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Monday, February 20, 2012

Pinteractive: Monkey Muffins

This is my Pinteractive post for the week.  Click on the badge over there ------> to go to Nanette's blog and see all the Pinteractive posts!
So, today's a holiday here in Ontario, which means I'm spending time doing a few of the things I love best:  sleeping in, snuggling with my husband, and cooking.  He's requested meatloaf for dinner, which I don't make very often because it's labour intensive and not my favourite.  But it is his, and I do have the time.
We also had 2 bananas on the counter, which are neither of our favourites.  Despite the fact that J merely tolerates bananas, he has me buy him 4 each week, and dutifully consumes them because they're, "good for [him]".  This past week, I bought 5, and told him if there were enough left, I would make muffins next week.  He left me 2.
Knowing me, I need to get my pinteractive post done this week so that I don't spend my time thinking about what I could be making and not ever getting around to doing it.  So I spent time yesterday looking for a great recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins.  While I could start with allrecipes.com, or foodgawker, I went for a tried and true source:  Taste of Home.
TOH had 9 recipes when I searched banana chocolate chip muffins.  Some had yogurt in them, which I didn't have, one recipe made 6 and wouldn't use up all my bananas.  Then I found one that hit all the right notes:  bananas, chocolate chips, and the way into my heart:  peanut butter.  I present to you the recipe for Monkey Muffins:

Ingredients:
1/2 c butter, softened
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 c mashed ripe banana
2/3 c peanut butter
1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c semisweet chocolate chunks

Method:
1.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Line or grease 2 12-cup muffin tins.
2.  In a large bowl, cream butter and 1 c sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in bananas, peanut butter, milk and vanilla.  Combine flour and other dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture until just moistened.  Fold in chocolate chunks.
3.  Fill muffin cups 3/4 full.  Bake 16-18 minutes until the muffins spring back when lightly touched.  Cool 5 minutes in the pans before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

From  Taste of Home

I lined one pan, then I ran out of liners, so I greased pan number 2.  I got 21 good sized muffins.  I probably could have got 24 if I hadn't been so generous when I made the first pan.  I ended up baking for probably 20 minutes or so with the larger volume in each cup.
Here we are getting ready for the oven.  The batter was very thick.  It didn't pour...it scooped.
Pan 2 out of the oven.  I used President's Choice Decadent Chocolate Chunks.  When I saw what was left in the bag after adding 3/4 c, I poured the rest of the bag in.
J and I each had one for lunch.  They were delicious.  Here's the rest, cooling on a rack before I packed them up.

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