Banana Muffins

I'm not going to lie - at this point, I have made banana bread a few too many times on this blog. I just can't stop! It's so perfect when you have a whole bunch of bananas that are getting over-ripe since someone decided that this week he doesn't like bananas. I have used the same basic recipe every time, just switching it up with what I add in. So far, I have yet to find a combination that doesn't work.

This time I used all butter, and a half a cup of granulated sugar with half a cup of brown sugar (as that is what I had in the house). I didn't do any other changes when mixing it up.

Once the basic recipe was ready, it was time to get creative. I originally wanted to make two little loafs - one to eat here and one to take to Y's parents' house, but I didn't have any more of the mini loaf pans. Instead I made muffins. The only muffin liners I had, however, were really big - like Costco sized. I wasn't sure how many muffins it would make, but I did still want two different flavors.

After dividing the batter in half, I decided that one would have chocolate chips in it. I emptied out the last of the chocolate chip bag and this was all that was left. Uhhhh, lame. I scrambled around the kitchen, but couldn't find any other chocolate to put in aside from M&Ms. M&Ms and banana bread sounded weird to me for some reason. Then I remembered that I had some Mexican hot chocolate tablets in the cupboard. I had never baked with Abuelita before, but I figured it would be okay.

I chopped up half of a tablet and threw it in.

The other half of the batter got broken up pecans and dried cranberries.

Once they were all mixed up, I put them into the muffin liners. I only got three muffins for each batter. A tad bit disappointing, if I do say so myself. I'm not sure why, but it seems I forgot to take photos of the finished product. You'll just have to believe me - they looked beautiful and holy moly were they delicious. The Abuelita and chocolate chip one was surprisingly good. It had a slight cinnamon taste to it and a few grains of crunchy sugar here and there, which totally reminded me of being little and sneaking a little piece while my mom made our hot chocolate.Yum!! These breads further my theory that it is impossible to make a bad banana bread using this recipe as the base. Try it!!