Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

You guys, this is what my fruit bowl looked like this morning:

Gross, I know. When I see this, I know it's time for banana muffins and applesauce. Both recipes will save your old fruit from the garbage just by using regular pantry ingredients, like these:

Team Photo: Scary bananas, an egg, brown and white sugars, butter, flour, milk baking soda and chocolate chips.

About the ingredients:

Bananas- Overripe bananas are the key to good banana bread/muffins. I usually make these solely to rescue my bananas from the fruit flies, but if you are buying them special for this recipe, go to the corner of the supermarket where they keep the old, discounted produce. You can use 3 or 4 bananas, whatever you have.

Butter- I almost always use salted butter and cut down the added salt in the recipe. In this case, I didn't add any. If you use unsalted butter, add about 1/4 tsp of salt to the dry ingredients.

Chocolate Chips- Mini chips are better, but I was out, and these bananas weren't waiting for a trip to the store. You can leave them out entirely or substitute them for something else. (Peanut butter chips, perhaps?)

Other- I usually sprinkle chopped walnuts on the tops, but I didn't have any on hand. You could also mix some into the batter. Coconut is good in banana muffins as well. Mix-ins don't really alter the recipe, so feel free to customize these however you see fit.

Okay, let's go! This recipe comes together very quickly with very little mess; I make it in one bowl. (Note: you could follow this same recipe for banana bread, just put it in a loaf pan and increase the baking time.)

Melt the butter in a large bowl and add the sugars.

Break the bananas up into chunks and mash them in. Add the milk and egg and mix. (I use the measuring cup to beat the egg and the masher to mix to save on dishes!)

Now, because I am being obsessive about the one bowl thing, I sprinkle the flour and baking soda over the top of the wet ingredients. Typically these are mixed separately and then added, but I'm just careful about sprinkling the baking soda all around.

Fold the ingredients together with a rubber spatula and then add the chocolate chips. (Sorry for the blurry photo.) You'll want to use a gentle hand here. Overmixing quick breads will make them tough, so don't worry if your batter isn't perfectly smooth.

I use an ice cream scoop with a sweeper to fill the muffin tin.

And these are all my dirty dishes.

When the muffins brown on top and your house smells fantastic, test them with a toothpick. It should come out clean. (Except for the chocolate.)

The Recipe:

Adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking (one of my favorite cookbooks)

1 stick butter, melted

1/2c sugar

1/4 light brown sugar

3-4 bananas, mashed

1/4c milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 1/2c flour

1 1/2tsp baking soda

1c chocolate chips (or walnuts, coconut, pb chips or combination)

Preheat oven to 350*. Spray muffin pan or line with papers.

Combine butter, both sugars, bananas, milk and egg in a large bowl. Carefully sprinkle flour and baking soda over the top to disperse as much as possible. Fold batter together gently until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.