Mardi Gras Bananas Foster Muffins
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“Laissez les bon temps rouler”
Let the good times roll!
It’s Fat Tuesday, the traditional day to feast to the max before the period of Lent when many of us give up something as well as spend time giving to others through ‘good works’. This is also the week of Mardi Gras in the U.S. and Carnival in Italy, Brazil, and other countries.
Now I’ve only been to one Mardi Gras party in my entire life and it was a huge amount of fun! The host of the party was a Louisiana native and had fresh crawfish flown in for a gumbo. However, before those little critters met their stew, we held a crawfish race!
It was ridiculous and lasted quite a long time if you can imagine. All the more time to drink more bourbon and rum-based concoctions.
At the end of the evening, I enjoyed my first taste of the traditional Mardi Gras King Cake and was also the lucky winner of the piece of cake that had the baby Jesus figurine inside! The cake was superb and I was lucky to have the host’s delicious recipe for this Mardi Gras specialty!
Bananas and New Orleans just scream Bananas Foster, a traditional flaming dessert. After googling this theme, I found some wonderful Mardi Gras Bananas Foster Muffins! Except for a few changes, I prepared the muffins according to the recipe, but used my own cream cheese frosting recipe. The addition of more butter flavoring to the frosting really adds some New Orleans ‘bam’ to ordinary cream cheese frosting.
I decided to drizzle the rum-sugar-cinnamon glaze on only 3 muffins and left the rest of the batch un-glazed. After a taste test, both my husband and I thought the glaze had an overpowering rum flavor that dominated the deliciously light muffins. The glaze idea was fine, but the dark rum is something I’ll leave out in the future. I’ll certainly make these muffins again . . . guaranteed! They rival a family recipe and quite honestly, I like these banana muffins much better than the recipe we’ve always made!
There’s a bit of rum flavor in the muffins too, but since they’ve were baked, the flavor is very, very subtle with the alcohol evaporating out. I imagine that one could also simply add rum flavoring if they are opposed to alcohol.
I couldn’t find any sugar crystals/glitter to sprinkle on top of the cream cheese, but found some tiny little sugar balls that fit the bill of the traditional purple, yellow, and green colors of Mardi Gras. Their delicacy mirrors the taste of these muffins!
So my Mardis Gras trivia question to you is: What comes to your mind when you think of bananas foster? Are you imagining a rich and sinful, sugar-packed, caramelized indulgence? Or maybe you envision a dramatic, flaming dessert put together at your table by a trained chef, the sound of fire, and a sizzling sauce of rum, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and some banana liquor? Or you might possibly equate it with a sweet aroma of a bubbling caramel rum sauce? Do you think of fresh bananas fried to perfection and then topped with ice cream? Or maybe you think of New Orleans or Mardis Gras?
Well, all of the above perfectly describes the classic and now world-famous dessert created and served at Brennan’s in New Orleans, a beloved Big Easy institution since 1946. Bananas Foster was actually created by the Brennan family to honor a prominent business person, Mr. Richard Foster. This favorite perennial dessert gained global fame and today people come from all corners of the globe to taste the dish where it was born. Visitors for Mardis Gras can’t get enough of this incredible dessert.
PIN FOR LATER!
Mardi Gras Bananas Foster Muffins
Ingredients
For the Muffins
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3 large ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 tablespoons dark rum
- 1 large egg, room temperature
For the Rum Glaze (optional)
- 3 tablespoons dark rum
- 1 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
For Roz's Cream Cheese Frosting
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 stick of butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 2 tsp. butter flavoring
- (Note: This makes twice as much frosting as you'll need for the muffins, so you may want to double the muffin recipe or reduce this frosting recipe in half).
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and fill two muffin tins with paper cupcake liners.
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into one bowl and set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine mashed bananas, brown sugar, sugar, butter, milk rum and egg and blend completely.
- Add the dry ingredients a bit at a time and blend completely after each addition.
- Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full.
- Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until the muffins have a rich golden color and spring back when pressed gently.
- Top with Rum Glaze (optional)
- While the muffins are baking prepare the rum glaze.
- Mix the three rum glaze ingredients until the sugar is dissolve.
- Brush over the bananas foster muffins while they’re still warm from the oven.
- Garnish with a dollop of cream cheese frosting and coarse purple sugar and coarse green sugar.
Prepare Cream Cheese Frosting
- With a hand-mixer, mix all of the ingredients together, pouring in a little of the powdered sugar at a time, mixing well after each addition of sugar.
More recipes to celebrate Mardis Gras with a Bananas Foster flavor:
Bananas Foster French Toast from Food Banjo
Bananas Foster Cheesecake from Life, Love, and Sugar
Bananas Foster Bread Pudding from Will Cook For Smiles
Beautiful story and beautiful fun you had ! Thank you for all the tips to make the best use of these beauties !
When I think of Bananas Foster I think of the caramelized bananas with a hint of rum and I think of Louisiana. I used to make it all of the time when we lived there. That hot caramelized banana sauce poured over ice cream – well, life can’t get any better than that. 🙂 Your muffins have everything to bring back those memories and flavors. Of course like most muffins you would find me licking the frosting off before biting into the muffin. Ha Ha.
These muffins sound and look really moist and tender. I love the dark rum glaze which must have given these beauties some extra flavour kicks.
Thank you for thoughtfully linking to my original recipe for Bananas Foster Muffins! Really glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
You’re welcome Heather. These are my favorite banana muffins now!
Perfect for Mardi Gras!
Your muffins are gorgeous! I love the sprinkles 🙂 I am a huge fan of bananas foster so I bet I would love your muffins! I too still need to attempt king cake…one day I will get around to it. Thanks for participating in the hop! 🙂
I’ve never been to Mardi Gras, but it does look like a good excuse to enjoy some good food! 🙂 These muffins sound delicious, and I love the sprinkles on top of that delicious cream cheese frosting!
What a great indulgence on Fat Tuesday! I will bet it tasted wonderful with all those flavors! Thanks for sharing with us.
I’ve been to NLO a few times, and I have to say that I’ve indulged in Bananas Foster. So good! Great idea to turn these into muffins! I hear you on the rum, as I’m not a fan of it if it’s too overpowering. These look moist and I love that you found the Mardis Gras colors for the muffins. I’m hoping to make my first King Cake, now that I’ve chosen the recipe I want…and have the colored sugar. Can’t wait!
Roz, I’m so glad you’ve joined us! Your muffins look amazing…and I love your festive sprinkles 🙂
These muffins look amazing and adding rum to it, oh ya! Looks tasty, tasty!!
Fun muffins! I have never been to Mardi Gras or a themed party 🙁
Oh my goodness I bet cream cheese frosting on these is incredible!
this looks fabulous, I just fisnished my savory lunch…I would love one of these right now.
Welcome to the club! : D You certainly picked a winner for your first go-round! They look delicious!
Mmmm, my Hubs would love these! What a great idea! Thank you for sharing!
The last time I had bananas foster was at Brennans in the French Quarter. It was delicious!
Your muffins are nothing but beautiful! I’ve got to try them.
Do I have to wait til Lent is over?
oh what a wonderful rendition of a bananas foster desert and a mardi gras holiday! i love this idea- so creative and I can only imagine just how delicious they taste!
Our forefathers had the insight to make an overtop celebration right in the middle of winter!!! Let’s celebrate Roz!!!
What a great idea! I love bananas Foster and I love the hand-held muffins. Great way to let the good times roll.
I think the diet’s going bye-bye tomorrow. I am not ready to make a “King’s Cake” – but these cupcakes – hello Fat Tuesday! You never looked so good!
Oh Mercy Roz! I’m sharing this at the Mardi Gras Party! xoxo
This is such a fun recipe, Roz. Those muffins look so festive and colorful and I love all those flavors.
Roz, this is such a lovely post with a story of craw fish “hunt”. I love it! And the muffins are perfect, colors are pretty, finally away from pink-red zone of the last week.
I think Fat Tuesday has got to be one of the “holiday” we Canadians envy you most for! These cupcakes look wonderful.