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Homemade banana muffins under 2 dollars

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banana-muffins

Total time - 40 minutes
Preparation time - under 10 minutes
Baking time - about 30 minutes
Complexity - low

The banana muffin recipe is very simple, affordable, and extremely delicious. The recipe is for the regular 12 cupcake baking pan. No paper liners are required.

Ingredients*
7/8 stick of butter (99.2g) - 1 package of butter which counts 4 sticks cost about $4. One stick contains 8 tablespoons. If one stick equals to $1 and you need 7/8 or 88% of that, it will cost $0.88.
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour - 5 lb. package of flour which counts 9.6 cups cost about $3. So, you need to pay about $0. 47
1 large egg - 1 package includes 12 eggs and cost about $2. So, one egg costs $0.17
1 large ripe banana – one pound of bananas costs about $0.50 - $0.60. Depending on weight, your spending on this ingredient will be somewhere in between $0.20 - $0.30.
½ cup sugar – 4lb. package of sugar contains 7.7 cups and cost about $3. Sugar will cost $0.20.
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise - 30 oz. jar of mayonnaise costs $4 and includes 60 tbsp. Your expense will be $0.07.
1 teaspoon baking soda and powder – less than one cent each
dash of salt – less than 1 cent

Basically you can stop right here and your expense for the recipe will be under $2 or you can add topping if desired. The recipe is extremely delicious with the topping or without. It just makes the muffins fancier.

Topping**
1/8 stick of butter (14.2 g) - $0.12 ($1 - $0.88)
1 tablespoon of sugar - $0.02 (4 lb = 128 tbsp)
1/3 cup walnuts (optional) – 10 oz. package of nuts which contains 1.25 cups cost about $5.50. You spending on that ingredient might be $1.47. If you buy large package the expense will probably be lower than that.

Ingredients cost calculation of banana muffins recipe

Ingredients (dough) butter flour egg banana sugar mayonnaise soda&power salt   Total
Ingredients (topping) butter       sugar       walnuts
Cost of dough (dollars) 0.88 0.47 0.17 0.20 0.20 0.07 - - - 1.99*
Cost of topping (dollars) 0.12 - - - 0.02 - -   1.47 1.61**
Total
3.60

Note: Cost of ingredients vary greatly depending on region, quantity, sales/discounts, brand name of a product, seasons, and stores.

Conclusions
As we can see the cost of homemade banana cupcakes can be very low. Furthermore, if we divide the total cost of dough ingredients which is $1.99 by 12 muffins, the expense for each will be less than $0.17. Some bakeries charge for their fancy cupcakes few dollars, but even if we compare our cost with the cheapest possible which is 50 cents each, it will be still big difference. So, $0.50 - $0.17 = $0.33 yielding to about $4 saving per week assuming you will bake just 12 muffins on weekends. The year has 52 weeks, so you could potentially save over $200 annually, enjoying homemade cupcakes and exploring your creativity.

Cooking direction
1. Cut or grate cold butter and place it into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add sugar to the butter and mix them well together.
3. Add the egg and blend all three ingredients.
4. Mash ripe banana and combine it with the mixture.
5. Blend in a separate small bowl mayonnaise, baking soda and powder. Mix well the ingredients with all the rest in the large mixing bowl.
6. Add the salt and start gradually adding flour.
7. Separately blend sugar, butter, and walnuts (optional). Scoop about one tablespoon of the dough from the large bowl and add to the topping.
8. Grease with butter the baking pan and fill it about ¾ with the muffin dough. Sprinkle the topping over top of each muffin and press slightly it into the mass.
9. Preheat oven to 375 degree Fahrenheit and bake about 25 – 30 minutes or until ready.

banana-muffins-dough
banana-muffins-topping
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