Best Easy Banana Muffins

I have made these muffins many, many times now and can tell you that they are, for sure, the easiest and best little muffins you could ever make. And so they are also perfect to star as the first post on my sure-to-see-little-action blog, which was created for the sole purpose of having someplace to put things that I want to pin or have pinned. Really, it has nothing to do with you except for the fact that I think you'll really want this recipe because it's a super easy and delicious way to deal with those overripe bananas stinking up your kitchen that your kids made you buy even though you knew they weren't going to eat them.

Um, I don't know how to do those handy little recipe box things yet. So whatever. But I have figured this to the minimum number of tools needed, because I hate doing dishes.


Banana Muffins

Tools
1 large bowl
1/2 cup dry measure
1 cup liquid measure
1 teaspoon measure
potato masher
rubber spatula
muffin tin
small trigger scoop
paper liners
cooling rack

Ingredients
3 large ripe bananas
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup avocado oil (or melted butter or other flavorless oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Line mini muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, mash bananas with potato masher until good and mashed. (If you are using small bananas, this comes to about 1 1/2 cups of mashed banana.)

Still with the masher, mix in sugar, egg, oil, and extracts, pausing between each to make sure it is incorporated before adding the next.

Sprinkle flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt over liquid mixture. With a rubber spatula, mix the dry ingredients together a bit and then gently fold into wet ingredients, until not quite completely combined. (To avoid tough muffins, don't do this vigorously.)

Add chocolate chips and stir until evenly distributed. Again, do not over-stir.

With trigger scoop, put one scoop into each lined muffin cup. Bake at 350 degrees in center of over for 10-15 minutes (my oven reliably takes 14 minutes, but I don't have a thermometer in there to confirm that it runs true), until slightly browned on top. Remove from over and leave in tin for about two minutes before turning out onto cooling rack.

This recipe makes 48 mini muffins.

Notes
I think the mini muffins cook up best with this recipe, but you could do full size muffins as well. It makes 12-16 and bakes for I think like 22 minutes.

It also cooks up decently in an 8x8 cake pan for about 40 minutes. You'll want to spray that with Pam or line it with parchment.

But truly, the mini muffins are the best.

Avocado oil is my preferred light oil for everything, but you could use vegetable, canola, or any other light oil you like. Melted butter works too. Melted coconut oil would also work, but note that it would add a different flavor.

Orange extract is not necessary, but it really is the thing that take them to the next level of yummy goodness.