I originally published this recipe in 2013 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and a few more success tips. Think of regular banana muffins as a pair of cozy, dependable sweatpants and today’s chocolate chip-studded, brown sugar-streuseled version as your over-the-top, sequins- and feathers-bedazzled blazer. (What, you don’t have one of those?!) Today’s recipe originally came from my dear friend Amy, who makes them for Christmas breakfast. The recipe has certainly stood the test of time, and they taste every bit as indulgent as they look.
Banana Chocolate Chip Streusel Muffins Are:
Satisfying, buttery, moist, and soft. Like regular banana muffins, but with a texture upgrade from crunchy walnuts and melty-soft chocolate chips. Layered and swirled with cinnamon and sugar, just like this cinnamon swirl quick bread. A great way to use up over-ripe bananas. Pretty easy, including the streusel—you don’t need to cut in butter like you do for the layers in cinnamon coffee cake, just mix a few ingredients together. A delicious treat for breakfast, snack, or dessert.
Basic Baking Ingredients Required:
The banana batter is pretty straightforward and uses many of the same ingredients as banana bread. Note that we use creamed butter and sugar like we do in chocolate banana bread to produce a cakier-style muffin, vs. melted butter (or oil) in these banana muffins, which are denser and heartier.
The riper the banana, the better. When you bake with bananas, you want to use brown, spotty super-ripe ones. Strain off excess liquid. As bananas thaw, they let out a lot of liquid, which can throw off the wet ingredients in any baking recipe. I always recommend draining off most or all of that excess liquid before mashing and measuring them for your recipe.
(Side note: Feel free to swirl this streusel into zucchini muffins, pumpkin muffins, or even Nutella swirl peanut butter banana bread, too!) Can I leave out the walnuts? You can substitute chopped pecans for the walnuts, or leave the nuts out entirely—you’ll just have a little less streusel, and not as much crunchy texture. You need a mixer for today’s recipe.
Let’s Layer It All Together
Now comes the (somewhat) messy part: layering the batter and the streusel. Grab a standard 12-count muffin pan, either greased or lined with cupcake liners. If you need a recommendation, this muffin pan and this muffin pan have both held up well with very regular use. Spoon some of the batter into each muffin cup—a scant 1.5 Tablespoons each. Next, sprinkle on a scant Tablespoon of streusel in top. Top that with another large spoonful of batter, and finish by topping with more streusel. Use a toothpick or knife to gently swirl it together. The entire process is very similar to how we assemble snickerdoodle cupcakes.
My #1 Muffin Success Tip:
Bake at an initially high oven temperature. Bake the muffins for 5 minutes in a very hot oven. Then, keeping the muffins in the oven, lower the oven temperature. This initial high oven temperature quickly lifts up the muffin tops. Once the temperature is lowered, the centers of the muffins bake. I do this in all my muffin recipes.
