flavour.

Once I get some macadamia nuts, I’d love to try their final variation. As a go-to muffin recipe, this one is hard to beat. Consistent results with a fluffy crumb, and great banana flavour. At Dr. S’ request, I’m going to try making these in mini form too, as she pointed out each one is too big for her to eat in one serving.