bananas & blueberries.

Cecile loves bananas. She eats, well, smashes bananas all over herself at any given opportunity. Still, I find we always end up with one or two or, heck, three or more overripe bananas in the house that, frankly, I don't give her because they're too squishy and will only dirty another outfit. (Don't judge. I do enough laundry as is.) So what to do? There's always banana bread, yes. But muffins are much more manageable for little hands. Banana bread muffins? Brilliant. 

I based my recipe off of this one from this website, but folded in blueberries to pack in some extra fruit. Plus, blueberries are in season. Yum.

Ingredients:
- 2 c. all-purpose flour (I substituted Cup4Cup to make these gluten free!)
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg (I grated about half of one nutmeg)
- 3 large overripe bananas
- 1 egg
- 1/4 c. soft dark brown sugar, plus extra for topping
- 1/4 c. olive oil
- 1/2 c. fresh blueberries

Directions: Preheat oven 375 degrees F. Grease muffin tin. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking power, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and set aside. Using an electric mixer, mash bananas in a large bowl until creamy. Beat the egg, sugar, and oil into the mashed bananas. With the mixer running, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Mix until just blended. Fold blueberries into the batter. Spoon the mixture into muffin pan and top with a little extra brown sugar. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly touched with a finger. Let cool, then hand to your little one to enjoy.

^^My mini-muffin pan makes baked treats Cecile-sized. Perfect for throwing in the diaper bag.^^

Cecile loved these muffins. Check out her grip! My only regret is not changing her out of her outfit before letting her squeeze and smash and squish those baked, gooey blueberries all over herself. (So much for saving that extra laundry load.) These mini-muffs kept very well in a zip-lock bag ... giving me easy snacks to grab over the rest of the week. And they froze well, too, which alleviated fretting about going through 24 of them all at once. A great recipe, indeed. Not convinced? Just check out C's face below :)

^^Success!^^

...