This Sweet Muffin Recipe is Sure to Add Warmth to your Winter Days!

As a nod to Joanne Chang and her Flour Bakery, one of our stops on the South End Tour, we are sharing a variation on her famous recipe for banana bread. We have made a few minor tweaks, but the integrity of the recipe remains in tact. We got Chang’s recipe, formatted for the home kitchen, from the Food Network website, which you can find here.
When it’s cold outside and all you want to do is hit snooze on your alarm (and usually do), it’s hard to build in time for a good, sit-down breakfast. Instead of grabbing something in a package, we’re reaching for these banana muffins with dark chocolate chips and walnuts—now that’s worth getting out of bed for; sorry granola bars. These muffins also make a great mid-day snack, whether you had one for breakfast or not.

Baking can lend such pleasure to you and those around you in this gloomy time of year; and friends love receiving these muffins (if you have it in you to share). When baking, these muffins fill the house with warm cinnamon and banana aromas; banana muffin should really be a candle scent. The comforting tastes of banana and cinnamon are only elevated with toasted walnuts and rich dark chocolate. You know you want them…

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients:

 1⅔ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 eggs

½ cup oil (any flavorless oil)

3⅓ bananas, very ripe, mashed

2 tablespoons full-fat Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

⅔ cups walnuts, toasted and chopped

1 cup dark chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with muffin papers or spray the pan with non-stick spray.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
3. Beat sugar and eggs with a whisk until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. If you use a stand mixer with a whisk attachment this takes about 5-7 minutes.
4. With mixer on, drizzle in oil, making sure it is completely incorporated.
5. Add mashed bananas, yogurt, and vanilla. Mix until well combined.
6. Fold in dry ingredients, nuts, and chocolate chips.
7. Pour into a lined muffin pan and bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Enjoy!

Our tweaks from the original:

1. We made muffins as muffins are easier to grab-and-go, but the original loaf version is also fantastic. We just reduced the baking time.

2. We doubled the amount of cinnamon because it is such a lovely, warm spice and we wanted a little more.

3. Because the recipe only calls for two tablespoons of dairy, we used full-fat Greek yogurt, because that’s what we had in the fridge, instead of sour cream or crème fraiche. We have tried them all though and they each work great.

4. We added one cup of dark chocolate chips, because chocolate belongs in everything, and dark chocolate is “healthy” (right?!). We used Ghirardelli bitter sweet chocolate chips.

Tip: Always keep over-ripe bananas in the freezer so that you have them at the ready for this recipe. Trust us, the craving will appear out of nowhere and you will thank us when the perfectly over-ripe bananas are at the ready for you!