Selling your house may not be easy these days but I am going to recommend something that might help.

Bake banana muffins.

The aroma is so sweet and homey it makes it seem as if lots of good things happen in your house and people will want to live in it.

I baked some banana muffins the other day and didn’t want to leave my house because that banana perfume was keeping me there like a magnet to nails. For a few minutes I could still sniff a bit of it in my car because I suppose some of the baking vapors stuck to my clothes.

The reason I made banana muffins is because, as I said the other day, I buy way too many bananas. I can’t help myself. Even though I am allergic to bananas I buy lots of them. Frequently. Because I get a vicarious thrill watching other people eat them. And my husband Ed does eat a few, like a good soldier, but I always have too many leftover and have to find something to do with them.

This week I came up with these Banana Muffins. I gave a piece to my 19-month old grandson who looked at it a little skeptically and pushed it away. But then I told him it was a banana muffin and he grabbed it back with his little toddler fist and gobbled it down and then asked for more.

You can make these plain or add dried cranberries, nuts, chocolate chips, grated coconut and so on, to the batter (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup).

Banana Streusel Muffins

Streusel:

1/3 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon cnnamon

1 tablespoon butter

In a bowl, mix the brown sugar, four and cinnamon. Cut the butter into small pieces and work into the brown sugar mixture with your fingers until the mixture is crumbly. Set aside.

Muffins:

6 tablespoons butter

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 large mashed bananas

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped nuts, dried cranberries or chocolate chips, optional

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups. Melt the butter and set aside to cool. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. In another bowl mix the bananas, sugar, egg and vanilla extract until well blended. Stir in the melted butter and optional ingredients. Spoon the flour mixture into the banana mixture and stir until thoroughly blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Top each muffin with equal portions of the streusel. Bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Makes 10

What to do with leftover bananas?

I’ve become an expert at that. Because I love to buy bananas. I love how they look, especially when they are light yellow with green tips so I know they are firm inside and perfectly sweet. I never buy any that are dark yellow or that have brown freckles.

I used to love to eat bananas too. Plain or with sour cream or yogurt. And especially, in Banana Cream Pie, which I can only fantasize about now.

Because I became allergic to bananas.

How is it possible to be allergic to bananas?

I don’t know but I am.

So now I can only buy them, and gaze upon them longingly and hope that my husband Ed will eat them, which he does, but never as many as I buy. There are always leftovers.

I now have more recipes for Banana Bread than anyone and I am working on some for Banana Muffins.

If you have leftover bananas, try this recipe. It makes a good snack, or dessert (maybe add ice cream or fudge sauce). 

Banana-Coconut Bread

2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup butter 

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup orange or ginger marmalade or apricot jam

3 large very ripe bananas

3 large eggs, beaten

1 cup packaged coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan (about 8 cups). Mix the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until well blended. Add the marmalade and bananas and blend them in thoroughly. Beat in the eggs. Add the flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Fold in the coconut. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes. Invert onto a cake rack to cool completely. Makes one bread serving 12-16