Banana-yogurt-streusel muffins

Light and moist, but also 100% whole grain with brown rice flour and your choice of teff or oat and a super streusel topping

This banana-yogurt-streusel muffin is inspired by one I used to make at Manufactory. A friend recently texted me about it, saying: “Can you please make that WF muffin—but hold the muffin and just give me that divine crumble on top?”

Hello!

I gave a talk this week for the San Francisco group Baker’s Dozen, and was interviewed by pastry chef icon Emily Luchetti (she just wrote a wonderful Substack piece called Whipped Cream On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee, page 31, if you don’t already follow her, do). It was a wonderful event, with so many thoughtful questions that led to great group discussion on the subject of gluten-free baking.

One of the topics we came back to a couple of times was the use of whole grain flours, and how to know which ones to use for what recipes. I experiment a lot, but in general I like to either pair strongly flavored flours like teff or buckwheat with bold ingredients (in teff carrot cake or in salted chocolate buckwheat cookies), or choose a flour that supports complementary flavors (a mild flour like oat in oat digestive biscuits or almond flour with jam bars or caramel apple bars).

That got me to thinking about this week’s recipe, a banana muffin with Greek yogurt and a streusel topping that I developed years ago for Tartine Manufactory, and tried out a few different flour options, with a base of brown rice and almond flours. I liked the teff and oat versions equally, and since there are some who cannot eat oats, I’ve included both. The streusel is divine. Some of it sinks a little into the batter and the rest of it on top gets nicely toasted. I’d use it on a fruit crisp, or bake it and use as an ice-cream topping.

This batter rises nicely; I used squares of parchment (as instructed below) which held the amount of batter perfectly.