Tender, golden muffins bursting with banana flavor and bits of strawberry - the perfect spring or summer breakfast, snack or whenever kind of muffin!

You guys, we have GOT to talk about these muffins. Mostly we should address the fact that all spring and summer long I have had perfectly juicy beautiful strawberries in my house, and have not baked one single thing out of them. I know, I know...what am I thinking?

These are my happy muffiny way of redeeming myself. You can't be mad at someone if they show up with muffins....right?

Like the majority of my recipes, these are easy folks. I want everyone to be able to make my goodies without feeling overwhelmed. The most difficult part of this recipe is mashing the banana....at least in my world. Banana, why are you so delicious but make such a squishy sound that annoys my ear holes when I smash you? If this doesn't bother you, which it probably doesn't, and is most likely just me being weird then you should be set to get your muffin on!

These are not really a "cakey" muffin. They are a muffiny muffin. Make sense? Good.

We are using melted butter here and not creaming butter and sugar together like you would for cookies or cake. AND I'm going to tell you why!

Creaming butter and sugar is really essential for incorporating air bubbles and allowing for maximum rise and cakey soft texture in your cakes and cookies. Muffins get to skip that step! Seriously, put your mixer away, muffins are best when mixed by hand.

Whisking the dry ingredients: This is important, it is a quick step and may seem like you're doing nothing but this is ensuring that all of your leavening agents (baking powder, baking soda) are really incorporated and making good friends with the flour and salt.

Room temperature ingredients: It's an extra step, but a good one to take. Let your eggs come to room temp. Melt your butter, let it cool slightly. When all of your wet ingredients are generally the same warm temperature they work together in harmony. If your eggs are cold, or you pull a banana out of the freezer per say, it will make your butter turn hard and then it will not be evenly dispersed in the batter.

ALL of these things I just rambled on about (thank you for listening) are a very quick and basic attempt to ensure that once you incorporate those wet and dry ingredients, you already have everything equally dispersed. Then, all you have to do is gently fold wet and dry together. Gently folding and not over mixing is what gives you that tender muffin that your dreams are made of.

Food science is fun!

Oh, hi pretty muffin.

I cut a couple of these guys down the middle so you can see that amazing texture I'm talking about.

Being totally serious, my mouth was watering when I was taking these pictures for you guys! Between the smell and just the look of them I was completely delirious over these.

Hang on....I have to go get a muffin.