Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

You know those bananas in the back of the refrig? The ones you brought home perfectly yellow, but then you forgot to eat them, and then it's so hot in the house that they ripen in a flash, so you put them in the refrig, and they turn brown, and they sit and sit?

Those bananas - get them and make these muffins!

On Monday, I woke up, remembered we had a meeting at work, threw these together, popped 'em in the oven while listening to NPR, jumped in the shower, dressed, took them out of the oven and threw them in the car for my commute. Whew! It's was a busy Monday.

Hope you are enjoying your summer! Are you participating in your library's Summer Reading Program (some have adult programs!)? I hope you are...it's a good way to stay motivated to read and relax a bit this summer. Read anything good lately? The last book I really enjoyed was The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.

Recipe: Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Adapted from Food & Wine (The original recipe is for 24 muffins. I cut the recipe in half except for the chocolate - the original uses mini chocolate chips)

3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar
3/4 stick butter, melted
1 cup mashed overripe bananas (2-3 bananas)
1 1/2 eggs (To get 1/2 an egg, break one, lightly beat and use half)
1 1/4 cups plus 2 (192 grams) Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks (I used Trader Joe's chocolate chunks)

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prep 12 muffin tins.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, melted butter, bananas and eggs.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together just until the batter is moistened - don't overmix. Fold in the chocolate chunks.
5. Scoop batter into muffin tin. Bake for 24-28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven and let sit 10 minutes before removing to cool.

Mini M&M Chocolate Cookies

Mini M&M Chocolate Cookies

At work, we hit a milestone in a crazy big project so we had to celebrate. We had an ice cream social for the team and one of the ice cream toppings included mini M&Ms. By the way, I was trying to figure out how to transport the sprinkles and toppings from home to work and I used my cupcake tin! Worked perfectly.

Since we had a lot of mini M&Ms leftover, I made these chocolate cookies - the recipe was easy to find...it's on the back of the package!

Mini M&M Chocolate Cookies
Adapted from the recipe on the back of the 12 ounce package

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup (200 grams) sugar
3/4 cup (150 grams) light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 (315 grams) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used 28 grams of Callebaut dutch processed cocoa powder)
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of kosher salt
1 cup M&M minis (The recipe calls for 1 3/4 cup M&Ms but since I was using leftovers, I only had a little over 1 cup)

Note: You need to chill the dough for an hour or overnight.

1. Cream butter and sugars together in a mixer with paddle attachment.
2. Add eggs and vanilla and blend until combined.
3. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture and blend together just until combined.
5. Fold in the mini M&Ms.
6. Chill for an hour or overnight.
7. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
8. Scoop out tablespoons of dough and place on cookie sheet. I like to top each cookie with a few M&Ms so I'm guaranteed some m&m on the top. If you use the full amount of M&Ms, you might not need to do this because you'll have enough M&Ms in the batter.
9. Bake 10-13 minutes. (Their instructions say 7-9 minutes for chewy cookies and 10-12 minutes for crispy, but mine were totally not done at 7 minutes)