Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

When Bruin Smurf moved out, she forgot a bag of overripe bananas in the freezer.  Other than that, she left things about as clean as you can expect from a 21-year-old.

She originally had the bananas for banana chocolate chip muffins, so that's what I decided to do with them.  I don't have her stepmom's recipe, but I do have my banana bread recipe, from one of the tabbed cookbooks in my current project, that I can tinker with.  I'm mainly replacing the raisins with mini chocolate chips and adding an oatmeal streusel topping.  I would have used white chocolate chips, but they're kind of big to put in a muffin.  Cinnamon chips are also an option.  It's all about the flavor profile you want.

I don't think I've worked with frozen and defrosted bananas before.  It was pretty cool.  They just squirt out from inside the skins and don't require much effort to mash.  I'll have to remember that for next time.  Mashing a less-ripe banana is kind of a pain.

When it turned out this recipe makes more than a dozen, I had a chance to compare my two muffin/cupcake pans' performance.  The older, brown one bakes faster.  The newer silver takes longer, but the result is more even.  The cups are also a smidge larger.  Tiny differences over a couple of decades, but if I had Grandma Sophie's pans from the 50's still, they would result in even greater differences.  Something to keep in mind when using an old recipe.

Crumble
1/4 C flour
1/4 C rolled or quick oats
1 Tb brown sugar
2 Tb butter

1.  Stir together flour, oats, and brown sugar.

2.  Cut in butter until mixture forms crumbs.

3.  Refrigerate (or freeze) until ready to use.

Batter
*1 C mashed very ripe banana (2-3)
1 C sugar
1 egg
1/4 C butter, melted and cooled
1-1/2 C flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
*1/2 C mini chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 325º.  Line a standard muffin pan with paper liners.

2.  In a bowl, combine mashed banana, sugar, egg, and melted butter.  In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

3.  Make a well in the dry bowl and pour the wet into it.  Stir until about half combined, then stir in chips.  A few lumps are ok.  They're better than over-mixing.  You can even walk away for a couple of minutes and let it finish hydrating on its own.

4.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 of the way.  Avoid the temptation to fill more.  These don't rise much, but they're a lot easier to get out of the pan if they don't form "muffin top" rims.  Sprinkle tops with the oat crumb.

5.  Bake 20-25 minutes, until they pass the toothpick test.  Wait 10 minutes before removing from pan.

Makes 18

Difficulty rating  π