White Chocolate Cranberry Banana Muffins

I will always always always be modifying banana bread and muffins, until the day that my hands are gnarled from arthritis at the age of 96, or if I’m lucky, 97.

I love banana bread/muffins, and alternate between my two favorite recipes: Banana Nut Muffins (a bit more rich and buttery, so therefore my true preference), and the basis for this recipe, the Impossibly Healthy Banana Bread (morphed from what my Mom used to make while I was growing up).  If I just made the rich /or lean banana breads for the rest of my life, I’d have to put my head in the oven and die.  (Well, that’s a bit graphic.  And maybe a bit far-reaching in an unnecessarily morbid way.)  But I do need variety (and I feel I have an obligation to provide variety for YOU, don’t I?), so I’m always looking to jazz up the basics.

So why not throw in white chocolate chips and dried cranberries?  Done, and done.

If you’re wild, add a few toasted walnuts or pecans.  That’s variation #364.

Adapted from my Impossibly Healthy Banana Bread recipe…

3 very ripe bananas, well mashed

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup white chocolate chips

2/3 cup dried cranberries, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350° and grease either a large loaf pan, three mini-loaf pans, or a large 12-cup muffin pan (with liners, ideally).
2. Mix mashed bananas with eggs and vanilla, and then stir in flour, sugars, salt and baking soda until just combined.  Gently stir in white chocolate chips and cranberries, then scoop batter in prepared muffin cups/pans.
3. Bake a large loaf pan for 60 minutes, mini-loaf pans for 35 minutes, and muffins for 20 minutes (until cake tester or wooden skewer comes out mostly clean).  Set on cooling racks for 5 – 10 minutes, then remove from pans to finish cooling.

Tips:

• I’m busted.  I forgot to add the cranberries to the batch I took the picture of above, and you might be able to tell.  Next time.  🙂
• Make sure your bananas are SUPER ripe.  
• Want these to be healthier?  Replace whole wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose, and use Sucanat sugar in place of the other sugars.  Throw in a tablespoon of ground flax seeds, and maybe even chia seeds too.
• These freeze really well.  Wrap them in one’s or two’s and then grab them when needed to thaw for a simple snack.
• Enjoy!

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