As most of my friends know, I don't bake.
I cook.
Baking....eh, you have to follow recipes and it just never works out for me. Give me some big sloppy peasant kind of food and I'm happy as a clam at high tide puttering around with it.
At the last house concert however, my friend Donna came bearing a big tray of Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip muffins. I was too busy bobbing about the night of the party to have one but I noticed them going fast. The next morning however, there was one lone little orphan muffin sitting there on the sideboard. I snapped it up to eat with my coffee-milk and GOOD GOD IN HEAVEN. Uh....delicious. I still don't know if I want to bake but perhaps my beloved husband, my baker extraordinaire, would like to do the honors....
Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins
Recipe from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, by Matt Lewis and Renata Poliafita, 2008
1-1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4)
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
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 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 just until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Fill each cup about 3/4 full. Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the 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.
Yield: 12 muffins