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These soft muffins are made with overripe bananas, coconut oil, pure maple syrup, eggs, vanilla, flour, butter, and warm winter spices. They’re tender, lightly sweet, and finished with salty maple butter—truly everything you want in a banana muffin.
Like clockwork, once January rolls around, all I want to bake is banana bread or banana muffins. There’s just something about winter days that makes me crave banana bread—it feels like the perfect sweet treat after a holiday season full of cookies and sugar.
I love my banana bread recipe more than anything, and over the years, I’ve made so many variations. But somehow, I realized I didn’t actually have a classic banana nut muffin recipe. That clearly needed fixing.
I talked it over with my cousins Maggie and Abby, and it was unanimous: banana muffins. Must make them. They also reminded me that I still owe them another recipe I’ve been teasing for a week—so that’s coming very soon.
For now, this is the perfect January banana muffin. Easy to mix, easy to bake, and ideal anytime you’ve got overripe bananas sitting on the counter. Cozy, classic, and absolutely delicious—everything a banana muffin should be.
The Details
Ingredients
- brown bananas
- coconut oil
- maple syrup
- eggs
- vanilla extract
- all-purpose or whole wheat flour – you also do half and half
- cinnamon
- baking soda
- salt
The Add Inns
- chocolate chips or chocolate chunks
- walnuts – or any nut, I love pecans too
Salty Maple Butter
- salted butter
- maple syrup
- vanilla extract
- sea salt
Special Tools
For these muffins, you’ll need a muffin pan and a mixing bowl.
The Steps
Step 1: Prep the Recipe
Line a muffin tin with paper liners and preheat the oven. Get all of your ingredients measured and ready to go—this recipe comes together quickly once you start.
Step 2: Make the Batter
In a large bowl, mash the bananas until smooth. Stir in the coconut oil, maple syrup, eggs, and vanilla until fully combined. This is where everything starts to smell really good.
Add the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Gently mix just until combined to keep the muffins soft and tender.
Stir in the chocolate or the walnuts. I usually use one or the other, but you can absolutely do a mix of both if that’s your preference.
Step 3: Bake
Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin cups, filling them almost all the way to the top.
Bake until the muffins are golden and your kitchen smells like banana bread.
Step 4: Make the Salty Maple Butter
Beat all of the butter ingredients together until light, fluffy, and whipped. It should be perfectly salty-sweet and completely irresistible.
Serving
Let the muffins cool for just a few minutes, then enjoy them warm with plenty of salty maple butter slathered on top.
That’s it. Each muffin is soft, moist, and filled with either melty chocolate or nutty walnuts—or both. I usually bake one batch with nuts and one with chocolate, and they always disappear fast once the butter comes out.
If you warm them up before serving, they’re extra cozy and completely irresistible.
Looking for other yummy bakery items?? Here are my favorites:
Giant Double Blueberry Muffin Cookies
Cream Cheese Swirled Cinnamon Carrot Cake Muffins
Baked Blueberry Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts
Chocolate Chunk Chai Banana Muffins
Chocolate Chunk Rye Banana Bread
Easy Chocolate Cinnamon Crunch Knots
Lastly, if you make these Maple Banana Nut Muffins, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love hearing from you guys and always do my best to respond to every comment. And, of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Maple Banana Nut Muffins
Ingredients
- 4 medium overly ripe bananas, mashed , (1 1/4 cup mashed)
- 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, or all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chunks
- 1 cup walnuts, chopped
Salty Maple Butter
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.2. In a bowl, mix the mashed bananas, coconut oil, maple syrup, eggs, and vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, mixing until just combined. Stir in the chocolate or walnuts.3. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Bake for 18–20 minutes, until set.4. Beat all Salty Maple Butter ingredients together until light and whipped. Serve with the warm muffins.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Did you make this recipe? Please rate & comment below.
I should have read the comments before baking. I followed the recipe exactly as written and the flavour was not there, and the muffins did not rise properly.
Hi Erica,
Thanks for trying these muffins and sharing your feedback, sorry to hear they were not enjoyed!
Not much flavor and mediocre taste, and tops turned out soooo flat.
Thanks for the comment, Tina. Sorry to hear you did not enjoy these muffins!
Sorry, flat and not very much flavor. Will not try this again.
Eh they weren’t my favorite
Sorry to hear this, Marie. Thanks for sharing your comment. Please let me know if there is anything that I can help with!
I made these GF by replacing the flour with almond and buckwheat flours. Then replaced chocolate chips with chopped dates. These. Were. Wonderful.
Hey Jessica,
Awesome! Thanks for giving these muffins a try, so glad to hear they were enjoyed! Have a great week!
I opened this recipe because of the title…Maple Banana Nut….the chocolate threw me…would it affect the muffins if I left that cup of chocolate out? Anything else I should alter? thank you for any suggeestions
Hey Linda,
You can leave the chocolate out, no big deal:) I hope you love these muffins!
I made a double batch of these today and they were delicious! Wonderful recipe!
Hi Heidi,
Happy Monday! I appreciate you giving this recipe a try, so glad to hear it was a hit!
Kind of bland honestly and the tops were so flat! I’ve never had recipes from others where the top didn’t dome. Weird!
They were not very sweet and they turned out flat as could be.
I chose to make these Banana muffins because I knew they would not be the usual cloying Banana muffins everyone makes. I followed the recipe exactly but used vegetable oil and no topping. Mine looked exactly like the picture and were perfect. I think one of the biggest factors to the taste is the maple syrup. As a Canadian I use local really almost black maple syrup which is much more flavourful than the grocery store syrup. To keep the recipe less sweet I used 70% chocolate chunks. This was all good to me
Thanks so much, Marlene! I am so glad to hear you enjoyed these muffins, thanks a lot for making them!
Taste was good it they were the flattest muffins I’ve ever made, I thought yours were maybe flat because you are at elevation but I am at sea level and there was no muffins domed top at all! So weird.
Hi Mason,
Thanks for trying these muffins and sharing your feedback, sorry to hear you didn’t love them!
Not sure why everyone says these are flat, maybe it’s an oven temperature problem. I love these muffins, they’re addicting! Definitely don’t come out flat for me, and they’re absolutely delicious. Wondering though if the instructions need to be changed as it says to stir in the chocolate OR walnuts? Or perhaps the recipe should reflect that. That said I do a mix of both chocolate and walnuts and it’s amazing. Not 2 full cups though, just half a cup of each for me.
Hey Amanda,
Fantastic! Thanks a bunch for making this recipe, love to hear it was a winner!
You can do chocolate and walnuts or one or the other.
Have a great Wednesday!
Not a big fan & neither was my wife!
Thanks for the feedback, John! Sorry to hear you did not like the muffins!
Easy to make, delicious, and a family favorite. If you’re not a maple fan, don’t worry, it’s super subtle. Adding this to the Sunday brunch rotation.
Thanks so much, Fontayne:) Love to hear this!
I made these and the taste was ok but they turned out flat like yours. Any tips to get more of a traditional bakery-dome muffin?
Thanks for trying this recipe, Georgina. Sorry, I don’t have any tips for you, they are pretty round in my opinion. Please let me know if I can help in any other way!
I made these this morning and truly they turned out perfectly – dome and all! They are just sweet enough and the texture is great with a nice craggily/crusty top. I used 3/4 c whole wheat and 3/4 c AP per the choices in the recipe. I did not use chocolate chips. I used pepitas instead of walnuts because of allergies and threw in 1tbsp chia seeds for good measure 🙂 (really my only deviation from the recipe). I put some turbinado sugar and a few more pepitas on top before baking. I didn’t make the butter though I’m sure it would have been tasty. When I want a new recipe, Half Baked Harvest/Tieghan is a site I always go to. I trust the quality and haven’t been disappointed!
Yay! Thanks so much! Love to hear you enjoyed these muffins and thanks for sharing what worked well for you! Have a great Sunday!
I followed the recipe exactly and the flavor wasn’t really there for me, and the tops were very flat and not domes at all.
Hi Morgan,
I appreciate you trying these muffins and sharing your feedback, very sorry to hear they were not enjoyed!