Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Yum yum yum yum yum. I always love banana bread and I just love baking in the morning for breakfast. My boyfriend has expressed slight disinterest (not extreme, just slight, but enough) in banana in the past, so I tried to find a very yummy, sugar-topped, chocolate-filled version for him. These are SO GOOD! A big hit! I was actually fine with just 2 large bananas for this recipe.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Recipe from Better With Sugar

Muffins:

1-1/2 C all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 large bananas, mashed (or 4 medium)

3/4 C granulated sugar

1 egg

1/3 C unsalted butter, melted

3/4 C chocolate chips (optional)

3/4 C walnuts, chopped (optional)

Crumb Topping:

3 TBS all purpose flour

1/4 C packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 TBS butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with muffin liners.

In a small bowl, mix together all of the ingredients for the Crumb Topping. Stir together with a fork, and then use your fingers to make it crumbly. 

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix this together really well or you'll get that weird baking soda/powder taste!

In a separate small bowl, mash the bananas (with a potato masher if you have one. If not, a wooden spoon will do). Then beat in the sugar, egg, and melted butter. 

Add the banana/sugar/egg/butter mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined (do not overmix!)

Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts if you are adding them.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin. 

Sprinkle the crumb topping on top of each muffin.

Bake for 22-23 min, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. 

Let cool in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, and then transfer the muffins out of the pan, and onto a rack to cool completely.

Banana Pudding

Look delicious? I think this is one of the best things I've made. I cheated with the whipped cream and used store-bought, but next time I'd definitely whip my own because I realized nothing beats homemade whipped cream. I also bought Nilla Wafers for this. The original recipe said I could make 8 small servings or 4 large. I put the pudding into 6-oz glasses and it made 4. I think next time I'd add ,more bananas and maybe a center layer, but it was fine the way it was, too. Definitely try this if you get a change! Homemade pudding is delicious!

Banana Pudding Parfaits

Adapted by Me from Annie's Eats

Yield: 4 servings

1/6 cup all-purpose flour

3/8 cup sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten

1 1/4 cups milk

1 1/2 tbsp. butter, at room temperature, divided

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1-2 ripe bananas, sliced

Vanilla wafers (mini if you make parfaits)

For the topping:

whipped cream

In a medium saucepan, combine the flour, sugar, and salt.  Whisk in the egg yolk, then the milk. Place the saucepan over medium heat. Add in 1 tablespoons of the butter. Cook, whisking frequently, until the mixture bubbles and thickens significantly. Remove from the heat. Whisk in the vanilla and the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of butter.

Layer individual serving dishes (4-5 oz) with vanilla wafers and banana slices.  Fill each dish with some of the pudding until all pudding is gone, nearly to the top of the serving dishes. Crush up several vanilla wafers and layer it on top, finishing with another layer of banana slices as desired. Cover with plastic wrap and let chill until well set, at least 2-3 hours.

Garnish with whipped cream and additional vanilla wafers.

Banana Cake that you HAVE to make!

If you can, please make this, right now. It's a cake that comes together VERY easily. I made this for my birthday party on the 10th. I'd been planning on making this cake for months, actually, but I didn't know that this cake would be as amazing as it was. I'm used to making chocolate cakes for my friends, and so I chose to make myself a banana cake for my birthday, because I don't really like chocolate cake. So I picked this recipe out because it seemed like an easy choice. I wanted to make a small cake in case people didn't like it (my mom ended up buying me a second cake...so people could have Red Velvet (delicious) if they didn't like banana). Everybody loved it.

I made a few changes to the original frosting recipe. I doubled it so that I could remove the cake from the pan (I took it out of the pan about a half-hour after I took it out of the oven, and poured the batter into a pan lined with parchment paper to make that easy--I also used a 9-in square pan), and instead of using vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste or doubling the vanilla at all, I replaced that with the seeds of one vanilla bean, which made it taste absolutely amazing. It was really sweet and complemented the banana cake perfectly--well, at least I think so. Yum! Don't hesitate to make this!

Banana Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting
Recipe from ButterYum
Frosting Recipe adapted by me

Cake:
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 mashed super ripe bananas (about 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Frosting:
4 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup heavy cream
Seeds of one vanilla bean
3 cups confectioner's sugar

To make cake (easily mixed by hand):
Preheat the oven to 375F (see note below). Cream together sugar, sour cream, egg, and 2 tablespoons softened butter. Add mashed bananas and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Add flour, salt, and baking soda; mix well. Pour into greased pan. Bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

To make frosting:
Cream butter and confectioner's sugar together until smooth. Slowly add the heavy cream; stir until smooth. Stir in the vanilla bean paste until fully incorporated. Spread on cooled cake.

Note - Bake at 350F if using a glass pan. Recipe doubles well (9x13 pan).

Nutella Marbled Banana Bread

The second thing I made for my mom's bookgroup retreat is this Nutella Marbled Banana Bread. It was really good and pretty easy--though I'm not very good at marbling. If you like nutella, I still very much reccommend these Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies, which I've made 3 or 4 times already and everyone always loooves. I go back to the East Coast in less than a week, and school shortly after that, and that'll probably be the first thing I bake in my new kitchen for my friends back at school!

Nutella Marbled Banana Bread
Recipe from Sugar Plum
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups mashed ripe banana
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup Nutella
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9-inch loaf pan with cooking spray.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together banana, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until creamy and well combined - about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs until well combined - about 2 minutes. Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in flour mixture until just combined. Divide 1/2 of of the batter into a medium bowl; stir in Nutella until combined.

Alternate spoonfuls of batter into loaf pan until all of the batter is used up. Swirl batter gently with a knife (not too much!). Bake 1 hour or until well risen, deep golden brown, and a toothpick inserted into bread comes out with moist crumbs attached.
Makes 1 loaf

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This bread was great! I made it along with the quiche I posted last week, for father's day this year. Yes, regular banana bread is great, too, but I think that the chocolate chips in this one make it so that the bread tastes good even at room temperature. Sure, regular banana bread is fine, but in my opinion it tastes better warm or heated up...this one does, too, but you can enjoy it either way!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Recipe from The Family Kitchen

1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a standard 9×5 loaf pan*.

Mix together butter and sugar until fully combined. Add eggs and vanilla extract, mix well. Add mashed bananas, mix again until completely combined.

In a separate bowl mix flour, soda, nutmeg, cinnamon and chocolate chips. Stir this mixture a few times and make sure the chips are fully coated with flour.

Working slowly, stir flour mixture into egg mixture. Keep stirring until all flour is fully incorporated. The batter may still be a little lumpy from the bananas, this is normal.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes or until top is golden and a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Then, carefully remove it from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack before serving.

*You can also divide the batter into smaller loaf pans, or mini loaf pans if you want to make smaller breads.

Freezer Tips: This bread freezes well. If you want to save it for later simply wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. Then wrap it again with an outer layer of aluminum foil. Make sure none of the bread is exposed to air. It will last in the freezer for 2-4 months.

Banana Bread

I've been wanting to bake banana bread for a while, so as soon as my landlord claimed my oven fixed, I started gathering the ingredients I needed for when I had time. So on Saturday I finally made it! And it worked! Actually, I was impatient and so the bananas weren't really overripe and it still worked great. It wasn't sweet, which I didn't want anyway. My oven still has a lot of kinks that I don't understand yet so after 50 minutes the top got a little overbrown in some places but that's okay that was my fault. Next time if I make this recipe again, I want to try adding the walnuts (and using reallly ripe bananas)! I used Fage 0% greek yogurt because I forgot about buying plain yogurt and that's what I had. Next time I might want to try using not low or nonfat yogurt, but I love greek yogurt so I might still have to use that.

Banana Bread
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated by Christina

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups walnuts, toasted and chopped coarse (optional)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed well (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
6 tbsp of unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Turn on the oven to 350F.

Butter and flour the bottom of a loaf pan.

Mix the mashed banana, eggs, yogurt, melted butter and vanilla in a large bowl.

Stir the walnuts into the banana mixture (doing so will reduce the risk of over-mixing).

Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking soda into the banana mixture.

Using a rubber spatula, very, very, very gently mix the flour with the wet ingredients. Stop as soon as the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be chunky instead of smooth.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean after inserted into the bread.

Let the bread cool in the pan; slice and serve.