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Banana Butterscotch Muffins are naturally sweet bananas enveloped in a bountiful butterscotch batter guaranteed to keep you happy the whole day.

I’ve been baking these muffins since I first saw the recipe in Nigella Express by – you guessed it! – Nigella Lawson. At that time, I was blissfully unaware of the dangers lurking in store-bought chips. Butterscotch chips contain mostly sugar and trans fat under the guise of hydrogenated oils. They also don’t melt. Why would I want to ingest anything that doesn’t break down in my body?

Hence my determination to transform my beloved Nigella recipe into a healthy…ish concoction. Which means that I had to make my own butterscotch sauce.

Butterscotch apparently originated from the phrase “scorched butter.” No evidence exists that this sublime sauce originated in Scotland, although that would have been far more romantic. Butterscotch is simply brown sugar and butter. Other ingredients include -cream, vanilla, corn syrup and the like but the two primary ingredients most of the time suffice. Although I do like adding sea salt to the recipe – it keeps the richness in balance.

All that need be done is melt brown sugar with the butter. The molasses from the brown sugar imparts a deeper flavor. The butter gives it a soft yet rich and mellow nuance. I like to think of butterscotch as the sensually sophisticated cousin of the dramatically-inclined caramel. Yet butterscotch demands attention in its restraint.

Imagine then what happens when butterscotch meets bananas.

Please use very ripe bananas as stated in the recipe. On the verge of being over-ripe is perfect. Read about the virtues of mature bananas in the Banana Coffee Bread recipe.

Desserts With Benefits has a homemade butterscotch chips recipe. You can simply use these in a 1:1 replacement in Nigella’s recipe if you prefer the chips version.

Banana Butterscotch Muffins
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Banana Butterscotch Muffins

Recipe by Two Queens BakeDifficulty: Easy
Prep time

15

minutes
Baking Time

30

minutes

Ingredients

  • 245g all purpose/plain flour

  • 1 tsp baking powder

  • ½ tsp baking soda

  • ¾ tsp sea salt

  • 2 eggs

  • 180g sugar

  • 75g dark brown sugar

  • 230g very ripe bananas, mashed but with visible banana pieces

  • 60ml vegetable oil

  • 55g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

  • 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

  • 1 banana, sliced into thin rounds (optional)

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Position oven rack in the middle rung of the oven. Lightly grease a standard 12-hole muffin pan or line with cupcake liners.
  • In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugars, bananas, oil, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth.
  • Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until the batter is smooth. Do not overmix.
  • Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, filling each hole ¾ full.
  • Optional: top each filled hole with a thin round banana slice
  • Bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Ok, too, if there are some clinging crumbs.
  • Transfer the pan to a rack to cool for 10 minutes. Take out each muffin and set these on the rack to cool completely.