Banana-Peanut Butter Chip Muffins

On Tuesday night, I realized that I had two bananas that had gone way overripe in the fruit basket.  I thought that this was the perfect excuse to make some banana muffins the next day and I did a quick search on Epicurious for an easy recipe.  I was torn between a recipe for banana coconut muffins or banana-chocolate chip muffins but I finally decided on the banana-chocolate chip muffins.  Since I had some leftover peanut butter chips in my pantry, I decided to substitute the chocolate chips for peanut butter chips and the end result was awesome!

Banana-Peanut Butter Chip Muffins

(adapted from Epicurious' Banana-Chocolate Chip Muffins)

First I gathered my ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large bananas)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup peanut butter chips

I then preheated the oven to 350 degrees and lined a twelve-cup muffin tray with paper liners.

In a large bowl, I mixed together the dry ingredients - flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

I then melted a stick of unsalted butter in the microwave while I mashed the ripe bananas in a medium-sized bowl.  You can usually just use a fork to mash the bananas but I like to use my potato masher for fun.

I then added the egg, melted butter (which I cooled slightly to room temperature) and buttermilk in the medium bowl with the mashed banana.

I stirred in the wet ingredients into the large bowl with the dry ingredients.  I also stirred in a very generous 3/4 cup of peanut butter chips into the batter.  My batter seemed a little dense so I added a splash more of buttermilk to the batter and gave it all a stir.

I then poured the batter into the muffin pan.  There was enough batter for twelve large muffins or probably eighteen medium-sized muffins.  I decided to go big and divided the batter amongst the twelve cups.

I baked the muffins in the oven for twenty-five minutes until the tops were golden.  I toothpick-tested the muffins and when they were done, I allowed the muffins to cool in the pan for about twenty minutes.  The cooling time was kind of arbitrary as it was the time needed for me to complete a few other items on my to-do list before I remembered to remove the muffins from the pan.

These muffins were seriously awesome.  They were light and fluffy and had a great banana and peanut butter flavor.  I almost wanted to smear some jam on them to create a perfect peanut butter, banana, and jam bite! 

Per usual, I gave some to a co-worker and sent a lot of them in with Bret for his co-worker.  But since there were only twelve of them, I definitely saved a few for us to have for breakfast!

I don't normally eat baked goods for breakfast but tell me, what is your favorite breakfast pastry?