Banana Oat Muffins with Brown Sugar Streusel

For the streusel:
1. In a medium size bowl mix together all the streusel ingredients except butter.
2. Pour in the melted butter and mix with a wooden spoon or your fingers until all the dry ingredients are moistened. Cover and set aside.

For the muffins:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Spread the oat bran in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet and toast at 350 F for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
3. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray. (This recipe will make 12 -18 standard size muffins, depending on the size of your muffin pan and how full you fill each cup.)
4. Chop half of the bananas into bite-size pieces. Set aside.
5. In a medium size bowl, stir together the toasted oat bran, all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg to blend.
6. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mash the remaining half of the bananas with a fork, pastry cutter or your fingers. Add the yogurt, brown sugar, eggs, applesauce and coconut oil and mix on medium speed until well blended, about 2 minutes.
7. Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and mix on low speed with the paddle attachment just until blended, or stir with a wooden spoon.
8. Distribute the batter in your muffin tin, filling each cup about halfway full. Top batter evenly with the chopped bananas and then with the streusel.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean. These muffins are very moist, so you may have a crumb or two clinging to your toothpick.

My mother-in-law recently told me about some delicious muffins with chunks of bananas in them. Of course, I immediately wanted to bake muffins like that. These have mashed bananas mixed into the batter as well as slices of banana on top. On top of that is a buttery, brown sugar streusel, which makes them taste sinful, even though they’re really not. They’re actually packed with all sorts of things that are really good for you. They just taste decadent. You could make them even healthier by replacing the brown sugar in the batter with stevia and a tablespoon of molasses.