Sourdough Starter Banana Muffins

What if I told you I’ve come up with yet another way to use up your sourdough starter? I thought banana muffins would be a great way to do it but, my first attempt, based on a recipe I found online, was a disaster!

The recipe required you to leave the starter mixed with some flour overnight and then incorporate it into your muffin mixture the next day.

I tried this and the end result was very sweet banana muffins with big lumps of semi-formed bread in them. The family ate them but they were not a success and certainly not a recipe I would consider putting here for you.

I still had a feeling though, that sourdough starter would lend itself nicely to banana muffins, even if they were more of a banana bread muffin. So I went back to the drawing board and decided that rather than trying to find a whole new recipe, I should try to adapt my family’s favorite banana muffin recipe and incorporate some sourdough starter into it.

This recipe is hands down, by far the best recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins I have ever tried! We make these muffins very regularly in our house (and get nagged by the kids to make it even more often!). So, I thought I would take that original recipe and replace the milk with sourdough starter.

The recipe is naturally sugar free (it uses honey) and egg free and is made with wholemeal or whole wheat flour. So, in the interests of keeping these sourdough starter banana muffins extra healthy, I thought for my initial experiment I would leave out the chocolate chips.

The end result was a tasty, almost banana bread like muffin. A warning though, without the chocolate chips these are not very sweet. They are, afterall, only sweetened with honey and banana.

These would make a perfect, healthy breakfast muffin but, if you like your muffins on the sweet side you might need to add half a cup of sugar or go back to the original recipe and add the chocolate chips. Next time I make these muffins (and I will make them again as they are tasty) I will probably add some chocolate chips to the mixture before baking – you can’t go wrong with adding chocolate chips!

So, how do you make banana muffins with sourdough starter?

This is how I did it…

First I got a cup of sourdough starter that would have been otherwise discarded.

Then, remembering that this was a bit of an experiment and I wasn’t sure what to do, I decided to feed it with ⅓ cup flour and ¼ cup water.

I’m still not sure whether feeding the starter was necessary but I figured if I fed it and let it grow and bubble a bit before I used it, it was more likely to help the muffins rise. So, I mixed it together with a fork and left it alone for about 1 ½ hours.

After that waiting time it looked as though there were some nice bubbles in the sourdough starter so I figured it was time to give these muffins a go.

So, then I began making the banana muffins as I normally would. First mash two bananas.

Then add the cinnamon.

Add the oil.

Then add the honey.

And here’s where we deviate from the original recipe. Instead of using milk or coconut milk, we’re going to add our recently fed cup of sourdough starter.

And mix it all together.

banana muffins made with sourdough starter

Meanwhile in a separate bowl (or jug) combine your flours and baking powder.

Add the combined flours to the sourdough starter/banana mixture.

And mix it through until combined. (This is where you could add some chocolate chips!)

Divide the mixture into 12 muffin liners.

And put them in the oven for 12-14 minutes.

Stand on a cooling rack to cool (or just eat them warm straight out of the oven!).

Sourdough Starter Banana Muffin Recipe

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