These are the BEST homemade banana nut muffins! They’re moist, flavorful, and baked with toasted nuts. With a few simple muffin baking tricks, these muffins bake perfect every time.

This post is sponsored by Danish Creamery but all thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Butternut Bakery possible!

What makes this the BEST banana nut muffin recipe?

I’m a stickler when it comes to muffins because they need to have it all – height, flavor, texture, and just the amount of moistness. These banana muffins check every box and then some! With rounded muffin tops, a moist and fluffy texture, and rich banana flavor, these are bakery-quality made right at home. I could go on and on, but here are the top reasons why these banana nut muffins are SO good:

1. Danish Creamery European Style Butter – I love using Danish Creamery butter in my baking for so many reasons. It’s much more flavorful than traditional butter as it’s slow churned and made with quality ingredients. Their European style butter is what takes these muffins from basic to gourmet. It adds an extra depth of flavor and helps to keep these muffins moist for days. Trust me, once you bake with Danish Creamery butter you’ll never go back!
2. The Method – It’s tough to get a muffin that’s both tall and moist, and these muffins check both boxes. By using a couple muffin baking secrets, these muffins bring you the best of both worlds. I discuss more in detail what these tricks entail, so read on to see how to make the perfect chocolate chip muffins.
3. The Banana – This muffin batter uses 1 1/2 cups of ripe mashed banana which is about 3-4 bananas. For the best flavor, use REALLY ripe bananas…the kind that are nearly completely brown. This amount yields a banana muffin that is bursting with delicious banana flavor.
4. The Nuts – If nuts are mixed in raw, they’re really only their for crunch rather than flavor. So to enhance these mix-ins, the nuts are toasted beforehand. This releases so much more nuttiness and brings even more flavor to these muffins.

How to make banana nut muffins

What I love about muffins is just how easy they are to make. Unlike cupcakes that depend on the creaming method for height (combining butter and sugar until fluffy), muffins are made in fewer steps because they’re a quick bread. This means that they rely heavily on baking soda and baking powder in order to grow nice and tall. Because of this, it takes the load off of the baker as the leaveners do most of the

So what is the process of making muffins using this quick bread method? It’s essentially three simple steps:

1. Dry Ingredients – Combine ALL of the dry ingredients in one bowl, including the sugar.
2. Wet Ingredients – Combine all of the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, which includes the butter, eggs, sour cream, and any additional liquid flavorings or fats.
3. Mix Together – Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix to combine. That’s it!

Because of the large amount of leaveners in the dry ingredients, the batter will start to froth as the wet ingredients are mixed in. This is due to the fact that baking powder activates with liquid, and baking soda activates with liquid and acid (such as sour cream). So be very careful not to disrupt this reaction as you stir the two together. Mix JUST until it’s combined, otherwise, you could deflate the batter.

The secret to tall muffin tops

My biggest dilemma with muffins is that they should most definitely have a tall muffin top, but to get there the muffin usually turns out a bit heavy and dry…or at least too dry for my liking.

So how do you achieve both moist and tall muffins? Right after the batter is mixed, it rests for at least 30 minutes at room temperature before it’s baked. During this time, magic happens. Remember what I said about the leaveners activating in liquid? By resting the batter, we’re prolonging this process and allowing the leaveners to fully do their thing. It’s like giving them a head start, allowing the batter to lift before it lifts once more in the heat of the oven.

This recipe calls for a 30 minute rest period, but the longer the batter rests the taller the muffin. Thirty minutes is the minimum, but it can rest for an hour or even overnight in the refrigerator!

After the 30 minutes, another important step awaits. In order to get the batter into the muffin liners, you must be very gentle as you scoop. We don’t want to disrupt all the hard work the leaveners did while resting. So as you scoop, just make one smooth motion through the batter in order to fill the scooper. Then plop it into the liner and move on to the next. Don’t mix around the batter, don’t make a double pass, just scoop and plop.

This will become instinctual after you notice just how fluffy the batter has become. You can SEE how light it is, so it’s easy to not want to deflate it. It’s an hour well worth it! To see a side by side of a muffin baked right away vs a muffin baked after an hour, check out my recipe for chocolate chip muffins.

Banana Nut Muffins: Frequently Asked Questions

For more muffin recipes, check out my:

• BEST Blueberry Muffins
• BEST Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
• Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Make sure to tag me @butternutbakery on Instagram and leave a review below if you make these banana nut muffins. To pin this recipe and save it for later, you can use the button on the recipe card or on any of the photos above. Happy baking!

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