Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins

These muffins, from the "Baked: New Frontiers in Baking" book are a great example of a minimal effort, maximum reward recipe.  You can throw them together in 20 minutes and they take another 20 minutes or so to bake, and yet they are definitely something a little special.  What clearly makes them unique and more sophisticated than the average muffin is the addition of the instant espresso powder.  Pairing chocolate with coffee is obvious, but coffee and banana made me question this recipe briefly - but the coffee adds a nice depth to muffin, making it not too sweet.  This recipe is from the original Baked book from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, owner of the Brooklyn bakery of the same name.  When it came out a few years ago it seemed like the perfect Brooklyn hipster cookbook - baked goods styled with little plastic dears and such.   It is the real deal though, the recipes are both recipes you really want to make and recipes that work really well.  The most famous recipe from the book is the "baked brownie", which I have made many times and it is my go to brownie recipe.  The brownies turn out glossy, rich, with the right balance between fudge-like consistency and depth of chocolate flavor.  There are other gems in here that you should give a try in addition to these amazing, easy muffins (maple walnut scones, chocolate pie, brewers blondies, classic sugar coookies) and many more I want to make (green tea cupcakes, malted milk cake, sweet and salty cake, icebox towers., pumpkin whoopie pies..)

As it so happens, this banana muffin recipe is perfect for two books I have recently read: Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly Whittemore and We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler.  I really loved both books, and they are both quite different - but one featured a scene with muffins, and to the other bananas are quite important.  Bitterwseet is about Mabel a freshman in college (and kind of an outcast) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with the beautiful, most popular, and rich girl in her class - Generva Winslow.  This friendship buys her a summer at the beautiful compound of the Winslow family by a gorgeous lake.  The compound (or I should call it a "camp") is not luxurious but nevertheless screams money and privileged - owned for generations, sprawling, charming, with a dining hall and old Russian cook, a mass of towheaded kids running around and the perfect patriarch.  Mabel loves it immediately  - it represents everything she isn't and doesn't have. She makes herself at home but notices something is a little off pretty quickly.   The book is filled with mystery, secrets, romance, friendship and some pretty dark stuff.  It is fun page turner I highly recommend.  Oh, and where do the muffins come in?  Mabel brings some homemade corn muffins to a Winslow grand party and the scrappy muffins really make her seem out of place at the fancy, catered perfect Winslow party. 

Now, the bananas come into play with We are All Completely Beside Ourselves.  Now this book has a secret that is revealed about a quarter way into the book.  It was a secret that really surprised me and made the first quarter of the book a slightly confusing experience and then boom when it was revealed it was a revelation that really made me fall in love with the book.  So I will not reveal the little secret here, though many of you may be able to figure it out (advise, don't read the book jacket before hand if you can help it).  The book is generally about an unconventional family and the challenges of family, sisterhood and growing up.  It is a really interesting and fun book - I highly recommend.

Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins, from the Baked Cookbook (Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito
(printable recipes)

Ingredients
1 and 1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4 medium bananas)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
2. Spray a 12 cup nonstick muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray (or line with paper muffin liners).
3. In a medium bowl, stir together the bananas, sugars, butter, milk and egg.
4. In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, instant espresso powder, baking soda and salt.  
5. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir until just combined.  
6. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Fill each cup about three quarters full.  Bake in the center of the oven for 20 - 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Move the muffin pan to a cooking rack and let cook for 15 minutes.  After 15 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.