Need a dessert quickly and some overripe bananas are resting on your counter in a coincidence? Then these banana muffins with chocolate chips are a perfect choice! Start your oven, mix the ingredients, and fragrant muffins will be ready to serve in less than an hour.
Easy to make muffins
Like most muffins, these are super easy to make. You don’t need any special equipment: two bowls, a whisk, and a spoon will do the job for you.
Use very well-ripe bananas
Use only bananas that are very well ripe or even overripe. If you see black dots and blackening areas on banana peels, that’s a good sign. If your bananas are not ripe enough, they will be difficult to mash, will lack the sweetness and you’ll feel less banana taste in your muffins.
A few magic ingredients for banana muffins
I’ve tested this recipe dozen times till I got the result that’s fluffy, moist, and full of taste. So here are a few ingredients, that made these muffins taste so good.
Sour cream + baking soda
These two rarely go separately. While sour cream also adds moistness, the main purpose of it is to react with baking soda. As a result, muffins rise in the oven and the texture gets super light and fluffy. But wait, why do we add both baking soda and baking powder? Both of them help muffins to rise, but baking powder alone leaves the texture too dense. If you skipped baking powder, you’d get as tasty and fluffy muffins, they would simply rise less. But if you’d skip baking soda, they would rise less and also be denser. So use both for the best result.
Dark muscovado sugar
Dark brown sugar adds a bit of caramel taste that goes so well with bananas. It also creates a lovely color. If you don’t have dark brown sugar, you can change it to light brown or use only white sugar. The result will be different, but it will still be nice.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon also goes well with bananas and has its part in creating a lovely color and a fuller taste.
Feel free to improvise with a recipe
If you are looking for a less sweet snack, use only light brown sugar. Also, you can totally skip chocolate chips and add more nuts. Or double the amount of chocolate chips if you prefer. Improvise with no worries: these muffins are quite a forgiving bake.
Banana Muffins with Chocolate Chips and Sour Cream
Super easy to make, moist, delicious, and full of taste. These banana muffins are an excellent snack or a light dessert to accompany your morning coffee.
- Prep Time15 min
- Bake / Cook Time25 min
- Total Time40 min
- Yield12 muffins
Ingredients
- 250 g / 8,8 oz bananas (peeled) (2 large or 3 small)
- 70 g / 2,5 oz white granulated sugar
- 30 g / 1 oz dark muscovado sugar
- 80 g / 2,8 oz sour cream
- 60 g / 2,1 oz unsalted butter (melted)
- 2 medium eggs (50-60 g / 1,7-2,1 oz without shells)
- 200 g / 7 oz wheat flour (all-purpose or plain)
- 60 g / 2,1 oz semisweet chocolate chips (~50% cocoa solids) + some extra for the tops
- 60 g / 2,1 oz walnuts
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F (without a fan).
Combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Mix everything well and set aside.
Roughly chop walnuts with a knife. Set aside.
Mash bananas with a fork.
In a separate bowl, combine mashed bananas, white, and muscovado sugar. Whisk everything well till there are no dark brown sugar lumps left. If there are still some stubborn hard lumps, crush them with a spoon or simply remove them.
Add sour cream, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla extract. Whisk everything till well combined.
Sift the flour previously mixed with other dry ingredients into the bowl with wet ingredients.
Add chocolate chips, and chopped walnuts and mix everything with a spoon or a silicone spatula just until combined.
Spoon the batter to 12 standard-sized muffin liners (bottom diameter ~5 cm / 2 inch). Fill them fully. Decorate the tops with a few extra chocolate chips.
Bake for 20-25 mins till the tops get slightly golden.
After taking the muffins out of the oven, leave them in the pan for a few minutes. Then take them out and transfer to a rack to cool completely.
notes
- If you don’t have chocolate chips, you can use chocolate roughly chopped with a knife.
- If sour cream is not available in your region, change to the same amount of unsweetened natural or greek yogurt.
- If you choose to bake bigger or smaller muffins, adjust the baking time accordingly.
