One Banana Brown Butter Banana Muffins

Yield: 6 one banana brown butter banana muffins // Total Time: 40 min. // Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links. // Updated from “brown butter banana nutella muffins” on 12/26/2022.

One banana, 6 delicious and flavorful banana muffins.

One banana brown butter banana muffins

This recipe is for that last banana going bad on your counter. These one banana brown butter banana muffins not only solve that problem, but they solve it in the most delicious way. It starts with a brown butter banana muffin base which adds delicious toasty notes to the muffins. Then, we fill the batter with chocolate chips, and top it all off with nutella. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can swirl some nutella into the middle of the muffins as well. These small batch banana muffins are super moist, flavorful, and come together in one bowl and 40 minutes, so let’s get into it!

What is brown butter?

Brown butter is super simple to make so don’t worry! It’s just regular butter that is cooked on the stove until some of the moisture evaporates, allowing the milk solids in the butter to be toasted. The result is this butter with an amber hue and little speckles that has a toasted and slightly nutty aroma.

Because the butter gets cooked for a while, you do lose most of the moisture present in butter – just another reason I highly recommend weighing your ingredients! You should have 90g of butter left from the 113g at the start. Any less and you’ll want to add some water to the butter to bring it to 90g, or you’ll end up with some dry and crumbly cookies.

Recipe tips

Weigh your ingredients

Weighing your ingredients is important for getting the recipe perfect and getting consistent results. Not weighing your ingredients can lead to adding too much or too little of an ingredient and can easily throw off a recipe. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend purchasing a kitchen scale. This one is super cheap and worked well for me when I was starting out! If you don’t have access to a scale, here is the best way to measure flour:

How to measure flour with cups: fluff up the flour with a fork, then use a spoon to scoop it into your measuring cup. Use a knife to level off the top of the cup, then use as directed.

Mix the batter carefully

It is super important to not overmix the muffin batter. Overmixing the batter leads to more gluten development which will take your muffins from light and fluffy to tough and chewy. If you’ve ever had your muffin tops be super pointy – overmixing is also the culprit! Be sure to mix the flour gently into the batter, and stop mixing right when that last flour streak disappears.

Room temperature ingredients

It is important for the ingredients to be at room temperature so that they properly incorporate with each other. Here’s how to get room temperature ingredients FAST if you’re in a time crunch or forgot to take the ingredients out (like I often do):

Egg: place the egg in a bowl and run hot water over it for 1 continuous minute, or let it sit in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes.

Sour cream and milk: microwave each in 5-second intervals until it is no longer cold, but is not warm (room temp!)

Keep an eye on those muffins!

Muffins like to go from under-baked to over-baked super quickly so it is important to keep a close eye on them. Start checking at 15 minutes with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out wet, check them again in 2 minutes and so on until only a few moist crumbs stick to the toothpick.

Get those perfect muffin tops

The trick to getting those nicely domed muffin tops is (mostly) all in your oven’s temperature! Bake the muffins at 425°F / 220°C for 5 minutes. Then, without opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 350°F / 175°C and continue baking until done. The super high heat will make the muffins rise nice and tall! You will also want to bake them lined in every other tin on the muffin pan, and fill them to the very top. This recipe makes the perfect amount of batter to fill every muffin liner straight to the top for those perfect muffin tops!

How to evenly distribute your muffin batter

My favorite way to evenly distribute muffin batter is to use cookie scoops! Works perfectly every time. So long are the days of eyeballing which muffin may need a little more batter.

Ingredients and substitutions

All purpose flour: for structure and chewiness.

Baking powder & baking soda: for helping the muffins rise. Baking powder gives the muffins a cakier texture, and baking soda interacts with the brown sugar and sour cream to give it some lift.

Salt: to help balance and bring out the sweetness of the muffins.

Unsalted butter: for tenderness and flavor. You can use salted butter in place of the unsalted, just be sure to omit the extra salt from the cookies. We’ll also be browning the butter for some extra delicious toasty flavor. If you’re looking to make this dairy-free, Miyoko’s Creamery vegan butter has the ability to brown just like regular butter and works like a charm.

Granulated sugar & light brown sugar: a combination of both helps to both add moisture and lock moisture into the bread. Brown sugar also adds a deeper, molasses-y flavor.

Banana: you will need 1 very ripe large banana.

Eggs: for binding and for moisture.

Sour cream: for moisture and making sure the muffins stays tender. You can substitute in buttermilk or greek yogurt as well.

Semi sweet chocolate chips: for texture and for having delicious chocolate throughout the muffins. Use your favorite chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, or chopped baking chocolate here!

Nutella: the star of the show, because who doesn’t want nutella swirled on top of their muffins?! This part is optional but just a fun way to level-up the muffins.

Small batch banana muffins q&a

Do I need to use ripe bananas?

I know it can be quite frustrating if you don’t have any ripe bananas on hand, but you do need to use a very ripe banana for this recipe. Ripe bananas provide are a different texture, sweeter, and more flavorful than green or yellow bananas. If you don’t have any ripe bananas, simply buy some at the beginning of the week and leave them out with the intention of making a banana recipe at the end of the week! If you need the bananas ripe NOW, I’ve seen that you can bake them in the oven until they turn brown (although I have never tried this method).

Can I double this recipe?

Of course! Obviously it won’t be small batch anymore but small batch isn’t always what we need! Simply double all of the ingredients in the recipe to make 12 delicious banana muffins. I even more strongly recommend measuring by weight if you are going to double the recipe for the best results.

How to store these muffins

Like most baked goods, these muffins will definitely taste the best on the day that they are baked. They will last for up to 3 days stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

A note on oven temperature

Ovens vary and fluctuate in temperature. For example, I always have to set my oven to 330°F if I want it to bake at 350°F. If you love to bake like I do, I highly recommend getting an oven thermometer. They are super helpful for letting you know when your oven might be lying to you! I use this one.

Tools and ingredients

You can find all my favorite tools and ingredients that I use on my Amazon Storefront page, here!