Cinnamon Banana Crumb Muffins (Basically a Warm Hug)

If you love both banana bread and crumb cake, you’re going to obsess over these banana crumb muffins! Filled with banana flavor and a crispy cinnamon crumb, they are basically a warm hug.

There’s something about warm bananas, cinnamon, and a crispy crumb that feels like a big warm hug. These cinnamon banana crumb muffins are just that. They’re based off of my favorite banana bread recipe, a 2013 internet relic from Huffington Post.

These banana crumb muffins are moist and soft, swirled with a cinnamon-sugar ribbon and topped with a buttery brown sugar crumb topping for the perfect crispy crunch and hint of cinnamon. A drizzle of vanilla icing on top gives them that extra warm hug oomph.

The batter for these banana crumb muffins also just happens to be vegan – especially helpful while egg prices are high. You can easily sub in plant-based butter in the crumb to make the banana crumb muffins totally vegan, if that’s your jam. These banan crumb muffins are an easy recipe – I love them and I hope you do, too!

This post is all about cinnamon banana crumb muffins.

Cinnamon Banana Crumb Muffins

Ingredients

These are the ingredients you’ll need for the muffins, the cinnamon swirl, the crumb topping and the icing:

• All-purpose flour: you can substitute a 1:1 gluten free baking blend if you need

• Baking soda and baking powder: these give the bread its lift even without eggs!

• Salt: to bring more flavor out of the muffins

• 3 large, super ripe bananas: past-prime bananas with lots of brown spots make the best, sweetest banana bread

• Granulated sugar: you can sub in coconut sugar if you’d like, but don’t sub in a liquid sugar like maple syrup or honey

• Vanilla extract: for flavor!

• Canola oil: you can use canola/vegetable oil, or try an alternative oil like avocado or algae. You can also use melted butter if you don’t mind

• Half a lemon: lemon juice is one of the secret ingredients in this recipe. Because lemon is an acid, the juice helps super-activate the baking soda to give this vegan banana bread a lot of rise without using eggs. Lemon also bolsters the flavor of the whole loaf.

• Cinnamon: cinnamon goes in the cinnamon swirl in the middle of the muffins and into the crumb

• Brown sugar: we’ll use a little brown sugar in the crumb

• Unsalted butter: we only use butter in the crumb streusel topping, not the batter. You can use a vegan butter if you want to keep the whole muffins vegan

• Powdered sugar: for the icing!

How to Make The Best Banana Muffins

This is a high-level overview. For detailed instructions, please read the recipe card below!

1. Preheat the oven and line 7 of the spots on a standard muffin tin, spacing them out so that they’re not right next to each other.

2. Prep the crumb and the cinnamon sugar swirl: In a small bowl, mix melted and cooled butter with brown sugar, then add in all-purpose flour, cinnamon and salt. For the cinnamon sugar swirl, mix together the cinnamon and sugar.

3. Make the muffin batter: In a medium bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, mash the bananas, leaving some larger chunks (they become sweet and caramelized in the oven). Mix the sugar, oil, vanilla and lemon juice in with the mashed bananas. Then fold the dry ingredients into the banana mixture.

4. Assemble the muffins: Fill half of the muffin tin with batter, sprinkle a teaspoon of the cinnamon swirl and use a toothpick to swirl it in. Fill with more batter until it’s almost at the top of the tin. Sprinkle the crumb on the top of each muffin.

5. Bake until the muffins are golden brown on top and a toothpick just comes out clean, 22-27 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack, mix and drizzle on icing, and enjoy!

Tips for the Best Cinnamon Banana Crumb Muffins

• Use parchment paper instead of muffin liners for bakery-style muffins. Cut the parchment into squares that are an inch wider than the muffin hole. Then make a half-inch cut in the middle of each side of the parchment. Pour the batter right in!

• Use super ripe bananas: The riper, the better! Overripe bananas add natural sweetness and moisture to this banana muffin recipe.

• Properly measure your flour: I include this tip in every recipe for a reason 🙂 I always measure by weight and included both the cups and grams below so you can, too. You can get a pretty cheap scale on Amazon (I used a $12 scale for years and now use a $28 KitchenAid scale). If you’re using a cup measure, first fluff the flour in its bag, then spoon it into your measuring cup. Scrape the flat edge of a knife across the top of the cup to remove any excess flour.

• Don’t overmix the batter: Stir until just combined to keep the muffins light and fluffy. Over-mixing develops the gluten in the flour, making the muffins tough instead of light.

• Don’t overbake: Check the muffins a few minutes before the timer goes off. You want the top to be golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the middle to just come out clean, or have a few moist crumbs attached but not raw batter.

• To get tall muffins, fill the muffin cups almost to the top and use only every other cup. I got these great tips from Broma Bakery. Filling the cups almost to the top instead of two-thirds full will let the muffins dome beautifully over the tin. Using every other cup will also let more hot air surround each muffin top, helping them to get nice and tall.

• Use a cookie scoop to fill the muffins. Cookie scoops make it much easier to scoop batter into muffin tins and help ensure you get uniform sized muffins. I love this trio of scoops from Amazon. In this recipe, I use the large scoop (3 TBS.) to scoop the batter in between each layer of crumb

• Let the muffins cool slightly before icing: This prevents the icing from melting into the muffins.

FAQs

More delicious recipes

• Looking for more muffin recipes? Check out the pumpkin crumb muffins or the secretly vegetable-packed sweet potato superhero muffins y’all LOVED on Instagram and TikTok.

• Try the original vegan banana bread these muffins are based off of! I love it studded with chunks of chopped chocolate and topped with crunchy turbinado sugar.

• If you still have way too many bananas, easy campfire banana boats (campfire optional) are a great way to use them up.

• Some other top recipes on the blog are almond frangipane blondies (blondie meets an almond croissant), salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies, and safe-to-eat cookie dough for two.

If you make these banana crumb muffins, please leave a star rating and review below and tag me on Instagram or TikTok at @loaves.and.such!