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The Batter Thickens

A food blog balancing sweet treats & healthy eats.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

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These Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are, unfortunately, evidence of how easily influenced I am. I saw a video of someone on the internet showing off their breakfast of a muffin with peanut butter yogurt, and I decided I needed to make some muffins. Theirs looked better than mine (influencers always so that), but mine are pretty tasty!

I talked in my last post about how I started a UX Design course recently, but what I didn’t get into is how much of an adjustment it has been to my routine. Even when I was working 50 hour weeks at my last job, I was often working weird hours (3pm-1am, or 6am-4pm), or just taking my entire day (9am-7pm). I was getting anywhere from 2-3 meals from the cafeteria at work, so the food I kept to eat at home was sparse and at times random. I was sleeping weird hours, and trying to figure out how to fit things in in daylight. It was a lot. There was some routine, but the routine was sort of…. no routine. If that makes any sense. (If it doesn’t make any sense…. the supposed freedom of your 20s is exhausting.)

It was a bit of chaos, and I didn’t have consistent planning for things like what meals I was going to be eating, when I would go to the store, what workouts I would be doing. 

And then in my true funemployment era, I was better at keeping a routine, but there really wasn’t much structure. But now, this course is requiring me to be downtown from 9-5, and I’ve got to pack lunches every day. Now I have to wake up in time to have breakfast and drive downtown. I have to pack my lunches, and then be sure to have food that doesn’t take too long to prep for dinner. I go to the gym pretty frequently on my way home. My evenings are different but have the same structure. I haven’t had this much routine since… probably high school. No joke.

It feels good, but has required a lot more planning and brain power. I go grocery shopping on the weekend with the intention of getting all my food for the week. I have the brain capacity to plan going to Costco to get some items (that can last me a month).  I’ve made the same lunch most days of the program, and I prep them in advance. This may sound very standard to a lot of people, but I haven’t had to plan 3 meals a day for myself in a long time!

All this meal planning and trying to follow a schedule has made me repeat meals and find ways to stretch healthy food for one for a full week. I’ve gone through a smoothie phase recently (frozen strawberries and bananas that I blend up with protein powder and oat milk), but I found myself feeling ravenous at about 10:30am, with an hour and a half to go before lunch. So I needed a little more to go with my breakfast smoothies, which is what I was thinking when I saw that video on the internet of the muffin.

I turned to Sally’s Baking Addiction’s bakery-style muffin recipe, I splurged on some fun muffin liners so I could play pretend that they were made at a bakery. And then I got mini chocolate chips, because they are a necessity.

And voila! Banana Chocolate Chip muffins!

I’m also only just now realizing that my family’s classic banana bread recipe – an incredibly formative and important recipe – has never been posted on the blog? These muffins are good… but that classic banana bread is in another league. So I may need to fix that oversight soon!!

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Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

  • Author: Audrey
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Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup of mashed banana (about 2 large bananas, mashed)
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt, at room temperature
  • 1 cup milk, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 and 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips
  • optional: coarse sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Line your muffin tin with muffin liners. Set aside.
  2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a large bowl. Set aside.
  3. Whisk the bananas, oil, sugar, and eggs together until combined. Then whisk in the sour cream, milk, and vanilla extract. Mixture will be pale yellow. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fold together with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon until completely combined. Use a whisk to rid any large lumps of flour, if needed. Avoid overmixing. The batter will be thick. Fold in the mini chocolate chips.
  4. Divide batter between each muffin cup, filling all the way to the top. Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes, then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and continue to bake for 15-17 minutes until the tops are lightly golden brown and centers are set. Stick a toothpick in the center of a muffin to test for doneness. If it comes out clean, the muffins are done.
  5. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan before serving.
  6. Cover leftover muffins and store at room temperature for 5 days or in the refrigerator for 1 week. Muffins freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or on the counter.

Notes

Master Bakery-Style Muffin Recipe

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