Banana Muffins, Revisited

Soooo... we've already established that I can't leave well enough alone when it comes to following an actual recipe, thus my decades long aversion to baking. That being said, I employed some of the same tweaks I've used in the previously posted banana bread recipe, and applied them to the vegan version of the recipe from my co-worker's borrowed cookbook. Again, I'm mighty impressed with the results!

(Vegan) Banana Chocolate-Peanut Butter Muffins

original recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets 

by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Ingredients:
2 cups AP flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbs. previously brewed coffee
2 Tbs. water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup non-dairy chocolate chips
1/4 cup nuts, finely chopped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium-size bowl, whisk (or sift) the dry ingredients together.

In a larger bowl, mash the bananas and peanut butter together before stirring in the sugar, oil, coffee, water, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring until just combined. Spoon the batter into a lined muffin tin then sprinkle with the chocolate chips and nuts. This amount of batter will make 12 giant muffins if cups are filled all the way, or 18 regular size muffins if filled 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 22-28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out mostly clean. Cool the muffins in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

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Addendum: I resisted the urge to eat one of these muffins last night, instead, wanting to wait and have one for breakfast this morning. I mean, it IS a banana muffin which is totally a breakfast food, regardless of the fact that it has chocolate and peanut butter in it.

This muffin differs quite a bit from the other recipe I've been using in that it has a much lighter, more tender texture. If I hadn't made them myself, I'd swear that they were made with cake flour because my first bite was incredibly soft and practically melted in my mouth. Not that I don't still like the original banana bread/muffin recipe, but it's much more dense and, I don't know, chewy(?) but in a good way. On the other hand, these vegan muffins were sooooo light that the chunks of mashed banana were still discernible, rather than just a flavoring. I think adding the chocolate chips and/or nuts directly into the batter would take away from the incredible texture of these muffins, so I'll stick with the sprinkle on top... 'cause you know for damn sure I'll be making these again!

Yummmm....