This weekend Logan and I were invited to join friends for brunch and the 4th of July East Beach Parade.  It was actually news to me that our little town had a 4th of July parade, so I was intrigued to see it.    But first things first, before we could go witness the parade, I needed to come up with a brunch dish to share!

Now on weekends like this (weekends packed with back-to-back-to-back activities) I have to be practical.  I looked at the ingredients had on hand and tried to pick something easy.  What I had was several over ripe bananas perfect for cooking.  And since it was a brunch, I thought muffins would work so much better than a loaf of banana bread.

I choose to make Banana Nutella Muffins from a recipe I found on WhatShesHaving.com. These awesome little muffins take the traditional banana nut muffin and add the fun twist of Nutella.  (If you haven’t ever tried Nutella, it is a chocolate hazelnut spread usually found near the peanut butter in your local grocery store.)  The results was delicious!

Now as for the parade, it turned out to be parade of extravagantly decorate red, white and blue golf carts, a few decorate dogs and couple of decorate classic cars.  The parade participants threw candy out to the kids.  The whole things lasted about 8 minutes.  It was fabulous and Logan thoroughly loved it!

As for the muffins, they were a hit.  Logan alone ate 3 of the full size version plus several of the minis!  I am definitely adding these to my list of regular recipes.

Banana Nutella Muffins

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt (either whole or low fat, but not fat-free)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup Nutella, plus more for drizzling
• 1 ripe but firm banana for garnish (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375. Line a 12 cup muffin tin. (You can choose to skip the muffin liners and just spray the muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray if you prefer.)

In a medium bowl, mix the flours, baking powder and salt together.

In a large bowl, place the 3 very ripe bananas and mash.  Add butter, egg, yogurt, vanilla and milk.  Mix well.

Add flour mixture 1/3 at a time to the banana mixture.  Stir until incorporated.  Repeat until all of the flour mixture is fully incorporated into the wet ingredients.

Add Nutella in dollops to the top of the batter.  Stir just enough to mix in the Nutella so that there are ribbons of Nutella throughout the batter.  (If you over mix you won’t get the pretty ribbons, but the muffins will be just as tasty.)

Pour batter evenly into the prepared muffin tin. Top each muffin with thin slices of banana.

Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Once done, cool on a wire rack. Drizzle with Nutella if desired.

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