Banana Crumb Muffins with Orange Glaze and February Foodie Penpals

Before I get into these amazing banana crumb muffins, I want to take a moment to celebrate Foodie Penpals Reveal Day. I was a first-timer in this wonderful program and it was such a fun experience.

If you’ve never heard of this program, here’s how it works:

You send a box of goodies to your matched up penpal on the 15th of the month, in which there is a $15 spending limit. You can send fun foodie things, local food items, or even homemade treats, and the box also has to include something written. It can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box to a fun recipe.
Then on the last day of the month, you get to post about all the wonderful goodies you received from your penpal.

I was paired with Lisa Tatum from I live for coffee…, an Alabama Southern Belle living in Utah, who is completely addicted to coffee. I sent her a box of snacks and goodies that I really like – mostly healthy stuff. But now that I think about it, maybe I should’ve sent her some coffee. Oops. Anyway, you can head on over to her blog to see what fun goodies I sent over her way.

Now I also had the honor of being Samantha Zeigler’s penpal, the author of Running and Cupcakes. She’s a hard-core runner who cooks and bakes fabulous things, and she was so amazing to send me a box FILLED with tons of goodies.

First up, we have this dark chocolate bar with a hint of chili. You can’t really taste the chili until the very end, which gives it a nice kick.

Then we have these strawberry fruit leathers. It’s been ages since I had fruit roll-up so this was a nice flash-from-the-past. Plus, it’s a gazillion times healthier.

Samantha also sent me this coffee because she said it was “THE BEST”, and boy was she right. I need to find a supplier for this coffee because I don’t think I can go back to Dunkin Donuts coffee.

Now here is my favorite item in my box: “turkey perky jerky”. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d like it at all. I mean, it’s turkey jerky! I need the real meat! But really, it was the best jerky I’ve ever had in my entire life, hands down. It’s not as rubbery as beef jerky, and to be honest, you couldn’t even tell that it was turkey. The only difference was that it tasted a hundred times better! Plus, this bag only has 50 calories. Yes, 50 calories. I could eat 10 bags of these and it would only be 500 calories!!! That could be my lunch.

And last but not least, a homemade treat: granola bars packed with tons of dried fruits and nuts. It was light and chewy, and the perfect snack for any time of the day. As soon as I opened my box, I sat on the living room floor and devoured two of these.

Well, there you have it, my first foodie penpal box. I loved everything in it, and it was such a delight to get something in the mail. Snail mail is totally underutilized these days, and you forget the joy it brings when you get something non-electronically. I absolutely cannot wait for March’s Foodie Penpal.

If you want to join for the month of March, be sure to send an email to Lindsay at theleangreenbean@gmail.com by March 4th with the following information:

Full name
Email address
Blog name/address
Twitter handle, if applicable
U.S. resident or Canadian resident

Also, a HUGE thank you to Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean for coordinating all this. I’m sure organizing this for 200+ people was not easy so thank you for your time and efforts for this wonderful program.

Now let’s talk about these muffins. Shall we?

So I always have these overripe bananas sitting on my counter. I just have this addiction to go out and buy bananas when I already have tons of them right at home. Well I guess it’s not really an addiction becasue I have a good reason as to why I keep buying them. See, I only like green bananas, but sometimes they ripe up WAY too fast so it gets all yellow and spotty and then I don’t want it anymore. So then the next time I’m at the grocery store, I’ll buy green bananas, eat a couple, and then the rest of them brown up – repeating the vicious cycle.

The only good thing that comes out of having too many bananas is all the banana stuff I can make – like these banana muffins. These babies were so fluffy and light, kind of like banana bread in muffin form, and the crumb topping just made them perfectly crunchy and sweet. I decided to added a glaze for that hint of orange, which worked really well with the crumb topping, I brought these to work and they were an absolute hit!

Now you should know that these muffins aren’t the prettiest muffins in the world – but don’t let that fool you because these are by far one of the best muffins I’ve ever had.

Banana Crumb Muffins with Orange Glaze (adapted from Cooking Classy):

Yields 16 muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, browned
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 medium overripe bananas, mashed

For the crumb topping:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

For the glaze:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
Zest of 1 orange
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners; set aside. (If you don’t want to use paper liners, you could coat a muffin pan with cooking spray instead.)

To make the crumb topping, combine the flour and sugar in a small bowl. Add the cold butter and toss to coat, using your fingers to work the butter into the dry ingredients until it resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside in the refrigerator.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together the browned butter, sugars, sour cream, eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas.

Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist.

Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin tray.

Sprinkle with reserved topping, using your fingertips to gently press the crumbs into the batter.

Place into oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

To make the glaze, combine the confectioners’ sugar, orange zest and orange juice. Whisk until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, add more juice as needed.