Banana Muffins - my over-ripe banana go-to

I love bananas, but the minute they get too yellow with brown spots I am over them.  For some reason I used to think that banana bread or muffins or some other recipe to use up over-ripe bananas would just be too difficult.  A while ago I decided to stop being wasteful and give the baking ago - turns out, its pretty simple!

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I decided to go with the Joy of Cooking's "Easy Quick Banana Bread" recipe.  My copy of the Joy of Cooking is actually my mom's from the 70's that I "borrowed" for a pie crust recipe a few years back and kept because it is a great resource for newbie cooks like me.

The Ingredients

The Necessities...

• 1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1 to 2 eggs
• 1 to 1 1/4 cup banana pulp - about 3 bananas

Old School Joy of Cooking - thanks mom!

First I blended together the flour, baking powder and the salt and set aside. 

Dry Ingredients

Next I mixed the shortening, lemon rind and sugar together until it was creamy - this is where that electric hand mixer I registered for would come in handy!

First "wet" ingredients

After the shortening was nice and creamy, I added the eggs - only 1 because the consistency seemed good to me, and I thought one more would have made the batter too wet.

Pre-Banana

After I mashed the three bananas up in a bowl with a fork, I added it to the bowl as well and mixed it together.

Bananas added

Since I had some chocolate chips left over in the cupboard, I decided to mix those into the batter as well.  You could also add some dried fruit or nuts if you want a bit of a different texture.  The wet mix was then mixed with the dry.

Ready for the pan

I know that the recipe was for bread, but I think muffins are a much better size, and it's easy to freeze a bunch for later - for instances like when guests come over and I need something quickly, or I am just being lazy ("guests coming over" sounds better though!)  I added about a tablespoon of batter to each greased mini muffin slot. 

Ready for the oven

Once the muffin pan was all filled, I placed it in a 350 degree oven for about 28 minutes - probably could have used a little less, but I was winging it because the recipe was for the bread, which had a baking time of almost an hour.

Ready to be eaten!

These were definitely a tasty treat for a Sunday morning when we did not feel like going out but wanted a special treat.  There were also plenty left over to store in the freezer for safe keeping.  While I have not studied the difference between a bread and muffin recipe, this bread recipe worked very well in a muffin tin, and I cannot wait to dig the extras out of the freezer!

Any other suggestions for overripe bananas?