do you know the muffin girls?

There has recently been some over-ambitious banana purchasing going on here, leaving us with a bunch of over-ripe bananas and a small yet disturbing number of fruit flies hovering around our kitchen shelf. What to do? Make muffins! :)

Kicky Banana Muffins (or loaf!)

3 medium ripe bananas (or 2 large)
6 tbsp (3/8 cup) butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups flour
2/3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
a hefty pinch of ground ginger
1/2 chopped walnuts (optional)

• Mash together the bananas, melted butter, and vanilla. Lightly beat the eggs and stir them in.
• Whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the banana mash and nuts and fold together.
• Pour into a lined muffin tin or a greased & floured loaf pan. Bake at 350*F, 25-30 min for the muffins, 55 min for the loaf.
• Dig in as soon as its cool enough not to burn your mouth! :)

I've made 2 batches of this today (12 muffins and a loaf), increasing the amount of ginger in the second batch. I also used brown sugar in the loaf, since we ran out of white sugar... the batter tasted great, but I'll have to wait till its out of the oven to see how consistency turned out.

Mmm.. I love baking!