Amazing Banana Crunch Muffins

I spent the past week in Romania and while there I spotted silicon muffin cups. We have been looking for some for the past few months but in Germany they are extremely expensive. In Romania, not only where they much cheaper but I had some leftover Lei (this is the currency of Romania :)) I just had to use up so I snatched them right up, no guilt :)
 
When I got back I just knew that I had to test them out. We had some very ripe bananas so banana muffins seemed like the perfect test subject. These muffins turned out to be excellent and the only reason that they have not been made a second time already is because we will have to buy new pants if we keep eating so many!

To make these muffins you need:

1 1/2 cups + 2 Tbs flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup + 1 Tbs butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Almonds or other nut (optional)

Mash mash mash

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a large bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. We do not have a good mixer so I just did this by using a fork. Add 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir together until everything is fully moistened and combined. 

Our first no nut half

We could not decide if we wanted to try to add nuts to our muffins or not. Our solution was to spoon in half of the batter into muffin cups, either with paper cups or lightly greased, and then add chopped almonds to the other half and finish filling up the muffin cups. We loved both variations but the muffins with nuts were our favorites. The nuts gave them a little extra munchy texture. 

A little clumpy :(

After filling the muffin cups, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture is mixed but still course. Sprinkle topping over muffins. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes (ours took 22 minutes).

Germany does not have what Americans would consider *regular* brown sugar. Instead it is not moist but more like regular sugar, except the individual granules are larger. Because of this we did not think that our topping would come out properly. We added a bit of water to our mix (in the hopes of making it more like moist American sugar). 

Not the prettiest but proper brown sugar will fix that

It worked but I think we used a bit too much water and it became clumpy. It tasted great but did not look too pretty. This just means in Germany you need to experiment a bit more with the crunchy topping than you do if you are in the USA or have moist brown sugar.

Seriously, we mean it, try these muffins! They are absolutely delicious!