Apparently I’ve looped back to the banana bread phase of COVID, but I feel like it’s kind of worth it. After all, how wrong can you go with fresh baking? This recipe was actually recommended to me last spring, but I never got around to trying it until now.

Recipe by Deb at Smitten Kitchen

I love chocolate, and yet to my eternal surprise, I actually think that I might have liked these muffins better without the cocoa because I didn’t get any of the banana taste that I was hoping for. I also felt like my rendition of this recipe ended up a bit dry, which may have been my own fault since I did tweak the recipe and there may not have been enough banana-to-dry-ingredient ratio.

The original recipe is for a loaf, so I did a quick Google search to see how it could be adjusted for muffin tins. It turns out most muffins typically bake at a slightly higher temperature and for a shorter time than most loaves. I based my adjusted time on the smell of the muffins, and that seemed to work okay.

I think if I were to make this recipe again, I would take out the cocoa and add some chopped walnuts too. Chopped nuts always add such a perfect texture to baking! At what point does something cease to be a modification and start becoming an entirely new recipe altogether? I’ve always wondered where that line was, especially in terms of ‘originality’ and ‘creativity’.

Do you have any go-to baking recipes or techniques? If so, I’d love to hear it!

Until next time, happy crafting!