Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

This past weekend, Sunday was my morning to get up with the Hattonettes while Josh slept in. It was a rough morning. The girlies were up early, they were tired and bored, fighting over gardening gloves, tripping over their own feet and bumping into things, they were both just sort of falling to pieces and making me nuts. So in the middle of it all I noticed our very ripe bananas and decided to make muffins, in some small, sad attempt to cling to sanity. My favorite muffins. I've made them several times, and each time I polish off the dozen in a few days, they are so flippin good.



These are the Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Get it Ripe by Jae Steele. She's a vegan superstar. Even if you're not vegan, do yourself a favor and check out her blog for great recipes and information about general health, fasts and cleanses. She's pretty much a dynamo.

This recipe calls for spelt flour, which I never remember to buy, so I always use a combo of all-purpose and whole wheat flour. I also never remember to buy coconut oil (though I'm curious about it, so I really should put it on my shopping list) so I use whatever oil I have in the house that's good for baking. Usually I use fruit-sweetened dairy-free chocolate chips (I like to keep them in the house for a relatively not un-healthy addition to baked goods) like the recipe calls for, but I also have just used Nestle when that's all I have. You cannot skimp on the syrup, though, you need to use the real stuff -- but that should go without saying, why would you ever use the nasty fake stuff? And I always add tons of finely chopped pecans -- I add them to pretty much everything I bake.

Go make these STAT.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 3/4 cups spelt flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup softened non-hydrogenated coconut oil, or sunflower or olive oil (plus extra if using to coat pan)
2/3 cup non-dairy chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 375degF. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tray with paper liners or a light coating of oil.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Add the banana, syrup and oil. Stir just until all flour is absorbed. Fold in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Portion the batter into muffin cups and bake for about 25 minutes, until the tops are domed and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Stores in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or in fridge for up to a week.

Makes 12 muffins.