These Mini Banana Muffins are incredibly soft, light and tender, with sweet banana flavor and made without eggs. They just take 30 minutes from start to finish and is the perfect way to use that one over ripe banana sitting on your counter.
I wanted mini banana muffins with a rich banana flavor and a fragile tender crumb. Technically they are a smaller version of our banana muffins without eggs.
These mini banana muffins bake up so fast like the mini blueberry muffins, so you need enough moisture to ensure they don't dry out. Like the air fryer banana muffins, my trick was using vegetable oil instead of melted butter and plain yogurt for that crave-worthy moist texture.
Although butter adds rich flavor, it consists of 16 to 18 percent water, which mostly evaporates during baking. But vegetable oil ensures there's more fat to guarantee tenderness.
These mini banana muffins are baked at a fairly lower temperature of 330 degrees like Nutella muffins. This helps in maintaining a moist and tender texture, since there's lesser evaporation of moisture.
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Why this recipe works
- It produces tiny, bit size muffins.
- Tastes like mini banana cake.
- No mixer needed. These come together easily by hand!
- They take just 30 minutes from start to finish.
- Perfect when you have one lonely over ripe banana sitting on your kitchen counter.
- Perfect for school snack box.
Ingredients
Scroll down to the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and amounts.
- Banana – Be sure to use very ripe, speckled bananas.
- Yogurt – Yogurt delivered the finest crumb.
- Brown sugar – Brown sugar compliments the bananas better than white sugar.
- Vegetable oil – Keeps it rich and tender.
- Flour – Gives enough softness.
- Leavening – Baking powder to lift it up and baking soda to neutralize the acid in yogurt and make it fluffy.
- Vanilla extract - It works well with the faintly boozy over ripe fruit flavor.
- Walnuts - It gives a pleasing crunch as in banana walnut cake.
Tip: If you'd like to frozen bananas, thaw them at room temperature, drain off any excess liquid, mash, then use as instructed in the recipe below. Get more ideas in overripe banana recipes, to use those brown bananas sitting on your kitchen counter.
Variations
- Stir in mini dark chocolate chips
- Use ground cinnamon instead of vanilla extract
- Use toasted and chopped pecans instead of walnuts or skip the nuts to keep it nut-free.
- Sour cream in place of yogurt will make it even richer.
How to make?
You can find full printable recipe below, but here is a quick overview of the procedure along with step-by-step photos.
1 & 2. Add all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl, and whisk to combine.
3. Mash one banana with a fork or potato masher until smooth and lump free. Add it into a bowl and mix with yogurt, oil, brown sugar and vanilla extract, until smooth.
Tip: A potato masher is perfect to mash the banana and an electric stand mixer when you are baking a big batch. However, since this mini banana muffins recipe requires only 1 banana, I prefer to mash it simply with the back of a fork.
4. Stir in the combined dry ingredients.
5. Stir in chopped walnuts.
Tip: Over mixing your batter can lead to muffins that are too tough and dense. To avoid this, I strongly recommend stirring your muffin batter only until you no longer any streaks of white flour.
6. Divide batter into a paper lined pan, sprinkle more chopped walnuts on top and bake at 330° for about 25 minutes or until brown on top, which helps them firm up slightly.
Pro tip: Love a big rounded top? Increase the amount of batter by one-third.
How to store?
- Room temperature - Keep them stored in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
- Freezer - Place cooled muffins in a large zipper bag and freeze for up to 2 months. Thaw at room temperature for a few hours.
Mom tip: I like to pack few muffins directly from the freezer, in kids school lunch box and it is perfectly thawed before lunch time.
Helpful tips
- Heavily speckled bananas will give intense fruity flavor.
- Chopping walnuts into tiny pieces will make it distribute evenly.
- Bake until the tops are deep golden in color.
- Mini muffin pan can be easily found on Amazon or all major US supermarkets. They are available in two sizes - 12 cavity or 24 cavity.
Recipe FAQs
Whole wheat flour has higher protein content of 13 to 14 percent, when compared to 10-11% in all purpose flour. For that reason, when substituting it for all purpose, use 50 percent whole wheat, and 50 percent of all purpose flour, to avoid a dense result.
Sure can! This recipe works great in a standard muffin pan, however increase your baking temperature to 350 degrees instead of 330°F.
Standard muffin tin is about 2 ½ inches in diameter, will make 12 muffins, with each cup holding between ⅓ and ½ cup of batter. Mini muffin tins is about 1 ½ to 2 inches in diameter, will hold between ⅛ and ¼ cup of batter. You can find 12 cup or 24 cup mini muffin tins available.
More muffin recipes
Mini Banana Muffins
Ingredients
Dry ingredients
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Wet ingredients
- ⅓ cup mashed ripe banana about 1 medium
- ¼ cup packed golden brown sugar
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Additional ingredients
- 3 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts divided
Items used
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 330°F and line a 12-cup mini muffin pan with mini paper liners.
- Whisk all dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
- Into another larger bowl, add all wet ingredients and whisk until very smooth. Add the dry ingredients and whisk until just combined.Tip: Over mixing your batter can lead to muffins that are too tough and dense. To avoid this, I strongly recommend stirring your muffin batter only until you no longer any streaks of white flour.
- Using a rubber spatula, stir in 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts. Divide batter evenly into the prepared muffin pan and sprinkle remaining chopped walnuts on top of the batter.
- Bake for 24 to 25 minutes or until the muffins are brown (darker than golden brown) on top.Pro tip: These mini banana muffins are baked at a fairly lower temperature of 330 degrees. This helps in maintaining a moist and tender texture, since there's lesser evaporation of moisture.
- Place pan on a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information, based on third-party calculations, should be seen as estimates, not guarantees, as various factors like product types, brands, processing methods, and more can alter the nutritional content in recipes.
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