Does using whole wheat flour in a recipe that also calls for butter and chocolate make it healthy? Let’s go with….yes! I had overripe bananas sitting on my counter that I didn’t want to let go to waste and a bar of semi-sweet chocolate that…..well, I just wanted to eat it. No justification needed. So I did what one does when faced with overripe bananas and I made banana bread. Or muffins in this case because they’re cute and hello built-in portion control!
Other than pancakes, I don’t do much baking or cooking with whole wheat flour so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I developed this recipe, but I was pleasantly surprised when I bit into my first muffin still warm out of the oven. It was moist and tender and loaded with banana-chocolate-cinnamony goodness. In fact, they were so good I ate three of them. Not all at once of course because that would be bad. Instead I ate them nibble by nibble each time I walked through the kitchen that afternoon. So much for portion control! I am a firm believer that calories don’t count when food is eaten in small increments while standing. 🙂
- ½ cup room temperature butter
- ½ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3-4 very ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Using a hand mixer, mix together butter and sugar in a large bowl until smooth.
- Add vanilla, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and bananas, mixing until thoroughly combined.
- Beat in the honey and the eggs.
- Add the flour and chocolate, stirring until smooth.
- Spoon the batter into greased or paper-lined muffin pan, filling each cup ⅔ full.
- Bake 15 minutes. Check to see if a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. If the toothpick comes out wet, allow muffins to bake an additional 5 minutes before testing again.
ADDITIONS: Add chopped walnuts to the batter, sprinkle the tops of warm muffins with cinnamon sugar
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