Upon making the happy discovery that there were three brown bananas in the back of my refrigerator, I took the opportunity to make muffins. Depending on the size of the bananas or muffin tin, this recipe can yield 12-18 servings, if you hold the foolish belief that a serving is a single muffin. I used three medium bananas this time and came out with fifteen muffins, which sounds like six or seven servings to me.
Wish I had pictures, but you know what muffins look like, right?
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 large bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar (or half white and half brown sugar)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup butter, melted
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare muffin tins with non-stick spray or paper liners, or, in my case, half of each, since apparently I need more paper muffin cups.
1a. Mash 3-4 very ripe bananas with a potato masher or fork. I leave the bananas just a little bit chunky. Melt butter in a little dish in the microwave.
2. Combine bananas, sugar, egg, vanilla and butter in a mixing bowl. (Tip: Allow the melted butter to cool a little so as not to cook the egg, or add them separately. Live and learn.) Also, half the time I forget to add the vanilla, but I’ve found it makes little difference.
3. Add flour, powder, soda, and salt. Stir by hand until just combined. (Tip: Stirring too much makes them extremely dense.) Add chocolate chips or 1 tsp. cinnamon or both. You will probably need to taste some chocolate chips to ensure their quality.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, though in my current oven, they are done in 23 minutes. The original recipe says, “Muffins will spring back when lightly tapped,” but I have never found this to be true, despite having tapped at least one muffin in every batch. Perhaps I am still over-stirring. Springy muffins make me apprehensive anyway.
These muffins taste good hot, though the banana flavor comes out more the following day. They also freeze nicely and reheat in the microwave in 25 seconds, making them a minute and five seconds faster than oatmeal for breakfast. I call this a win.
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