Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Cupcakes/Muffins

Are they cupcakes or muffins? 

Depends on how you classify cupcakes vs. muffins... and also if you add frosting, I suppose.

History of the Recipe

Aaron and I LOVE banana bread! Most of the time we buy bananas from the store just to let them over ripen so we can make this recipe! Usually we make it in a loaf, but I came up with the idea for making it into muffins (or cupcakes...whichever) for an easy-go item in the morning! Eating a slice of banana bread with your fingers is not ideal for a quick breakfast at work... muffins, on the other hand, are the perfect solution, and thus, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Cupcakes/Muffins were born! And of course, Aaron requested I add chocolate chips, because he is obsessed with chocolate!

Recipe

Ingredients: 

4 ripe bananas, smashed (They can be partially black on the outside! The key is to make sure they are not goners, aka: overly bruised or smelly)

1/3 melted butter (I usually pop it in the microwave in a glass measuring cup for about 20 seconds)

1 cup sugar (depending on how sugary you want these you can decrease the amount of sugar to 3/4 of a cup)

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt (table salt works best for baking!)

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (If you are baking at high altitude you MUST increase the flour content or else the muffins will never rise, so for high altitude ONLY, increase flour to 1 3/4 cups)

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (this time I did 1/2 cup of semi sweet and 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips, it turned out fantastic! You can also opt to leave out the chocolate chips and add nuts or just leave plain!)

Hardware:
 

Oven

16 muffin cups

Muffin tin(s)

1 ice cream scooper or large spoon

1 large mixing bowl

1 wooden spoon

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas (I usually use a potato masher, but you can use a fork or wooden spoon).

3. Add the melted butter  and mix in with the mashed bananas using a wooden spoon.

4. Add the sugar, beaten egg and vanilla and mix in.

5. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

6. Add the flour and mix.

7. Add the chocolate chips (or nuts) and mix in.

8. Place the muffin cups into the muffin tins and use the ice cream scooper or large spoon to add the banana bread mixture into the muffin cups. Fill the cups with roughly one ice cream scoop full of batter (about half way up the muffin cup)

9. Place into middle rack of preheated oven (if you have two muffin pans you can place them side by side on the middle rack and cook at the same time, if not just reuse the muffin pan with new muffin cups for each batch).

10. Bake for roughly 20 minutes (I usually watch them after 17 minutes have passed). 

11. Once the tops are slightly browned take them out! (I usually take the muffins out of the muffin tins immediately to cool on the counter.)

*Note: Depending on how much batter you add to the muffin cups you could turn out with 12 or 16 muffins. If you wind up with 16, place the last four muffins two in the front of the pan and two in the back, leaving an empty row between them.

Enjoy warm or cooled off!