Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

And so my banana recycling continues…I'm slowly but surely making my way through a freezer of over-ripe bananas. Thankfully, bananas are very versatile when it comes to baking and can add moisture and flavour to just about anything.

So I made banana muffins the other night. There isn’t really much else to say about it except that they were scrumptious. Mainly because I also added chocolate chips.

Bananas and chocolate were meant to be. Don’t fight it.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
(Adapted from Cat Can Cook’s Awesome Banana Muffin recipe)

Ingredients:

3-4 large bananas, mashed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1½ cups flour
1 cup (or so…) chocolate chips


Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg and butter together and set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until moistened (don’t overmix!). Fold in chocolate chips.


Pour into paper-lined muffin tins and bake for approximately 20 minutes.


Enjoy!!

Banana Bread

In the process of cleaning out my fridge yesterday, I noticed a large collection of brown bananas in my freezer. I commonly forget about all those bananas until I’m throwing a new one in and at that point, I usually make a note to make banana bread in the future…and then I forget.

BUT NOT TODAY!

Today, I made banana bread. It surprises me that I don’t make it more often as I absolutely love banana bread. It is one of my favourite comfort foods. Plus it’s so versatile – breakfast, afternoon snack, dessert…you can eat it just about whenever. I do.

I used Joy the Baker’s recipe and tweaked it a bit. I tend to use many of her recipes…because I trust her. And I didn’t want to waste those bananas!!

Even if I have about a zillion more…banana muffins may be next.

Banana Bread
This was originally Banana Cranberry Bread…but I had no cranberries. I used chopped pecans instead. I’m kind of on a pecan kick right now.

Ingredients:

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted salted butter
3/4-1 cup light brown sugar, depending on the level of sweetness you prefer
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup of flour

1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.


With a wooden spoon, mix the butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla, then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour, mix. Add the nuts, and stir until just incorporated. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Mostly Vegan Banana Berry Bran Muffins

Today, I decided to make muffins. I was craving something sweet - yet wholesome, as I wanted something that I could quickly scarf down before heading to my torturous 9 AM boot camps this week. I hadn’t made muffins in awhile and with a few browning bananas on my counter and a couple pints of blackberries in my fridge (picked up on sale from H&W Produce - LOVE that place!), I decided on Banana Berry muffins…with bran. Because I’m a firm believer that muffins are nothing more than ugly cupcakes and hold very little nutritional value for the most part. So, with the addition of bran and substituting maple syrup for sugar, I convinced myself that these muffins would be more or less healthy.

Well, healthy-ish.

I also ended up making them almost entirely vegan…mainly because I had no eggs. I did add a couple dollops of yogurt however, which killed the intention of dairy-free muffins but added some lovely moisture. I think all muffins need yogurt.

Plus, I just love yogurt. Especially good, old-fashioned, full-fat yogurt. I could never be vegan for that reason alone.

Anywho, they turned out pretty good! Especially considering I came up with the recipe almost entirely from scratch. I researched a number of banana bran muffin recipes and put this one together…it may be a keeper!

90% Vegan Banana Berry Bran Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup bran (I used wheat bran but oat bran would be better)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 medium bananas
1/4 cup soy milk (or any dairy-free milk alternative)
1/4 cup maple syrup (honey would work nicely too)
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons yogurt (Wanna go all-vegan? Use soygurt!)
1 handful blackberries (or any berries you have on hand…walnuts would be nice too)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400º F.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

In another bowl, mash the bananas and then add the milk, syrup, oil, vanilla, water and yogurt.

Add the wet ingredients into the dry, stirring until it just comes together – don’t overmix! Fold in the berries. Spoon batter into a standard 12-cup muffin tin (I lined mine with paper liners to avoid sticking…especially because my berries were huge).

Bake at 400º F for about 15-20 minutes, or until tops are golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes about 12 big muffins.


Enjoy!! Feel free to slather these in peanut butter…I did. And it was awesome.