• 1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup light brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup half and half
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 5 1/3 tablespoons salted butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter (We use Smart Balance)
  • 2 ripe bananas, diced
  • A handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips, optional

Is it a scone or is it a muffin? I declare it’s a muffin top!

New Kitchen Gadgets

My mother-in-law has always enjoyed hunting down new kitchen gadgets. Before anyone really heard about muffin tops, my mother-in-law was kind enough to buy me two adorable muffin top pans for what I think was my birthday. Knowing how much I love to cook and bake, Diane has always been so generous over the years purchasing new specialty items with me in mind.

In 1997, “The Muffin Tops” was the 155th episode of the sitcom Seinfeld.

We loved watching Seinfeld and one of our favorite episodes was called “The Muffin Tops”. While eating a muffin, Elaine mentioned to Mr. Lippman, her former boss, that she only eats the tops of muffins, and that a store selling just the tops would be a million dollar idea. Lippman decided to start a business, called Top of the Muffin to You!, based on Elaine’s idea. The business struggled at first, so Lippman asked Elaine for advice. Elaine declined, but after she was offered 30% of the profits, she told Mr. Lippman that he must make the whole muffin and then pop the top from the stump; she also demanded that he remove the exclamation point from his sign. (“It’s not top of the muffin TO YOU!” Elaine says. Mr. Lippman replied, “No, it is.”) This advice gave the business a boost, but left the problem of disposing of the muffin stumps. They initially gave the stumps to the homeless shelter, but after complaints about the missing muffin tops, they had to get rid of them somewhere else. I loved that episode. Shortly after that my mother-in-law gave me my new muffin top pans.

Spring Break

Today has been a sweet morning. It is a nice 60 degree morning here in North Carolina and my son Alex is back home for Spring Break. My son Nathaniel is on his way home for the week, too. I decided it would be nice to have my guys awaken to the smell of muffins and of course – love – in the air! How nice it was to awaken knowing that one of my guys was home tucked up in his bed and my other son was soon-to-be home.

I suspected that my family would love a batch of Peanut Butter and Banana Muffin Tops. I opened the door to our screened-in-porch to welcome the fresh morning air into our keeping room and kitchen. I began preparing our breakfast with the same enthusiasm heard from the birds happily chirping away out back. These muffin tops are delicious and I promise your family will kiss you!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin top pans.

In a mixing bowl combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Add diced banana, stir just a bit.

In a small saucepan, melt butter.

In a measuring bowl combine half and half and vinegar. Once the half and half has curdled just a bit, add the melted butter and peanut butter and mix well.

Add wet ingredient to dry, stirring only until combined. Spoon muffin batter into each muffin top pan, about 1/3 cup or so for each muffin top. Just be sure that at the end each muffin top has approximately the same amount of batter in it so that it all cooks up well. If you’d like you can place five chocolate chips on top of every other muffin top like I did before baking.

Bake for 15 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Get your coffee or tea ready, choose your favorite plates, call the family around the table and enjoy! I must admit that we each ate two and so I hope my own ‘muffin top’ doesn’t grow a bit! :)