Easy and Moist Basic Banana Muffins with Nutella Swirl (made with less / minimal dishwashing)

Who love banana muffins?

Me me me me me ...

Who love Nutella?

Me me me me me ...

Who hate dishwashing?

Me me me me me ...

I must say that these delicious Nutella swirl banana muffins are super super super easy to bake. Best of all,  they are baked with minimal amount of dishwashing!!!

Thanks to Google! I have found these two fantastic basic banana muffin recipes from Cat Can Cook and Yammie's Noshery and also this brilliant less-dishwashing baking idea from Yammie's Noshery. These two basic banana muffin recipes are always the top two hits whenever I Google for banana muffin recipes. After I made a comparison of both recipes, I have found that Cat's ones contain slightly more banana than Yammie's and surprisingly, the slight difference in their contents can make such a difference in overall texture of the muffins. Having more banana, Cat's muffins are denser and more banana taste while Yammie's muffins are more cake-like with more tender crumbs. Personally, I like Yammie's more than Cat's but I think this preference can be very subjective as both can be equally super moist and yummy.

How did I bake these banana muffins with minimal washing? The original idea from Yammie's Noshery says that her muffins are baked without dirtying a single dish? Well, not exactly and I don't want to make too big claim for that because there is still washing to do but probably the least or minimum.

To bake these muffins, I have mashed the banana and mixed the batter using zip lock bags. By doing that, all I have to wash is one muffin pan and some measuring spoons and cups. If you uses plastic bags to contain the ingredients by weighing, you probably can wash a few less measuring spoons... LOL! And, if you use disposable baking cups to bake these muffins, you can avoid washing the muffin pans too. I usually use the disposable baking cups that I have for steaming cakes because I don't like to use them for baking due to their waxy interior... Sorry that I'm really fussy with this!

As I was tossing these plastic or zip lock bags into the waste bin, I must admit that this is not entirely an environment-friendly method to bake but I did save some effort and time from any extra dishwashing and also a little money from using less water and dishwashing detergent... LOL!

Now, who love banana Nutella muffins?

Easy and Moist Basic Banana Muffins with Nutella Swirl

To bake the muffins, these are all I need to wash.

Shaking and squishing the contents in these zip lock bags can mix this batter very well.

Then, make a snip at the corner of the bag and squirt the batter into a lined muffin tin...

Want something extra with these muffins??? Nutella, please!

Squeeze about 1-2 teaspoonful of Nutella into each muffin. Use a toothpick to make a swirl.

Can't wait to try these muffins!

Muffin made with Cat's recipe. Fully packed with banana with denser texture.

Muffin made with Yammie's recipe. Although it is flatter, it is lighter with cake-like texture.

Here are the recipes that I have mostly adapted from Cat Can Cook and Yammie's Noshery

*rice bran oil with 0% trans fat.

Preheat oven to 375ºF / 190ºC or 170ºC fan forced. Line a standard 12 hole size (1/3 cup) muffin tray with baking cups.

Using a weighing scale, weigh sugar and flour in two separate plastic bags or use a 1/4-cup measuring cup and a 1/4-tsp spoon to measure all ingredients.

In a large Ziploc bag, mash the bananas. Add eggs, sugar, melted butter or oil (and vanilla if you are baking Yammie's recipe), seal the bag, and shake and squish until well combined.

Add in the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder (and cinnamon if you are baking Yammie's recipe). Seal the bag again and shake and squish again until well combined. Do not over-squash the bag at this stage as the batter is ok to be lumpy.

Make a snip at the corner of the bag and squirt the batter into a lined muffin tin. Don't make the snip too big as the batter can be runny. To avoid excessive mess, pinch and hold the corner of the bag while transferring from one muffin cup to another.

Bake for 20 mins or until a toothpick (not skewer so that you can throw away the toothpick without washing it) comes out clean.

Finding the banana muffins too plain???

These basic banana muffins are very delicious on its own. Although they are not too sweet, I reckon the sweetness is just right for us. If you find them too plain and simple, these are extras that you can add on ...

You can either:

1) make a lemon glaze like the one in Yammie's recipe for the muffins. Mix 1/2 cup icing sugar, 1 tbsp milk or lemon juice until your required consistency and pour it over the cooled muffins.
or 2) add walnuts and/or chocolate chips into the batter before baking.
or 3) make them like ours with Nutella swirl. To do that, you need to wash one more spoon to spoon Nutella onto the muffin directly or spoon tablespoonfuls of Nutella into a disposable piping bag and pipe about 1-2 tsp of Nutella onto each muffins. Then, use a toothpick to make the swirls.

Happy Baking
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