You've done this too . . . Right?

One of my stress relievers is baking! But with that comes CALORIES . . . . so I don't do it often. But after the summer I had and 7 days left before school starts, I was desperate!

Being the thrifty person I am, I searched my kitchen and pantry for supplies and here is what I found: 4 overly ripe, almost black bananas, 1 handful of walnuts, eggs are always in supply thanks to my laying hens, about a 1/2 cup brown sugar and a container full of flour. Surely I must be able to make something with all these ingredients. So I hop on my trusty computer and do a Google search for Banana Muffins. I'm all for quick and easy so I went with a recipe from my favorite sight http://allrecipes.com for Banana Crumb Muffins. Now my kids are not big fans of fruit breads, they don't like them at all!, but since they were some of the cause of my stress, it was all about WHAT MOM WANTED!!

So I mashed and stirred and added some love, then put them into the oven to bake for 20 minutes. I kid you not, after 10 minutes the house was filled with a wonderful aroma of cinnamon and brown sugar which quickly brought the kids running to the kitchen.

"Wow! What smells so good?" T asked.

"Oh, just some crumb muffins I'm making. Would you like one when they are finished?" I asked

"Sure!" they both replied, never once asking what was in them and I was not going to offer any more information then they asked :-D

So when the muffins were cool, we all three sat down and enjoyed the "crumb muffins" (we'll just refer to them as that - okay?) and a glass of milk. And they ate every last crumb of them!

T and N enjoyed them so much that they asked to have one for breakfast this morning. So without any hesitation I handed over yet another muffin to my children, who remember do not THINK they like fruit breads, and again their plates returned to me empty! LOL

Will I fess up and let them know what they are really eating? NO WAY! At least not until one of them wants to bake some crumb muffins with me and reads the recipe card. :-{

Here's the recipe: (in it's full name) ENJOY!

Banana Crumb Muffins yields: 1 dozen

"A basic banana muffin is made extraordinary with cinnamon-brown-sugar streusel topping"

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour 1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon baking soda 1/3 c. butter, melted

1 teaspoon baking powder 1/3 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 bananas, mashed 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 c. white sugar 1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour. baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffing cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

Bake in preheated over for 18-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.