Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

This is totally my new favorite recipe! I have very little experience with baking and sweets and that whole universe, so muffins this good are doubly exciting to me. It’s also nice for a change to cook something that doesn’t even pretend to be healthy. A bit about how this began: Over the winter, my cousin Erin made for me a batch of zucchini muffins, and I was amazed how good they were for vegan pastry… all the vegan baking recipes I’d tried had always come out dry, or heavy, or required some weird egg replacer or something. Months later, I finally got my hands on Erin’s awesome recipe and couldn’t resist tinkering.  : )    The first thing I tried was a pumpkin spice version, and it was delicious! (I’ll have to post that one on here someday) The recipe held up really well to all my adjustments, so I decided to keep exploring… lots of baking is exact chemistry, and doesn’t tolerate such nonsense. Years ago, before I was vegan, I had some chocolate chip banana bread that my friend Scott’s mom made for everyone, and it blew my mind. It seemed like such an unlikely combination of flavors, but they go perfectly together! That recipe of course was not vegan, or even close, and I had no idea how to go about converting it. The muffin recipe on the other hand turned out to be an excellent way to get chocolate and banana together, and lots of other flavors too as it turns out. This won’t be the last weird combination to come out of this recipe.  : )

 

Ingredients:

Mix:

This is a really simple thing to put together, minimal amount of technique needed. First, get your oven preheating to 325. Meanwhile, sift your flour into a giant mixing bowl, then whisk all the other dry ingredients into it. In a smaller mixing bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients except for the banana. Best if you wait until you’re ready before you puree the bananas, because they start to oxidize and turn brown as soon they’re exposed to the air. Also, use extremely ripe bananas, probably riper than you’d want to eat. The ones I used were alright, but if I wasn’t really craving these muffins I would’ve given them another couple days. So puree your bananas and then whisk them into the bowl of wet ingredients. Ok, this is the only part where you actually need to pay attention for a second…. : )   Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and quickly combine with a wooden spoon, taking care not to over mix. Basically as soon as the baking powder and baking soda get wet, they start doing their business of producing air bubbles. If you keep stirring while that happens you just end up knocking all the air out that you just made. So stir like mad until there’s no more dry powder showing and then step away! Give the batter a few minutes to rest before you go any further. (This is a good time to line your muffin pan with muffin cups. (P.S. There’s a company called “If You Care” that makes 100% recycled, 100% compostable muffin cups and parchment paper and the like, so you don’t have to feel terrible about throwing that stuff out all the time.))

Spoon the batter into your muffin cups so that they’re well heaped over the top. Because there are no eggs in this recipe, the batter does most of it’s lifting before it goes into the oven. Bake at 325 for about 25 minutes. If you don’t use Earth Balance, and instead just use all coconut oil, they may not be brown on top after 25 minutes, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be brown on the bottom. You’ll have to experiment with cooking times to get a nice balance between a colored top and a bottom that isn’t overcooked. After they come out of the oven, let them rest for at least 15 minutes before you devour one, they’ll really be better in a couple hours though!

Try these with a cup of coffee… it seems obvious enough, but I thought I ought to mention it because I didn’t want anyone to miss out on the experience.    : )