Chocolate Banana Muffins

These chocolate banana muffins are so soft, fluffy, and easy to make! With only 10 minutes to prepare and 18 minutes to bake, they are the perfect thing to bake on weekends or for when you have to use up overripe bananas!

You know when you have those 2 bananas left over in your fruit bowl and you don’t want to throw them out- but you also don’t know what to do with them? What do you do?

Answer: you make these delicious double chocolate banana muffins!

Ingredients for this recipe:

First comes first, use overripe bananas. Do not throw our your overripe bananas, they are so great to bake with!

The darker and more spotty the bananas are, the sweeter they are.

If you don’t have the time to bake but find yourself with overripe bananas, you can freeze them for another time. Just peel them and wrap them in plastic wrap and stick them in the freezer.

Defrost in the fridge before baking.

If your bananas aren’t dark and spotty you can use them regardless. Or to speed up the process you can bananas in a paper bag overnight.

When baking with bananas you can cut down a little on the sugar in your recipe to make it healthier. This will also result in a more moist muffin. Win, win!

Making the muffins

Making the muffins is super easy. You don’t need any fancy equipment or even a stand mixer. The best way to make any kind of muffin is by hand!

You’ll need:

• 2 mixing bowls
• spatula
• Muffin pan
• Muffin liners or make your own. See below!

Start by mixing the wet ingredients (melted butter, eggs, mashed banana, and vanilla) in one bowl. Add the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and cocoa) in another bowl and mix lightly.

Combine them by mixing the wet into the dry, dust the chocolate chips with flour, throw them into the batter and bake!

The reason why it’s better to make muffins by hand is so you don’t over-mix the batter.

An over-mixed batter leads to a tough muffin and nobody wants that!

Make sure to mix just until the batter comes together to ensure these muffins stay moist and fluffy. You’ll know it’s perfectly mixed when the batter is thick and you no longer see any of the dry ingredients.

Next line a muffin tin with muffin liners and fill with batter 3/4 of the way full. Do not overfill the liners or the batter will spill over.

How to make your own muffin liners

Every once in a while I will prep my muffin batter only to realize I am out of liners. So I figured out a way to make my own!

1. Cut parchment paper into 5×5″ squares. Use a ruler to help you measure it out.
2. Center each square on top of each muffin cup.
3. Use your fingers to lightly flick some water on top of each liner.
4. Find a cup that fits into the muffin cup and use it to press it down into it to create the hole.
5. Fill with batter 2/3rd of the way up and bake!

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How to bake

A classic bakery style muffin has that beautiful domed top.

The secret to creating that round top is to start baking the muffins at a high temperature, and then finishing it at a lower temperature.

Preheat your oven to 425°F and bake for 8 minutes. Then lower the oven and finish baking at 350°F. This is what gives muffins their rounded dome top!

You won’t get the dome if you just bake them on 350°.

Toppings

I used a mixture of milk and semi sweet chocolate chips in this recipe but you can use any kind of add ins like:

• nuts
• white chocolate chips
• coconut
• caramel chips
• milk chocolate

To make sure your toppings don’t sink to the bottom of your muffins, lightly dust them with flour before adding them to the batter.

How to make these into mini muffins

Line a mini muffin tin with mini muffin liners. Fill 2/3rd of the way full and bake on 425° for 5 minutes then switch to 350° for an additional 7 minutes.

How to make these vegan

Yes it can be done! One of my awesome readers figured this out and loved the results so I am sharing it with you. Thank you Shanice!

To make these muffins vegan you can substitute the butter for melted coconut oil.

To make a vegan egg substitute- mix together 1 tablespoon flax meal with 3 tablespoons of water. You will need to make 2 flax meal eggs for this recipe.

Storing

Store the muffins in an airtight container or zip top bag on the counter for up to 3 days. You can also put them in the fridge but it is not required.

Freezing

These muffins freeze well!

To freeze, wait for the muffins to completely cool. Then wrap them in plastic wrap and then in another freezer safe plastic bag.

Alternatively you can line them up in a freezer safe bag and squeeze as much air out of it that you can, but wrapping them one by one will lead to better results after defrosted.

Defrosting

Leave them on the counter for 1-2 hours to come to room temperature. You can also microwave them for 30 seconds at a time to warm them up and melt the chocolate chips!

For more muffin recipes try these!

• Chocolate Chip Dairy Free Muffins
• Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting
• Cherry Dark Chocolate Muffins
• Peach Muffins with Crumb Topping

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