Sunday, June 10, 2012

I Love a Good Muffin Top

I'm telling ya, a good muffin top gets my heart racing.

Wouldn't you want to wake up next to one of those every morning?

Ingredient List:
  • 2 old black bananas
  • 1 3/4 cups flour
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 6 oz container vanilla yogurt
  • 3/4 cup semi sweet mini chocolate chips
First, you need really gross looking black bananas.  Usually what I do is I go to the grocery store and think to myself, "Bananas! They are yummy! Let me buy waaay more than I can eat." I usually buy 4 thinking that's a good number. And I usually only eat 2 before they start getting brown. I let them sit on my counter until they are brown and spotty, and then I throw them in the freezer. In the freezer they turn black. I pull 2 of them out whenever I'm going to bake with them (banana bread, banana muffins, banana lasagna...ok not really lasagna). They look inedible, but I promise they will be delicious. And perfectly ripe but not over ripe bananas just don't quite cut it.



And then you peel them, and throw them in a bowl.

Add your egg

And your yogurt and oil. If you buy yogurt in larger sizes than 6 oz, and you have no idea how to measure that, it's ok. What you will need is 1 cup of combined oil and yogurt. So you can grab a measuring cup, and fill a little more than half of it with yogurt, then top it off with oil, and things will be dandy. You can also make it an even 50/50 yogurt to oil. And if you want to use plain yogurt, just add a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

After you have all your liquids in a bowl, mix them up.


Then add all your dry ingredients. (Sugar, flour, salt, baking powder and soda, pretty much everything that's left except for your chocolate chips.)


  
And whisk

 
  
Then add chocolate chips. I just eyeball how many to use. I also like the mini chips for my muffins. Somehow they make them taste better.


Then either grease your muffin pan, or put in the little cups. This recipe will make 12 normal size muffins. You could also make 24 mini muffins.


Fill your muffin pan with the batter and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes. Until the tops of them just begin to look golden, and you can put a toothpick in them and it will pull out clean. If you are smart you will preheat your oven while mixing your ingredients. If you are like me you will forget this step until you are ready to bake. And when you are ready to put your muffins in the oven you will turn it on. And wait. And wait. And wonder how good the batter would taste unbaked. And continue to wait. Until finally the oven beeps and tells you it is now safe to put the muffins in the oven.


 25 minutes later, you will get a batch of these babies. I wish I could eat one and tell you how moist and chewy and chocolate-y and banana-y they taste. But alas, they were cooled, and placed in a vacuum sealed bag, and sent to Afghanistan. War fighters like muffin tops too.