Woah… you guys… It’s our buddy Chocolate’s first appearance on the blog! A) Welcome, sweet, fragrant, endorphine-producing friend. B) You’re late. I’ve been waiting, like, all morning for chocolate. Yes, I’ve already had breakfast and Joey and I have a lunch date in a few hours, buuuuut, no chance I’m skipping my mid-morning snack, K? And chocolate’s presence is required. These are *Healthyish* Chocolate Banana Muffins though, so, lemme at them for snack, snack #2, dessert, and breakfast tomorrow. Pats on the back, all around.
scrounging around for muffin items
These muffins are especially perfect if, like me, you have old, overripe bananas looking weird in a ziplock bag in your freezer and half an avocado quickly going brown in your fridge. Those two things, plus some Dutch process cocoa powder I brought home from the shop, are kicking off this muffin party. Never baked with avocado? It’s rich and fatty! Throw it in there! Overripe bananas? They add moisture and replace some of the sugar you’d normally need to add, plus, you know, yummy banana flavor. The rest of the ingredients were cobbled together from what I had on hand: an egg, chocolate chips, sour cream (chocolate’s sassy co-worker; she adds a tangy kick to the mix), olive oil, vanilla, and a little brown sugar:
Plus, the usual muffin components: flour, baking powder, salt … aaaaand this super convenient baking powerhouse from our shop called Baker’s Spice Blend. I know it seems like a small thing, but being able to scoop out a teaspoon of this blend of cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and star anise in a one-and-done motion, instead of gathering and measuring out all 7 individual spices… guys, come on. I am taking the flavorful and lazy route every time.
Moving on: mix mix, dump dump, bake bake and here we have delicious muffins! Super chocolaty, tangy from the sour cream, rich (and healthyish) from the creamy avocado/banana/olive oil, and happily studded with melty chocolate chips. Mmmm hmmm, I’ll have 2 please!!
Ok, gotta go wash the chocolate off my fingers. Time to muffin!
PrintHealthyish Chocolate Banana Muffins
Super chocolaty and rich muffins (to use up your overripe bananas) plus olive oil, a little avocado, and lots of chocolate!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 28 minutes
- Total Time: 38 minutes
- Yield: 10 big muffins 1x
Ingredients
dry ingredients
- 1 1/2 C flour
- 1/4 C Dutch process cocoa powder
- 4 t baking powder
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 t Baker’s Spice (optional, or add a big pinch of cinnamon)
- 1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
wet ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1/4 C sour cream
- 2 T olive oil
- 1/2 an avocado, mashed (about 1/4 C)
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1/2 C brown sugar
- 1 T vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and grease a muffin tin or line it with muffin liners.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined – be careful not to overmix – a few streaks of flour in the batter are ok.
- Divide the batter evenly among muffin cups. *see note
- Bake at 425 for 5 minutes, then lower the oven temp to 375 and bake for 23 minutes. *see note
Notes
I filled the muffin cups all the way to the top and got 10 big muffins.
This method of blasting the muffins with high heat and then lowering the temp to let them finish baking is part of what helps them get big and fat. I learned that tip (plus the correct amount of baking powder to use) from this post on Sally’s Baking Addiciton. So smart!