Banana Walnut Muffins

I just love banana breads and muffins and have a collection of many different recipes for these.  Earlier this week I chose to use a recipe from my Taste of Home cookbook, called Special Banana Nut Bread.  As the name would imply, it is a recipe for banana bread, but I went out and bought a jumbo muffin tin to turn the bread into muffins.

The original recipe asked for pecans, but I used walnuts instead.  What I really did like about this recipe is that it uses cream cheese.  It is creamed along with the butter and sugar, so it is thoroughly incorporated through the batter.

The texture is absolutely perfect and so moist!  It almost mimics the taste of those yummy Otis Spunkmeyer muffins that I love.

These muffins were fantastic for breakfast and were so filling that I told my mom that this might be my only banana bread recipe!

Special Banana Nut Bread
Adapted from Taste of Home
Makes 1 loaf, 6 jumbo muffins or 12 regular muffins

Ingredients
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts, divided

Method
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add egg, beating well.  Beat in bananas and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture.  Fold in 1/2 cup walnuts.

Transfer to a greased 8x4x2-inch loaf pan or greased muffin tin.  Sprinkle with remaining walnuts.  Bake at 350F for 1 to 1 1/4 hours for a loaf, 30 minutes for jumbo muffins or 20-22 minutes for regular muffins, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

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