These gluten-free tropical muffins are like a beach vacation for your mouth, minus the sand.

We aspirationally buy bananas. They are so bright and firm and yellow, with just a touch of green. We bring them home and proudly display them on a hook installed just for bananas. The things we might make, fried bananas, smoothies, bacon banana scrambled eggs, or straight up for our snacking pleasure.

But then… slowly it happens.

They don't say anything, they grow tired of waiting to be enjoyed, they (like all of us as we age) get a little softer and sweeter (Raj disagreed and said some people get more bitter. Those people are the banana peels). The green fades away and the bright yellow darkens until there are sad aged bananas hanging from the banana hook on the counter.

This isn't where the life of the banana ends, oh no. Just a location change, as those aged banana's go into the freezer. Of course, we need to purchase more bananas: those firm bright yellow and green symbols of hope. It is a hopeful cycle but can leave you with an entire designated area of your freezer for these bananas living out their “golden years”.

“…those firm bright yellow and green symbols of hope”

Eventually, those bananas need to be transitioned into their final resting place. We have a variety of banana-based baking options, but we always have a plethora of bananas in our freezer. But this time was different. We had sad bananas AND mangos on the counter! So the best choice was a new recipe, gluten-free tropical muffins.

Not only did gluten-free tropical muffins use up some of those freezer bananas, they also made the house smell amazing, like a tropical beach vacation!