Banana Bran Muffins with Granola Streusel
January 29, 2013 in baking, Breakfast, StudioEats
Welcome to the little beginnings of a little blog, Thousand Story Kitchen…
The desire to start a food blog is not a new passion around here. As a matter of fact, the idea of wanting to write and photograph a food blog and me go way, way back. You may know this about me already (hi Mom. hi Hubby). Not that I’ve ever mentioned it before.
In collaboration with a wonderful friend, nu-trio.com commenced back in 2011- a blog combining fitness tips and wholesome recipes. But that was before my husband and I packed up a toddler and way too much stuff for one little car and headed out to Montana for the summer while he worked on a masters degree… That was also before my pregnancy with baby #2 landed me on bedrest for a month prior to being hospitalized for five weeks waiting on the little stinker (you can read every detail of that journey right here)…And that was before I had “figured out” anything about being a mama of two (not that I’m claiming any victorious breakthrough…still figuring, everyday)… Alas, nu-trio paused.
Meanwhile, my blogging partner, Elisa, jumped at an opportunity to open her own fitness studio, “StudioE“, an awesome little spot located in Tiger, Ga; home of the funnest cardio workout a person can ask for. Right away, before she opened, she asked me if I would bake some delicious snacks for her busy workout clients to grab on the go. Um, yes please! I immediately spent some time developing my choc-full chocolate chunk granola bars (which I will certainly post here soon) and wrapped up a bunch to give away at her grand opening. This was less than a month after we brought the little guy home, and I guess some “zombie-fied” part of me just realized I wasn’t quite ready to be baking regularly.
Well, both of my munchkins are growing like sprouts, and since the baby is about to turn ONE (!) in just a short while, I am ready to give cooking, blogging, and baking for Studio E a serious go.
In celebration of beginning new things- and your healthy morning workout- I offer you these…
…Banana Bran Muffins with Granola Streusel.
My mom dug a tattered old refrigerator bran muffin recipe out of my Grandmother’s recipe box. She thought it would be a great one for me because it makes a huge amount and keeps in the refrigerator for several weeks. Mom also offered the idea of putting granola on top of the muffins when she added my Grandmother’s wonderful granola recipe to the envelope she sent in the mail.
A tidbit: I love getting old handwritten recipes in the mail.
I tried it out, hoping it would be tweakable to keep it interesting. I added bananas to the original, made a little streusel with my very own granola recipe- adapted from Grandma’s, and…yep. I had something that healthy, hungry fitness studio-goers would enjoy…not to mention, something to take to playgroup (check), to make for company for breakfast (check), and to snack on continuously, all the live-long day (check, check). The one batch didn’t last long around here, but it made a heavenly amount of muffins none-the-less.
While these bran-based muffins offer a density that sticks with you throughout your busy morning errands, they are light enough to not weigh you down. The golden crunch on top gives them just the edginess needed to separate these from your average banana muffins as well.
I hope you’ll enjoy visiting Thousand Story Kitchen from time to time, or heck- subscribe! You can check out my goals for this little slice of interweb over on my about page. “StudioEats” will become a regular post category, so if you’ve come in search of ingredient lists or recipes of baked goods you tried at StudioE, check it out, along with my recipes page* already vibrant with recipes and photos from nu-trio.com and growing each week…
A monumental THANKS for dropping by! Let’s get cooking!
- 5 Cups Flour
- 3 Cups Sugar
- 1 Cup Oil
- 4 Eggs
- 6 Cups Bran Cereal
- 3-4 medium bananas, smashed
- 1 Tbs. Cinnamon
- 1 Quart Buttermilk
- 2 Tbs. Vanilla
- 2 tsp. Salt
- 5 tsp. Soda
- For the Granola Streusel:
- 2 Cups of your favorite granola
- ½ Cup Brown Sugar
- Preheat oven to 400
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine oil, sugar, and eggs, and buttermilk until smooth.
- In a very large mixing bowl, preferably the one in which you will store your batter, stir together bran cereal, flour, salt, and spices.
- Add egg mixture to the dry ingredients slowly, stirring to combine.
- Add vanilla and fold in the bananas.
- Scoop equal amounts into muffin tin and top with 1 Tablespoon Granola Streusel Bake 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
*Oh my goodness!! I forgot the bananas in the recipe! So sorry about that. If you’re re-visiting, the bananas are now in place in the recipe!
*I’ll be working to get all of nu-trio’s recipes moved over to ThousandStoryKitchen links as soon as possible, so please bear with me!
Would love to be having some of those muffins with you and your munchkins right now.
Love ya,
Dad
So glad you are back! I will try this soon…gotta buy some things!
Yum, yum. Grandmother would be pleased!
i found your blog on soulemama (and so glad I did!) because i noticed you said you live in GA, and currently so do I! These muffins look delicious. I look forward to more posts.
Wonderful! So glad you stopped by!
Okay, so I was making these again and realized I did NOT put the bananas in the recipe! Add 3-4 medium sized bananas, smashed, to the batter once you’ve added the vanilla. If you like bananas to shine through, four bananas, if you like it subtle, three bananas. I’m sorry about the mistake! woops. Let me know how yours turn out!