I’ve really been enjoying browsing through the book Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, which I borrowed from my library recently. The book is due shortly so I figured I’d better get cracking on trying some of the recipes. I think I want to purchase the book, but I’d like to test a few of the recipes and see how much success I have with them first.
My friend Teresa is in town for a few days and it was the perfect opportunity to test one of the muffin recipes for breakfast. I have had my eye on this banana espresso chocolate chip muffin recipe so we decided to give it a shot. I bought bananas yesterday so obviously they weren’t ripe enough yet. I used a trick I saw on a Food Network show to ripen them quickly. I put the bananas (in their peels) in the oven on a baking sheet at 400 F for about 10 minutes. It worked perfectly and we had ripe bananas ready to be mashed and added. Like most muffins recipes this one comes together quickly and thankfully, the muffins baked up beautifully! I did cut back on the amount of chocolate chips because the picture of the muffins in the book looks VERY chocolately. Teresa and I both agreed, however, that the amount of chocolate in the muffins as I made them was perfect. We couldn’t taste the espresso at all so maybe I would try to add a bit more next time but otherwise I wouldn’t change these a bit!
By Tracey
Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins
from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, by Matt Lewis, Renato Poliafito and Tina Rupp
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4 medium bananas)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (I used ~2/3 cup)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk and egg.
In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, instant espresso powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Fill each cup about three-quarters full. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack, and let cool for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.
Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Makes 12 muffins.
