Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Loaded with sweet banana flavor and a touch of spice!
Texture: Perfectly fluffy yet moist, no gummy bits that stick to the roof of your mouth.
Ease: Ultra easy, these bake up in minutes.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Perfect go-to muffin recipe.
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When I set out to develop my ideal bakery style banana muffins, I wanted three things: tall domes, serious banana flavor, and a fluffy crumb that doesn’t stick to the roof of your mouth.
In my testing, I found that many recipes were either moist but flat… or tall but dry. The balance came down to flour choice, fat ratio, and oven temperature.
After several batches (including one overly oily round and one dry, overmixed batch), this version hit exactly what I was after.
The inspiration for this banana muffin recipe came from an issue of Cooks Illustrated.
Reader Love
Hi! I never comment on posts but have to do so for this. I’ve tried 3 different banana muffin recipes before this one and just baked a batch with your recipe and they are beyond amazing thank you so much!
–
Sprinkle of Science
Ingredient Notes
This is a simple recipe, but a few carefully selected ingredients make a world of difference.
- Very Ripe Bananas: The bananas should be heavily speckled or nearly black. Overripe bananas are sweeter, more aromatic, and contain more broken-down starches, which means better moisture and stronger banana flavor. Underripe bananas will give you bland, dry muffins. I like to mash them with a potato masher.
- Bread Flour: This is key for tall banana muffins. Bread flour has higher protein than all-purpose flour, allowing it to absorb more moisture and create stronger structure for bakery-style domes. If substituting AP flour, use a higher-protein brand like King Arthur.
- Butter + Oil: I tested this recipe with all oil and all butter. All oil made the texture slightly greasy. All butter made the muffins less moist by day two.
The combination gives you butter for flavor and oil so they stay tender for days. - Baking Powder + Baking Soda: This recipe uses both. Baking powder gives lift in the oven, while baking soda reacts with the acidity in brown sugar and bananas for browning and additional rise. Learn more in my Baking Soda vs. Baking Powder guide.
How to Make Bakery Style Banana Muffins
1. Preheat the Oven: Preheat to 425°F and position your rack in the middle or upper-middle position. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. High heat is critical for tall domes.
2. Mix Dry Ingredients: Whisk all the dry ingredients together thoroughly so the leaveners are evenly distributed. I like to add some spices for extra flavor, but feel free to remove them or switch them up.
3. Mix Wet Ingredients: For the purpose of this recipe, the sugars are included with the wet ingredients.
4. Combine Wet and Dry: Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir gently with a spatula until just combined. You should still see a few streaks of flour. Overmixing = dense, tough muffins.
At this point you can also add:
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- OR 3/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts or pecans
5. Fill the Muffin Pan: Fill each cavity 3/4 full for large bakery-style muffins. For slightly smaller muffins, fill 2/3 full and divide between two pans (about 15 muffins). Sprinkle tops generously with coarse sugar for a crisp, sparkly finish.
6. Bake: at 425°F for 14–15 minutes, or until:
- Tops are golden brown
- Centers spring back lightly
- A toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean
Baking Success Tips
- Use bananas that are very ripe for best flavor and moisture.
- Do not use a dark nonstick muffin pan, it can overbrown bottoms. I like USA pans.
- Measure flour with a digital scale for accuracy.
- Stop stirring as soon as flour disappears.
- For extra tall tops, make sure your oven is fully preheated.
- If baking at high altitude, reduce baking powder to 2 teaspoons.
Storage & Make Ahead
Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
You can also freeze for up to 3 months. You can reheat in the microwave directly from the freezer (about 15 to 20 seconds) or thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat in the oven.
FAQs
Yes! Feel free to add 3/4 cup (75 grams) of walnut halves or pecans, chopped after measuring. For best results, toast them first.
You can also add 1 cup (170 grams) chocolate chips. Regular-size or mini chocolate chips will work.
Not ideally. Because this recipe contains baking soda, some leavening strength weakens over time. You can refrigerate overnight if necessary, but expect slightly less browning.
Bananas should be heavily speckled or nearly black. Overripe bananas are sweeter, softer, and provide significantly more flavor and moisture than yellow bananas.
Use bread flour, fill muffin cavities 3/4 full, and bake at 425°F. The higher protein flour builds structure while the high heat creates rapid oven spring for domed tops.
Yes, though bread flour does work best. Use a higher-protein all-purpose flour if possible, like King Arthur.
Gummy muffins are usually caused by overmixing or underbaking. Stir just until combined and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.
Yes. Fill mini muffin tins about 3/4 full and reduce bake time to 9–11 minutes. Watch closely.
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Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (205 grams) bread flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder*
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, optional
- 1 1/2 cups (354 grams) mashed, very ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)**
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) vegetable or canola oil
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- OPTIONAL: 3/4 cup (75 grams) walnut halves or pecans, toasted and chopped OR 1 (170 grams) cup chocolate chips
- Coarse sugar, for garnish if desired
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Position an oven rack to the middle or upper middle position. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices if using.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the bananas, sugars, butter, oil, eggs, and vanilla until well combined. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until just barely combined. Stir in the nuts or chocolate chips, if using.
- Divide evenly among the muffin tin cups, filling each 3/4 full for large muffins. You can also make about 15 smaller muffins by filling the cavities of two pans just 2/3 full. Sprinkle each with a generous amount of coarse sugar for a crunchy shiny topping, if desired.
- Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 14 to 15 minutes. Let cool in muffin pan for 5 to 10 minutes before removing to wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Notes
More Muffin Recipes You’ll Love:
- Pumpkin Muffins (with a brown sugar streusel on top!)
- Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Brown Butter Blueberry Muffins
- Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
- Double Chocolate Banana Muffins
This recipe was written in 2021 and has been updated with additional baking tips. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Amazing recipe, so fluffy and light
These are wonderful! Is there any way to estimate the calories per muffin?
Put this recipe into ChatGPT and it will give you the estimated calories. 🙂
This recipe serves as a good base recipe for future flavors or modifications you would like to add to your taste. I recommend adding a fee drops of ACV to your mixture to help the sugars distribute evenly since you are working with gluten. Thank you for sharing!
Makes our family’s favorite muffin! I love the measurements for the weight scale!
Tender and tasty muffins. A few mini chocolate chips are a nice addition. I heat them for a few seconds in the microwave to make them “fresh” each morning.
Made as direced with pecans, I also sprayed my muffin liners and sprinkled cinnamon sugar so the muffins would have a “crust” of sugar. I didn’t have coarse sugar so I opted for this approach and it was absolutely delicious!!! I also really liked that it didn’t have wet/moist top like a lot of my banana nut breads. New favorite!
Great idea, Ann! Your muffin looks delicious. So happy this recipe is your new favorite! 🙂
I was looking for a banana bread recipe that used bread flour because I had a whole bag and this one popped up on my google search. I also had the rest of the ingredients on hand so it felt like fate! One bite and I knew these were winners! Moist without being dense, flavorful without being too sweet. I did add chocolate chips and thought the ratio was great. I was able to make 12 muffins.
I appreciate having the grams listed because when I weigh my ingredients I always end up with better results. My bananas were on the smaller side so I ended up using almost 4 whole bananas so it equalled 354 grams (why weighing is so important)!
I bookmarked these under “best banana muffins” and will definitely be making them again! 🙂
Whipped these up this afternoon, very happy with the outcome. Have tried a few different recipes over the years, but none as good as these. Mine took about 18min, omitted nutmeg as I didn’t have any.
Hi! I never comment on posts but have to do so for this. I’ve tried 3 different banana muffin recipes before this one and just baked a batch with your recipe and they are beyond amazing thank you so much!