Sourdough Banana Muffins

Soft, bakery-style sourdough banana muffins with mashed bananas, brown sugar, butter, and sourdough discard. Bake right away or refrigerate first if you want to do a longer ferment.

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How This Recipe Works

The three of us in the Baked Collective bake a lot of sourdough bread. We bake several times a week to test recipes, for photos, or just because we want to. That makes for a lot of sourdough starter and although we mostly use the levain method, we still like to use starter in recipes that aren't bread.

These are adapted from our sourdough banana bread, which is adapted from Kelly's brown butter banana bread, and they are the perfect sourdough banana muffin recipe. Light, moist, and packed with banana flavour, with a hint of cinnamon for warmth. We like them plain but you can add nuts, chocolate, or other mix-ins if you'd like.

These were a hit with my taste-testers and I really like the dairy-free version, too. They're great with a handful of dark chocolate mixed in to the batter if you're a chocolate fan.

Ingredients You'll Need and Why

These muffins are adapted from our sourdough banana bread recipe, with some small changes to make it more practical to bake as muffins. These are our notes from recipe testing. You can find the full recipe card below with complete measurements and instructions.

• Bananas: If you want to use something that's probably more local, or that can be shelf-stable, try our sourdough pumpkin muffins, which replace mashed bananas with pumpkin puree.
• Sourdough starter: this is a sourdough discard muffin recipe but you can use active sourdough starter (we recommend weighing in that case). Try to avoid really old, grey discard that's been in the fridge for a month, as it's a bit too sour and can lend an unpleasant flavour to the muffins.
• Butter: mashed banana and yogurt add plenty of moisture to the muffins, so we chose to use all butter for the extra flavour boost. You can use brown butter if you'd like a stronger taste here, but be sure to measure after browning.
• Flour: we recommend all-purpose flour for this recipe to provide more structure, you could sub part or all of the flour for pastry flour if you'd like for the muffins to be very soft and tender. For a slightly more wholesome option, use half whole wheat flour.
• Sugar: a mix of brown and white sugar give the muffins extra flavour and moisture without overwhelming the delicate bananas. Remember that sugar is moisture and if you choose to reduce the amount, your muffins will probably turn out dry and dense.
• Yogurt: use full-fat Greek yogurt if possible, unsweetened, or the thickest yogurt you can find otherwise. Full-fat sour cream is an excellent substitution.
• Eggs: two large eggs, at room temperature. To quickly bring cold eggs up to room temperature, submerge them in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes before using.
• Add-ins: try mixing in a half-cup of chopped walnuts, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, or raisins or other dried fruit.
• Make it dairy-free: use a good vegan butter alternative, preferably one that comes in stick or block form, and unsweetened soy yogurt.

How to Make Sourdough Banana Muffins

This is a simple one-bowl recipe, with the bananas mashed in the big bowl before adding the other wet ingredients, then sifting the dry ingredients in. These muffins will rise quite a bit but don't get a huge dome on top, and that's normal for this type of rich banana muffin.

Step 1: mash the bananas in a large bowl, then whisk in the eggs, sugars, melted butter, yogurt, sourdough starter, and vanilla extract. If you prefer banana muffins without any small pieces of banana in the mix, use an immersion blender for this step. A countertop blender works too but it can be tricky to scrape everything out.

Step 2: sift in the flour, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon. Whisk until about halfway mixed, then switch to a spatula or wooden spoon to avoid over-mixing. This should be a fairly thin batter. Optionally refrigerate after this step.

Step 3: transfer the batter to a lined muffin tin. I highly recommend an ice cream scoop with a lever for this step and use one every time I make muffins. It helps a lot with cleanup.

Step 4: bake the muffins at the high temperature for a few minutes before reducing and baking for another 15 minutes, until lightly golden and the centre feels just firm to the touch. Don't forget to set a timer to reduce the oven temperature.

Related: Banana Nutella Muffins

Expert Tips for the Best Sourdough Muffins

• Sift the dry ingredients: at the very least, it's always a good idea to sift baking powder and soda, which tend to form clumps that don't easily dissolve when whisked. Biting down on a clump of baking soda in a muffin is awful.
• Use very ripe bananas: they can be black, they can have been frozen, but they should at least be overripe. We're talking spotty, brown, and sweet.
• Chill overnight: if you'd like to try a long ferment, mix the batter as instructed and then chill in the fridge, tightly covered, for up to 12 hours before baking as usual. The batter will be a little stiff when cold.
• Cool before eating: this is especially true if you choose to a longer or overnight ferment (for any sourdough muffins). The texture changes due to the fermentation, becoming more bread-like, and just like sourdough bread, can be very gummy when still warm. Let the muffins cool fully and they'll taste great.
• Don't skip the hot bake: the muffins won't get the same rise and dome if they're baked at a steady temperature the whole time. For the best texture, be sure to bake at the high temperature for the first 5 minutes. You'll see this method used for a lot of muffin recipes, and it does make a big difference when there are eggs in the batter.

More Sourdough Discard Recipes