Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins

I just wanted to say "thank you" to everyone who left a comment for the Pineapple Jerky giveaway. And now for the moment everyone has been waiting for. The winner is ...Jenn from a "A Day in the Life..." !

I used Random (dot) Org to generate the winning number. Jenn when you have time, shoot me an e-mail so you can collect your Pineapple Jerky.

I can see you looking at the muffins. I know you're thinking "...banana muffins? Been there done that." Yes, that maybe true; but have you had banana muffins with espresso?

At first, I was unsure at how well the banana and espresso would pair together. I finally gave in to my curiosity and made the muffins. The espresso adds a nice element to the muffins. Personally, I think the espresso made the brown sugar and chocolate more pronounced in the muffins. [Which made the muffins special for me.]

I really enjoyed my squat little muffins. In case you're wondering go ahead and divide the batter evenly without fear of "overflow". These little guys don't rise too high. The recipe is from the book titled "Baked" by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. [Great book by the way!]

PRINT RECIPE: BANANA ESPRESSO...
ONE YEAR AGO: BANANA DULCE DE LECHE CAKE

Apple Raisin Muffins

Have you ever wanted to bake something and didn’t have all the ingredients? Did you go ahead with substitutions and hoped it would come out? That’s where I found myself last night.

I wanted to have a muffin for breakfast, a raisin muffin, to be exact. I searched through all my cookbooks and I did find recipes. But the ingredients were another story. My next step was the internet, where I found a recipe that was simple, yet I was still missing some the ingredients. I crossed my fingers and hoped that all the substitutions would yield me an edible muffin.

What I got was a large humble muffin, whose taste surpasses any of those overpriced dry muffins available at coffee houses. Oh, is this muffin soft and so good. The recipe originally called for 12 muffins, but I wanted big breakfast muffins, so I used a Texas muffin pan. I still cannot believe how well the muffins turned out. I guess if a recipe is well written substitutions will still yield one a good result.

If find yourself wanting a muffin but lack all the appropriate ingredients feel free to change out the wheat flour, half & half, apple, raisins and whatever else you don’t have. I did and it worked out just fine. The original recipe can be found here in case your are interested.


Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla
½ cup of sugar
1 large tart apple, peeled & thinly sliced
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 cup of raisins
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of salt
½ cup of melted butter
¼ cup of fat-free half and half
1 large egg

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400F degrees and line a Texas-size muffin pan with 6 muffin liners, set aside. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. In a 2-cup measuring cup whisk together the melted butter, half and half, vanilla and egg. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and combined until just moistened. Fold in the apples and then the raisins. Divide the batter among the liners and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.