I have been making these banana muffins for quite a few years now and they are always a hit. They are very moist, extremely sweet, and have a wonderful banana flavor. The original recipe comes with a mascarpone cheese frosting, but I never use it because, well, #1 – that seems more cupcake-ish than muffin-ish, and #2 – I think they are definitely good enough without it. If any of you have some tips on how to convert this recipe to a cake, I’d love to hear it! I’m not very good at that sort of thing yet 
I typically make a batch of these and wrap them individually and freeze them. When I want one we just pop it in the microwave. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do 
Banana Muffins
(Adapted from Giada De Laurentiis)
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 ripe bananas, peeled and coarsely mashed
Directions:
Line 18 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl to blend. Beat the sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl to blend. Stir in the banana. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.
Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Bake the muffins on the middle rack until the tops are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out with no crumbs attached, about 25 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a rack and cool slightly. The muffins may be eaten warm or cooled completely and frosted.
Tags: bananas, Fruit, Muffins
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These are quite simply fabulous!!!!!! And… they are good without frosting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for pointing out my excessive use of exclamation points
I shall try to reign in my excitement from now on 
Apparently, you’ve replaced your !!!! with a superfluous use of smileys instead!!!
You win!!!!
Those look so good and might just be the perfect thing for the now-too-ripe-to-eat-alone bananas on my counter.
Just for Nick… HI!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Beth! If you make them definitely know how you like them!
haha these comments are too funny. nick is quite a character
i loooove this recipe. i totally forgot how much i love it. i will be making these tonight!!!
Kayte, that he is
I hadn’t made these in a long time either, they were a nice treat last night!
ooh!! these look so yummy!
i’m definitely saving these to try out.
i too have the excessive-smiley-exclamation point disease!
Thanks for having my back Aud
I think it’s a girl thing! Haha.
I just had my first banana muffin this year, but it tasted a little “healthy” because it had oatmeal in it. I’ll try this oatmeal free recipe next time!
Kate, I promise that these are a far cry from healthy-tasting
I made these also yesterday, just a coincidence that I made two of your recipes in one day, honest
They are great! Nice and moist and very, very flavorful, now I’m off for a long, long walk… which I need after the tiramisu and these guys…..
noskos – I am glad that you enjoyed these! Yeah these aren’t the lightest of muffins, but they are wonderful!
I just found your blog and have been going thru your archives. I just blogged about these too, they are my favorite muffins ever (but I usually do the frosting because i can’t resist!).
I featured these on my blog today – these are superfantastic!!
http://maplebaconbeavertails.blogspot.com/2011/05/nanner-muffins-tute.html
Stacey
Make these tonight in order to clear out my freezer of frozen bananas. I reduced the oil to 3/4 cup and added 2 cups of shredded zucchini (my garden is producing more than we can eat!). Also threw in 1 cup of chocolate chunks, because chocolate makes everything better!! Great recipe.
I just saw this recipe, and I saw that I had ALL of the ingredients for this. So in the spur of the moment I decided I was going to make these tonight. And I did.
There heavenly delicious…….
thank you so much for this recipe. It was just perfect!! Three are already gone!!
Though I am wondering what type of icing would go well with these for the next time I make them. I am thinking that Cream Cheese Frosting would go good. But idk….
Hi Whitney, Definitely cream cheese! The recipe actually came with a frosting recipe – a cream cheese/mascarpone/honey frosting. It is AMAZING, but I hardly ever make these with the frosting because they’re so good and sweet on their own. Here is the recipe though if you’re interested:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/banana-muffins-with-mascarpone-cream-frosting-recipe2/index.html
Thanks so much!! I do agree though I, these muffins are amazing by themselves. I will definitely try it with the frosting sometime in the future though
Also, as a side note. Instead of mashing all of the banana’s up, I slightly mashed slightly diced the banana’s up so that when you bite in the muffin you could actually see a small chunk of banana in it. Just a preference for me. My mother and I thought it had a better presentation that way!
i really want to try this recipe because my family absolutely loves banana bread/muffin types. since you mentioned that this recipe is “extremely” sweet, it’s making me a little iffy since my family doesn’t like to eat really sweet stuff. I was wondering if I cut the sugar to 1-1/2 cups, would it drastically change the taste?
Hi May, I haven’t tried cutting the sugar so I couldn’t give you a definite answer on how the taste would be affected. I honestly don’t think you need to reduce the sugar though. It’s not like you feel like you’re eating straight sugar, they are just a sweet muffin, but packed full of banana flavor.
If I don’t want to make it into muffins, can I still use the same recipe to make it into a loaf style?
Your blueberry muffins were my weird pregnancy craving, so naturally I came back to your website looking for more. I can’t wait to try this one! Yum!