Talk about procrastination…it’s my forte for sure.  I did it all through HS (even wrote a paper about it), college and still do it.  What’s funny is, I’m a planner/organizer.  But I still want to wait until the last minute to finish something.  I made, photographed and ate these cupcakes awhile ago, but I’m just now getting around to posting them (deadline is tomorrow).  I’m not a very good writer and it’s not my favorite thing (don’t ask me why I have a blog!), so I think I always save this part for last. 

I actually made these for a blog event called Cupcake Hero.  Click here, here and here for more deets. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?  And the prizes are pretty cool too. 

This month’s ingredient is bananas.  I tried to get my creative juices flowing – which, let me tell you, is not an easy thing – and ended up basing my entry one of my favorite banana treats – banana pudding!  Layers of vanilla wafers, bananas, yummy pudding & whipped cream.  I started my cupcakes just like I start my pudding – I put a vanilla wafer in each cupcake liner and topped it with a banana slice.

I used a cupcake recipe from Cupcake Bakeshop and they turned out great. I cut the recipe in half and changed up the ingredients just a smidge. They were moist and deeee-licious…I know because I ate all the “middles”. Heehee.

While the cupcakes were cooling I made the instant vanilla pudding & whipped up some cream. Once the cupcakes were cool, I cut out the middles and piped in the vanilla pudding. I topped them with sweetened whipped cream and sprinkled on some vanilla wafer crumbs.

The verdict? Good, but not great. It was nothing like the banana pudding I make. It has sweetened condensed milk and incorporates the whipped cream into the pudding. Plus, the whipped cream on top of my cupcakes started to melt a little as I was taking pictures. My “studio” is in my sunroom…see where I’m going with this?

Banana Pudding Cupcakes
Yield: 1 dozen
Cupcake adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop
Printable Recipe

Cupcake:
12 vanilla wafers
1 banana – sliced into 12 rounds
1 ½ cups flour
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1-2 medium bananas
¼ cup sour cream + splash of milk
1 egg
3 ounces oil
½ teaspoon vanilla

Pudding:
Vanilla flavored instant pudding + milk – make as directed on the box

Whipped Cream:
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:
Handful of vanilla wafer crumbs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cupcake tin with paper liners. Place a vanilla wafer and slice of banana in each of the paper cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

With a blender or food processor, blend banana, sour cream & milk until smooth.

In another bowl, combine the banana mixture, eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla.

Fold dry mixture into the wet mixture.

Scoop the batter into cupcake liners.

Bake for 20-22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Prepare the pudding & whipped cream while waiting for the cupcakes to cool.

Whipped Cream:
Using a stand (with whisk attachment) or hand-held electric mixer, whisk the whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium-high speed until the whipped cream holds stiff peaks.

After the cupcakes have cooled, remove the center of the cupcakes (I used a decorating tip).

Put the prepared pudding in a pastry bag (you can use a tip or you can just cup the end off a disposable pastry bag) and pipe into the center of the cupcake.

Put the whipped cream in a pastry bag fitted with a tip of your choice and pipe onto the cupcakes.

Sprinkle topping onto whipped cream.

I’m a bit behind on my posts, I know. I mean, shoot, this particular post is about three weeks late. I made these for my son’s 3rd birthday party and they received rave reviews.

Last year he had banana cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese frosting (check out that pipe job! ha!)

This year he got these.  YUHHHHUMMMM!

he is soooo sweaty from running around and playing

I was so busy with making stuff for a baby shower, I didn’t really have time to test out a bunch of recipes.  I wanted something easy that I knew kids would like.  I mean, what child, young or old, doesn’t love Oreos?  Ok, most kids.  Anyway, I looked around for a recipe and found one at How to Eat a Cupcake.  The base is a box cake mix, which worked out just great for me.  I played around with the placement of the cookie, bottom, middle, top, but the bottom really did work out the best.  I ended up using my own whipped cream frosting instead of using the one on Cassie’s blog.  I wanted something that wasn’t too sweet since the cupcake itself was filled with Oreos and the sugar laden box mix.

pre-frost

I made 4 dozen cupcakes about a week ahead  and stuck them in the overflowing freezer until Sunday morning. I made the whipped cream frosting Saturday night and refrigerated it until I frosted the cupcakes Sunday morning.

Cookies & Cream Cupcakes
Yield: 4 dozen
Adapted from How to Eat a Cupcake
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
Approximately 48 Oreos (or similar cookie)
2 boxes (18.25 ounces) plain white cake mix
2 cups sour cream + 2 tablespoons of milk
1 cup oil
6 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 4 cupcake tins with paper liners; set aside.

Count out 24 Oreos and separate the top and bottom wafers. Make sure each has some of the icing on it. Place one wafer, icing side up, in the bottom of each paper liner. Set them aside.

Crush the remaining 24 Oreos – in a food processor or use a storage bag and whack it with a rolling pin. Chunky is fine.

Place the cake mix, sour cream, milk, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 1 1/2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed.

Measure out about 3 cups of the crushed Oreos and fold into the batter until well incorporated. Reserve any remaining cookies for frosting or other use.

Divide batter evenly among the cupcake tins.

Bake the cupcakes until they are a light golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 20-22 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes. Remove cupcakes from tin and place them on wire racks to finish cooling. Cool completely before frosting.

Cookies & Cream Whipped Frosting
Yield: enough for approximately 4 dozen cupcakes
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
Approximately 12 Oreos (or similar cookie)
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Finely crush the Oreos – in a food processor or use a storage bag and whack it with a rolling pin.

Using a stand (with whisk attachment) or hand-held electric mixer, whisk the whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium-high speed until the whipped cream holds stiff peaks. Gently fold in the crushed Oreos.

I also have these posts in the draft stage…I’m such a procrastinator!

And I’ve of course been at home with these two loves of my life. Going back to work in October’s gonna suck.

The baby shower was fun and of course there were lots of cute gifts. The mother and father-to-be are UT grads, so there were a few Longhorn gifts thrown in there. They’ll just put that longhorn on anything! She even received a stuffed football that unzips and out pops Bevo!

Everyone loved the cupcakes, cookies and petit fours. Hopefully I was able to put the bug in a couple of the ladies ears about calling me for any events they may have coming up. I’d love to be able to get my name out there.

I made the icing for the petit fours on Thursday night and covered them. I split the icing up into two batches and tinted one of them pink using a drop or two of red food coloring. I just used a small round cookie cutter to cut the rounds out of the sheet cake I made (in a 12×17 sheet pan using 1 1/2 portions of the Perfect Party Cake). Make sure the cake is cold and/or frozen.  It is much easier to cut out.  I told hubby, when we open our own bakery, these suckers aren’t gonna be cheap.  They are definitely time consuming. 

When I went to “decorate” them on Friday night, I tried out some polka dots, but I couldn’t quite get them right so I ended up doing some quick squigglies.  The baby room colors are pink and green, so the pink ones were squiggled with white or green frosting (from a can and tinted) and the white ones were squiggled with pink frosting. 

The cupcakes I made were topped with a strawberry cream cheese frosting.  I made the frosting on Friday night and topped them Saturday morning before the shower.  I found the Sprinkles’ frosting recipe on Martha Stewart and just doubled that (I should have just made about 1 1/2, because I still have alot left over), but replaced cream cheese for half of the butter.  It was so yummy.  I probably could have just taken a spoon to it, but I refrained.    I didn’t read carefully and ended up putting the strawberry puree in before the confectioners’s sugar.  Oops.  The consistency wasn’t quite right, but in the end it turned out fine because it covered the cupcakes really well.  It just wasn’t pipe-able. 

Petit Fours Icing
Yield: Approximately 3-4 dozen
Source: I can’t remember where this one came from
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
9 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar (about 2 pounds)
½ cup water
½ cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon lemon extract
1-2 drops red food coloring

Combine ingredients in top of double boiler and heat over boiling water just to lukewarm. (do not overheat icing or it will become dull.) Remove from heat, leaving icing over hot water to keep it thin. If desired, tint parts of icing delicate pastel colors with food color. If necessary, add hot water, just a few drops at a time, until of spreading consistency.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting
Yield: Approximately 4-5 dozen cupcakes
Adapted from Sprinkles’ Strawberry Frosting
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
¾ – 1 cup whole frozen strawberries, thawed
½ pound unsalted butter, firm and slightly cold
½ pound cream cheese
Pinch of coarse salt
7-8 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Place strawberries in the bowl of a small food processor; process until pureed.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter, cream cheese and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add confectioners’ sugar; beat until well combined. Add vanilla and 6 tablespoons strawberry puree (save any remaining strawberry puree for another use); mix until just blended.

He (and America’s Test Kitchen) may think they’re perfect, but I’m not sure I’d go quite that far.  They are definitely closer to what I’ve been looking for in MY perfect chocolate chip cookie: they’re larger than an average cookie, they aren’t thin and flat, they are chewy with a slight crispness and have a nice buttery flavor.  I think next time I’d add just a little bit more chocolate.  But that’s just me. 

I ran into a little bit of a problem as I was browning the butter.  I guess the center of my pan got hotter than the rest, so I started getting these brown bits of butter.  Mind you, I’ve never browned butter, so I’m not sure if I was doing it right or not.  Does the butter start turning brown bit by bit?  Or does all of the butter turn brown at the same time? Was I supposed to be swirling the pan the entire time (I guess the recipe does say “constantly”)? Should I have left it alone?  Did my butter even get brown enough? Regardless of whether I not the butter was browned properly, the cookies came out just fine. 

Another method used in these cookies is the whisking of the “wet” ingredients and letting them sit for 3 minutes, then whisking again, and repeating two more times.  He doesn’t explain what this process does, just that you want the mixture to be “thick, smooth, and shiny” at the end of the process.  Anyone have any ideas on this?  I’m just curious. 

Almost Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: 16 cookies
Adapted from Christopher Kimball Blog
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 ¾ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup bittersweet chocolate chips, chopped

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 375F. Line two large (18- by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

Heat 10 tablespoons of the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat until melted, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove skillet from heat and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. Stir remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted.

Add the granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, and vanilla to the bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, and then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips, giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.

Divide dough into 16 portions, each about 3 tablespoons (or use a #24 cookie scoop). Arrange 8 balls, two inches apart on prepared baking sheets. (Smaller baking sheets can be used, but will require 3 batches.)

Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking. Transfer the baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving.

*Note from the blog: Avoid using a nonstick skillet to brown the butter; the dark color of the nonstick coating makes it difficult to gauge when the butter is browned. Use fresh, moist brown sugar instead of hardened brown sugar, which will make the cookies dry. This recipe works with light brown sugar, but the cookies will be less full-flavored (I used light brown sugar and it was just fine).

I’m co-hosting the shower that’s happening on Saturday (22nd) and will be making all the sweet goodies. 36 invites were sent out! I don’t think I’ve made this many sweets by myself at one time. It may not seem like alot, but have you seen my kitchen? Not alot of room to move. Plus, did I tell you?  I have a 3 year old and a 3 month old?  I definitely had to do a little planning to make sure I could get it all done.

So, the plan for the shower is 3 dozen strawberry cupcakes with strawberry cream cheese frosting, 3 dozen mini petit fours and 3 dozen sparkly pink sugar cookies. I made the sheet cake for the petit fours using  1 ½ portions of the Perfect Party Cake recipe.  This is currently in the freezer waiting to be cut into rounds and covered with a pourable fondant, then decorated with pink dots.  I made the pink lady cupcakes this weekend and they are also in the freezer, waiting to be topped with strawberry cream cheese frosting.  I’m going to make the sugar cookie dough this week, bake them off, then freeze them until Saturday. 

You don’t want to see what my freezer looks like.  I open that door, very carefully these days.  Luckily, I’m using the extra refrigerator in our garage.  Otherwise, I’m not sure where I would have put them.

The moisture from the cupcakes always seems to seep through the liners and makes them somewhat indistinguishable after they come out of the oven, so I baked my cupcakes with plain white liners. When they’re ready to go, I”ll put them in these cute cupcake liners:

and the petit fours will go in these cute cups:

I really wanted these:

and these:

but couldn’t find them around here and didn’t want to have to order them online. Oh well.

Luckily the mother-to-be knows I’m not an artist, so no baby booties, or cute little fondant figures or any of that stuff is required. Plus, she’s not very picky either. I did want to make sure there was something I knew she enjoyed, which is how we ended up with the strawberry cupcakes. I scoured my cookbooks and the Net to see if I could find a good recipe. I came across Smitten Kitchen’s Pink Lady Cake post, read it and some of the comments, then decided this was the one.

The method was a bit different than what I’m used to, so I adjusted it to the way I am used to. The cupcakes still turned out nice and fluffy and moist. And the awesome thing about it all? This recipe made exactly 36 cupcakes! Woohoo! Ok, 35, but that’s because I had to taste one of them. I couldn’t just send these along without making sure they were fabulous, right? Oh, and listen to Deb when she tells you NOT TO TASTE THE BATTER! I probably could have made 37 cupcakes had it not been for the batter that somehow mysteriously ended up on my fingers that just had to be licked off!

I also took her suggestion and added just a couple of drops of food coloring to give them a nice bright pink color. I’m was trying to stick to a theme you know: pink, girly and cute!

Pink Lady Cupcakes
Yield: 36
Source: Sky High, as seen on Smitten Kitchen
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
4 ½ cups cake flour
5 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
8 egg whites
2/3 cup milk
1 to 2 drops red food coloring
¾ pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups sugar
1 ½ cups pureed frozen strawberries (you could substitute fresh)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray or line 3 cupcake tins; set aside.

In a large bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl whisk the egg whites, milk and food coloring; set aside.

Put the butter and sugar in a large mixer bowl and beat until fluffy. Add the strawberry puree until incorporated – it will look a little curdled.

Add about one-third of the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Add ½ of the egg mixture and beat until incorporated. Add half of the remaining flour mixture, then ½ of the egg mixture, then the rest of the flour mixture. Make sure to incorporate the ingredients between each mixture and scrape the sides and bottom of your bowl. Pour the batter into the cupcake tins.

Bake the cupcakes for 20-23 minutes or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool in the tins for 10 to 15 minutes. Finish cooling on wire racks. Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

In addition to the shower this weekend, my son’s birthday party is on Sunday (23rd)! Yes, I know, it’s late.  My mother says in Korea you can have the party early, but not late, so I’m apparently breaking some sort of rule.  Oops.

I will be posting those cupcakes (cookies & cream) later…much later…cuz I made 2 dozen yesterday and they are sitting in the freezer…and no photos were taken. Besides, I need to make about 2 dozen more. The parents will want some too, right?

I just used some frozen cookie dough from this batch of chocolate chip cookies and put them in a small pyrex dish; baked it for 20-25 minutes and voila: Mini Cookie Cake.

I buy cookbooks based on reviews as well as the pictures.  I like to see the finished product.  That’s probably the reason why most of my photos show the end result and not how I got there.   What irks me is when you see the picture, you follow recipe and what you end up with looks nothing like what’s in the cookbook.  This happened with the chocolate chip cookies I made following the Baked recipe and now, with the recipe I followed in the Baking cookbook (minus the nuts).  The cookies in the photo weren’t thick, but they weren’t flat either.  And I knew they were going to have a softer texture rather than chewy (the amount of white sugar was higher than brown sugar), which was fine. I’m looking for a cookie I can call my favorite, so I’m trying lots of different recipes. 

I should have just passed on by as soon as I saw these words: “They are Toll House cookies’ kin, but I think my nips, tucks, tweaks and variations on the classic recipe make them their own kind of wonderful.” I am not a fan of the Toll House cookie. They just don’t get my vote for favorite. 

scanned from Baking, From My Home to Yours

My cookies looked nothing like the ones in the book. They were flat and thin.  I even let a batch chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes and those still didn’t look anything like hers.  I was so dissapointed.  Ugh.  The flavor was ok.  More buttery than chocolatey, but I didn’t put in my usual 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of instant coffee granules.  That always seems to add more flavor to my cookies. I also took half the chocolate chips and chopped them up a bit.  1) Because I like to integrate the chocolate into the dough, rather than just putting the chips in there and 2) because I used Ghiradelli Bittersweet Chocolate Chips and those are larger than the normal size chocolate chips.  I love biting into the part of the cookie where those chips are because I get this wonderful burst of bittersweet chocolate and it tastes sooo good. 

My in-laws were dropping MC off at the house around the time I baked these, so they left here with a dozen.    They don’t care what kind of chocolate chip cookie it is.  They’ll eat it.

I usually make half batches when I try out new recipes, but for some reason I made the entire recipe.  I ended up baking two dozen and froze the rest of the dough.  We’ll see if those turn out any better.

Dorie’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: Approximately 3 ½ dozen
Adapted from Baking, From My Home to Yours
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ pound butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet(s) with parchment paper.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda.

Beat the butter on medium speed for about 1 minute, until smooth. Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes or so, until well blended. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each egg. Reduce speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 3 portions, mixing only until each addition is incorporated. Add the chocolate chips and mix by hand with a rubber spatula.

Using a small cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto the baking sheet and lay them about 2 inches apart from each other.

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are brown at the edges and golden in the center. Allow the cookies to rest for 1 minute, and then carefully transfer them to rack to cool.

Notes:
The dough can be covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen. You can freeze individual balls of dough on a lined baking sheet and then bag them when they’re solid. There is no need to defrost the dough before baking. Just add another minute or two to the baking time.

I have no idea why my child is looking at me like that.

The husband’s job brought him back this way for a week, so we were able to plan a play date for MC and a get together with some other friends. Martha didn’t have access to everyone’s numbers or a computer during the day, so I more than happily put a plan in motion. We were going to meet up at an awesome BBQ place that was loud and big. We wouldn’t have to worry about the kiddos being rambunctious and we’d have space for the 10 adults. Well, one of the couples backed out because they’d overspent that weekend and really didn’t have the money to go out. Ok, that’s fine, I totally get it. I’m not working right now and I totally feel the pinch. I feel bad when I spend money on myself knowing I’m not bringing any in right now. Luckily, one of the couples offered up their house. Great, problem solved. We were all going to bring something and have a potluck.

*Sigh* Well, the same couple that backed out of the restaurant meet up, backed out of the potluck. Then, another couple “suddenly” remembered that her grandmother’s 85th birthday was that night and they were going to be late to the party, but didn’t want to leave us high & dry on food. I mean, come on people. And the worst part about all this? No one told ME until the last minute. They all somehow communicated amongst themselves and didn’t let the person who was in contact with the visitor KNOW ANYTHING.

I’m so glad Martha and her family were flexible and weren’t leaving town until later in the week. We rescheduled for the next night, but were still down a family (same ones that couldn’t come the night before, because they already had plans). Oh well, their loss.

We wanted to do something simple, quick & easy because there was going to be 9 adults and 3 kiddos. One of the dads is a rep for Sysco and he wanted to try out their mini burgers, so that turned out to be the main course. I’m not one to eat packaged burgers, but I wasn’t going to turn them down either.  Also on the menu were tater tots, macaroni salad and baked beans. Nothing too fancy.  What did we take? Well duh! I brought dessert. 

I’d made Barefoot Contessa’s Outrageous Brownies before and just love the deep richness of these brownies. They have very little flour, so they are definitely on the fudgy side. And the coffee in them just intensifies the chocolate flavor. I threw in some white chocolate chips this time, to add a different dimension to these brownies. In my opinion these are best served chilled or frozen. If I’m going to eat warm brownies a la mode, I prefer them to be on the cakier side. Of course that doesn’t mean I didn’t eat these cubed up on top of some vanilla bean ice cream.

Outrageous White Chocolate Chip Brownies
Yield: 2 dozen
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
½ pound butter
½ pound semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons flour, divided
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray and line a 13×9 sheet pan with parchment paper – this helps to lift the brownies out of the pan after they’ve cooled.

Melt together the butter, chocolate chips, and unsweetened chocolate on top of a double boiler – put a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water – don’t let the bowl touch the water. Cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, stir together the eggs, instant coffee, vanilla and sugar. Stir into the warm chocolate mixture and cool to room temperature.

Stir together ¼ cup flour, baking powder and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the white chocolate chips with 2 tablespoons of flour to coat. Then add to the chocolate batter. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tester just comes out clean. Do not over-bake. Cool thoroughly, refrigerate well and cut into squares.

Oh, I took these along as well.

My first attempt at pickling.  They were definitely yummy.  I may have caught the pickling bug.  I want to try some cucumbers & onions next.

About a month ago I had some bananas that were riiiiipe. They were so ripe I was afraid they were attracting things my kitchen didn’t need attracting. So I mashed them up, stuck them in a freezer bag, labeled them and froze them. Then, another round came along. This time, I mashed those up, combined them with the thawed ones and made some Banana-Coffee Chocolate Chip Muffins.

I was originally going to make some boring old banana bread, but then I ran across these bad boys as I was looking through my cookbooks again. I’m so glad I made them. They were definitely a nice change from the norm and hubby commented on how they almost tasted like chocolate chip cookies, but in muffin form. That means “mmmm, yummy!” I know this because he ate two of the night I made them, two of them for breakfast the next morning and another two for breakfast again.

The original recipe is actually Banana Espresso, but since I don’t keep instant espresso powder on hand – I use instant coffee granules – I wasn’t going to go out and buy them specifically for these muffins. I just subbed in my usual and it worked out great. I also used mini chocolate chips, because I like how they get distributed more throughout the muffin than regular sized chips.

If you have some bananas that you’re on the verge of saying goodbye to, don’t. Make these instead!

Banana-Coffee Chocolate Chip Muffins
Yield: 1 dozen regular size muffins & 6 mini-muffins
Adapted from Baked, New Frontiers in Baking
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4 medium bananas)
½ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup butter, melted
¼ cup milk
1 egg
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray or line a regular size muffin pan. (Plus 6 cups from mini tin).

In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk and egg.

In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, instant coffee granules, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Fill each cup about ¾ full. Bake in the center of the oven fro 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool on rack for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.

Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.