Banana & Green Tea Milk Chocolate Chunk Muffins

By foodiva

Ingredients

• 210 g (1 1/2 cups) white all purpose flour
• 190 g (1 1/4 cups) white whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or kosher salt)
• 115 g (1/2 cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter
• 170 g (3/4 cup) dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 medium ripe bananas
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk (well shaken)
• 1 teaspoon matcha tea powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 115 g (4 oz or 3/4 cup) chopped milk chocolate
• 55 g (1/4 cup) turbinado sugar, sometimes called Sugar in the Raw (optional)

Details

Servings 12
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 20mins
Adapted from eatthelove.com

Preparation

Step 1

Banana, green tea, chocolate combined together for a breakfast of champions.

I used to be a chocolate snob, saying that I only love dark chocolate…the darker the better. After all, I’m not a child anymore, stuffing my face with the sweet creamy Hershey’s or Nestle’s milk chocolate bars that I got at Halloween, which always gave me shivers of pleasure (though maybe that was just the sugar coursing through my veins, making me hyper). As I got older, I “outgrew” milk chocolate and I found myself reaching for rich, barely sweet, deep dark chocolate with hints of tobacco and dark berries over the sweet milk chocolate that childhood Irvin used to crave. Of course, there was a tipping point where I realized that super dark doesn’t necessarily mean tastier to me. Eventually I realized anything over 80% cacao was usually too chalky for me and I preferred the 55-65% range, which I affectionately called “my sweet spot” of dark chocolate percentages. However, lately I’ve come to appreciate quality milk chocolate for what it is, especially as small, well-crafted chocolatiers have taken on the challenge of creating superior milk chocolate. Good milk chocolate makes me nostalgic for my younger self, without resorting to eating the waxy sugary chocolate from the grocery stores.

AJ is a fan of the muffin and coffee breakfast. He has often told me that he would prefer I make more muffins and less cookies, cakes and brownies, as somehow it seems totally socially acceptable to eat a muffin in the morning, but not a slice of cake, cookies or brownie (silly society). In turn, I have been making a number or muffins lately, all of which are occupying room in my freezer next to the chicken and turkey stock I have in there, as we can’t really eat a batch of muffins in a day or two. These include the

Of course, while developing the banana peanut butter oat recipe, I ended up buying extra ingredients (like bananas) to make sure that I had enough, in case something went awry in the development process. Thankfully I didn’t have to do too many rounds with that particular recipe, which meant I had extra bananas lying around getting more and more speckled and brown. So in the end, I took a look at my pantry, realized I hadn’t played with my canister of matcha green powder in awhile and I had some milk chocolate bars floating in the back that the excellent

190 g (1 1/4 cups) white whole wheat flour

1 cup buttermilk (well shaken)

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F and spray a standard sized muffin tin with cooking oil (or line it with paper cups if you’d like).

2. Place the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium mixing bowl, and stir vigorously with a wire whisk until uniform in color and well blended.

3. Place the butter in a medium pan (preferably one with a silver bottom) and turn the heat to high. Once the butter has melted, lower the heat to medium and stir frequently until the solids at the bottom of the pan starts to brown and the butter starts to smell nutty and fragrant. Turn the heat off and continue to stir until all the solid has turned a golden brown.

4. Pour the butter (making sure to scrape the brown bits as well) into the bowl of a standing mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the brown sugar, vanilla extract, and almond extract and beat for 1 minutes on medium speed to cool the butter. Add the bananas and beat for 1 minute or until the bananas are well blended into the sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each addition. Add the buttermilk and beat for an additional 30 seconds or until well blended.

5. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and add the flour blend all at once. Using a large spatula, fold and blend the flour into the wet ingredients, until just mixed together (You want a few dry lumps and pockets in there). Scoop out 1/2 of the batter and place it in the mixing bowl that had the dry flour ingredients in it.

6. In the batter remaining in the standing bowl mixer, add the cinnamon, ground ginger and chopped chocolate. Mix with a spatula until the spices and chocolate are well distributed in the batter. In the other mixing bowl, where you moved 1/2 of the batter, add the matcha tea powder to that part of the batter, and mix with the spatula until the batter is a uniform green color.

7. Using a tablespoon, add dollops of alternating batter to the prepared muffin tin, one spoonful of green tea batter, one spoonful of chocolate spice batter, once spoonful of green tea batter, one spoonful of chocolate spice batter. Once you have evenly divided up the batter into the muffin tin, take a butter knife and stick it into each muffin tin, swirling the batter in a figure 8 motion, to swirl the batters together. Firmly tap the muffin pan on the counter or kitchen table, to settle the batter into the pan. Sprinkle turbinado sugar over each of the muffins (if using) and place in the oven.

Makes

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mmm these look good. i might make them sometime, i can always bring the rest into work!

The Baker, Writer, Recipe Maker

Eggbeater