Banana Blueberry Muffins for #MuffinMonday

I’m always on the lookout for ways to use the last two bananas in a bunch that have turned brown and are therefore disdained by my family. Banana muffins answer this need beautifully. Add another fruit, like blueberries to jazz them up a bit.

Yesterday was my mother’s 76th birthday. Of course, we celebrated with food. It was Mexican for lunch at a new (to us) restaurant she discovered hidden away in a neighborhood not far from my house in Houston. It is appropriately called La Hacienda Escondida and is part of a family group of Houston restaurants, all called La Hacienda but ours is the only one that is escondida or hidden in a residential neighborhood.

For dinner, we prepared one of my mom’s favorite meals. Smothered pork chops, creamed potatoes, sweet potatoes and fancy salad with tres leches cake to finish. I brought these muffins with me and left them for my brother-in-law and nephews who would not eat a brown banana to save a dying puppy but have a devoted love of banana bread. The boys are in their final week of school and suffering through final exams so I figured they deserved a treat. Also, now no one has to make them breakfast. I got to use my old bananas. Win-win-win!

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/3 cup or 80ml canola or other light oil
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
2 ripe bananas
6 oz or 170g fresh blueberries

Optional for decorating: pearl sugar

Method
Preheat your oven to 350F° or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing or lining with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl mix together your flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

In a smaller bowl, add your milk, canola, vanilla and eggs, along with the two ripe bananas. Mash the bananas with a fork and then whisk all the ingredients together with that fork.

Set aside 12 blueberries for the tops of the muffins.

Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and stir until just combined. There should still be flour showing.

Now fold in the big pile of blueberries.

Evenly distribute the batter among the muffin cups.

Top with one reserved blueberry each.  Sprinkle with a little pearl sugar– optional, but look how pretty!

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.  Remove the muffins from the muffin pan and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy! How do you use up old bananas? Please leave me a link in the comments to your favorite recipes. Thanks!