Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

There always seem to be overripe bananas in our house, and I usually make my Mom's delicious banana bread.  But with my plethora of new cookbooks I wanted to try something a little different today, so I went for Clinton Street Baking Co.'s Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins.  The recipe is a nice size, it says it makes 10 muffins but it made 12 for me, so I didn't need to worry about mucking up the ingredients (which I often do) when halving recipes.

The best part?  The streusel, or crumb topping.  I seriously heart streusel.  When my Mom used to bake cakes with it I would sneak into the kitchen to pick bits off, leaving the cake behind.  The muffin itself is nice and moist, with great banana flavour.  And the chocolate chips aren't half bad either, just remember to use a good quality chocolate.  Guittard is my favourite.  I was a little dubious about the large pieces of banana, but they seems to melt into the batter and all was well. 

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
Adapted from Clinton Street Baking Co.

Ingredients

½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
½ cup sour cream
¾ cup semisweet chocolate chunks (52%-62% cacao; chips can be substituted)
2 perfectly ripe to overripe medium-size bananas, cut into 1-inch chunks
10 tablespoons Crumb Mix (see below)

Crumb Mix
Makes 1½ cups, enough for 2-3 batches of muffins
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ stick of unsalted butter, cubed

Mix the dry ingredients with the butter until the mixture is pea size. Keep the crumb mix in a cool place until you're ready to use it.  The mix can be stored in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease muffin tins or use paper muffin cups.

In an electric mixer on medium-high speed, with the paddle attachment cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla.  Sift the remaining dry ingredients together into a bowl.

Add the egg to the butter mixture and blend until combined.  Add ¼ cup of the sour cream to the butter mixture, then half of the ingredients, mixing and repeating with the remaining sour cream and then the remaining dry ingredients until the batter is combined. Be sure to end with the dry ingredients.

Fold in the chocolate chips and bananas until evenly mixed.  Spoon the batter into muffin tins, leaving room on the top for the Crumb Mix.  Spinkle one tablespoon of crumb topping on each muffin.  Bake for 25 to 33 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Cool for at least 10 minutes for best release of muffins from their tins (if not using paper liners).

Linked to: sweets for Saturday #1