Banana-Coco-Nut Muffins

I'm probably a weirdo, because I like to eat my bananas when they're still halfway green. After they start to get brown specks, I'm not interested in eating them anymore. So what do I do when I have a bunch of very ripe bananas? I make banana bread, of course!





I used Martha's banana bread recipe, but I decided to turn the bread into muffins, because I thought they'd be easier to grab for quick breakfasts and snacks during the week.

I also decided to rename this recipe and call it Banana-Coco-Nut Muffins, because I added coconut, pecans, and chocolate chips to the muffins. (Coconut is part of Martha's original recipe; she also suggests using pecans or walnuts. The chocolate chips were my own addition, because I love the combination of chocolate and banana.)

If you're playing along at home, here's a recipe for banana bread from Martha's web site. There are some differences in the ingredients between this recipe and the one in her book (sour cream vs. buttermilk; butter vs. vegetable oil), but there are many different variations of banana bread, and I think it's hard to mess it up.


I also mixed the ingredients in a different way than what Martha suggested. In the past, when I've made muffins, I always mixed the dry and wet ingredients separately, and then I added them together at the end, being careful not to over mix. I decided to stick with this tried-and-true formula.


First I mixed together the dry ingredients.

Then I thoroughly mashed four ripe bananas in a bowl (this is more than what the recipe called for, but I wanted extra banana flavor).

I also toasted my pecans before chopping them, so they would get extra nutty flavor.

I added my mashed bananas to the rest of my liquid ingredients. Then I poured the entire liquid mixture into my bowl of dry ingredients, and then added the chopped pecans. I carefully mixed everything together until the flour was incorporated into the batter, but I was careful not to over mix. I made the first half-batch of the muffins without chocolate, and then I added 1/2 cup chocolate chips to the second part of the batch.

I poured the batter into my muffin tin, filling them almost to the top (but not all the way).

After 20 minutes in the oven, they were perfectly baked.

These muffins made a perfect breakfast, and I'm looking forward to eating them throughout the week. I think they'd be especially good with some Nutella.