Peanut Butter Banana Oreo Muffins

Cooking and baking allows me to unleash my inner mad scientist. I get to mix and match whatever ingredients I want without anyone telling me to stop playing with my food. I can pile on anything I want, give into my inner fat kid and then excuse my binging by saying “I’m just being creative”. It’s amazing. Like when I told my folks I was going to make muffins with peanut butter, bananas, and Oreo cookies. They literally raised their eyebrows at me and probably thought I had lost my mind. Was I crazy? Of course. But tasty creations are often made in crazy moments.

Once I started pulling out all the ingredients I realized that this recipe might be trickier to make than I had originally planned. The peanut butter could make the batter way too dense and all the sugar could very well cupcake-orize my idea. After that realization, I opted to use honey and yogurt to keep the muffins moist and airy, instead of butter. I also took a lighter hand in measuring out the sugar since the Oreo cookies would provide some sweetness. In the end, everything seemed to workout. It’s a nicely balanced muffin and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. All the ingredients sing together. I like it!

They also look so cool! I love the little Oreo crust at the bottom of each muffin…I might start doing something like this more often. Then the crumbs on top provide just the right amount of sweetness in your first bite. Feel free to mix more cookie crumbs into the actual batter (I did this for one of them and was impressed. I was tempted to redo the entire recipe, but had run out of bananas!) Just keep in mind that these are muffins, not cupcakes! Even after being cautious about how much sugar I was adding, I was still half expecting something super sweet. When I took my first bite, the look on my face was probably priceless. Like I said, I was kind of expecting a dessert haha. So think of it as a hybrid of banana bread. It’s not too banana-y, not too peanut buttery, and not too Oreo-y. It’s a unique muffin that I think you guys will like! As always, let me know what you think!

**When you make these muffins, let them cool before you dig in. This is one of those rare instances when a room temperature cake tastes better than fresh out of the oven. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes pretty good warm, but the flavors don’t shine as strongly when steamy.**

1 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 bananas (1 cup mashed)

6 oz yogurt (plain or banana)

2 eggs

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

30-35 Oreo cookies (crushed)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda/powder, and salt).

In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients until smooth (mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, peanut butter, honey, sugar, and vanilla).

Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. Mix to combine.Reserve.

In a resealable bag, crush the Oreo cookies.

Put muffin cups in muffin tin. Add about 1 teaspoon of Oreo cookie crumbs at the bottom of each muffin cup. Then fill each cup about 3/4 of the way with the batter. Sprinkle the top with a few more crumbs. Repeat for the rest of the ingredients.

Insert into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Allow to cool completely before eating (tastes even better the next day).

Enjoy!