Banana walnut chocolate muffins

This quarter David and I are attending a psychology seminar on language development which is three hours long on Thursday afternoons. After the first day, it was thought that some munchies and treats might be good to sustain everyone. Last week, I brought some time-honoured brownies, but this week I thought I would try something new. Crucially, the recipe had to use all of the extremely ripe bananas in our house, which led me to this banana muffin recipe.

Recipe

from 750 MuffinsMakes 18 muffinsTopping1/2 cup all-purpose flour1/2 cup dark brown sugar3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted1/2 tsp vanilla extractMuffins2 cups all-purpose flour2 tsp baking powder1/2 tsp baking soda1/2 tsp salt3/4 cup granulated sugar1 egg1-1/3 cup mashed ripe bananas1/2 cup vegetable oil1 cup plain yogurt1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted1 cup semisweet chocolate chunksPreheat oven to 400 F. For the topping, in a small bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, butter and vanilla until blended and crumbly. Refrigerate until ready to use. For the muffins, in a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugar, egg, bananas and oil until well blended. Whisk in yogurt until blended. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just blended. Gently fold in walnuts and chocolate. Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle with topping. Bake for 18 to 21 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then transfer to the rack to cool.

Musings

A few notes on preparation: I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips instead of semisweet chocolate chunks. I don't own two muffin pans, so I used one muffin pan and made one small loaf with the remaining batter.David and I found these muffins to be quite delightful--rich, sweet (but not overly so), and with a nice crunch from both the walnuts and the crumb topping. The only issue was that the muffin cup was a hard to peel off the actual muffin itself. Not sure how to rectify that, aside from greasing the individual cups, which is certainly doable. A lovely muffin, perfect for afternoon munchies!