chubby banana muffins

I love eating bananas during class -- but I do not love eating mushy bananas during class. They're a mess, and everyone looks at me strangely. As I think I'm the only one who ever eats bananas in the house, having more mushy bananas than we can handle is not an unusual occurrence. My mother usually puts them to use in her (famous!) banana bread (it's crackly and buttery and banana-y and wonderful), but this time, she suggested that I try making these muffins -- because, well, they're hard to mess up. And yet: they're really good.

(Ignore, if you will, the completely out-of-season liners. We bought them a few Christmases ago. Yes, I'm aware it's Halloween.)

chubby banana muffins
adapted from banana muffins ii
makes 36 mini muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 large bananas, super brown
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees & line a muffin tin with (cute) paper liners.

In a smaller bowl, lift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a larger bowl, mash the three bananas (if they're not easily mashable, they're not brown enough, and your muffins may not turn out as sweet as they'd normally be). Whisk them together with the sugar, egg, and melted butter.

Fold in the flour, adding a little at a time; then, fold in the chocolate chips. As you can see in the photo, I didn't have enough for every muffin; I think we only had one-fifth of a bag left in the cupboard. However, I think even a little chocolate takes these to the next level. (& more chocolate never hurt anyone.)

Spoon batter into muffin pan (fill each dimple 3/4 -- or more) and bake for 15-20 minutes. These harden up a lot while cooling (as anything; so my mother tells me), so take them out sooner rather than later.

The original recipe listed this recipe as 48 mini muffins' worth; I found it to be more like 36. Perhaps I'm just really generous with the batter (I like my muffins to have muffin tops, more often than not) or perhaps not all mini muffin pans are made equal. Regardless, I'd say a serving counts as two muffins. They're tasty little buggers.