Wake. Eat. Work. Eat. Work. Sleep. Wake.
It is so dangerously easy to get caught up and lost in the life vortex. “A big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.” You don’t even realize it’s happening, because everything about it is so normal. A sense of normal and our concept of “supposed-to’s” pulls you in and why look for a lifeline when this is just life? Isn’t it? You put your head down in January. You pick your head up and it’s the middle of March. Yeesh.
David and I typically self-enforce a strict 10:30 or 11 o’clock bed time. But on occasion, I find that I will stay up much too late, against my better judgment, simply because I feel I have been able to steal time. Able to pull myself out of the vortex for just a brief break before I return to the everyday swim. Logically, I know it makes no sense. I’ve gained no time – I’ve only stolen it from myself and you can’t steal something that belongs to you. And yet, it’s a habit I continue.
On those nights, the house is still except for quiet David/Darwin snores coming from the bedroom. I read. Clean. Blog. Nothing ground-breaking, self-changing, or momentous in the slightest. I’ll even fight sleep while laying on the couch simply because it’s another moment that is mine, rather than a part of the scheduled usual… Does anyone else do this?
I don’t know if I’m supposed to do something more spectacular with my stolen time. I’m also not sure what spectacular things can be done in the hours of eleven o’clock to one in the morning. I’m told by a close friend that floating a paper airplane off the top of a hotel is fantastic. How about from our fifth floor balcony? But then, I guess that if I felt obligated to do something spectacular with my stolen time, it would ruin the point of stolen time anyway. So cheers to baking banana chocolate chip muffins at one in the morning and fighting sleep just so I can enjoy the peace, quiet, and cold while wrapped in a blankie on our balcony.
Sweet dreams, world.
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
I was craving banana bread with chocolate chips, but still can’t get over the perfect brown crust that came out on the banana macadamia nut muffins I made a few months ago. So I made banana chocolate chip muffins. This recipe is really easy, and I love that the bananas replace some of the sugar you would normally have to dump into muffins, making them at least healthy -ish. I love banana chocolate chip muffins cold out of the refrigerator, because of the hard chocolate chips. Weird – I know. I do the same thing with chocolate zucchini bread. But I think these muffins are best about 10 minutes after they’ve sat on the cooling rack. If you’ve popped them out of the tin as soon as you can, it allows the crust to breathe and develop. So you get the crisp, buttery shell that makes banana muffins so yummy.
Slap some butter, some blueberry jam, or some nutella on there. Mmmm. Delish.
wyldflour
15 minPrep Time
20 minCook Time
35 minTotal Time
5 based on 1 review(s)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup minus 1 Tablespoon sugar (yep - just scoop a tablespoon out of the cup)
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup mashed very ripe banana (about 2 medium or 3 small bananas)
- 1/4 cup buttermilk OR scant 1/4 cup milk + 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips
- extra butter for greasing
- 3 Tablespoons buttermilk
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. (Low Altitude: 375 degrees.)
- Grease muffin tin with butter. (Not shortening. Not oil. Not spray.)
- Mash bananas.
- If using lemon juice method, mix milk and lemon juice and set aside to curdle.
- Cream together butter and sugar until well mixed.
- Whisk in eggs and mashed banana until well mixed.
- Separately stir together flour, soda, and salt.
- Stirring by spoon, alternate adding milk and dry ingredients to the banana mixture until just incorporated. You want the batter to be right between pourable and cookie dough. So it should slowly ooze when you tip the bowl. Watch this as you add the milk and don't feel like you have to use all of the milk if it's getting too thin. (See notes.)
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Scoop batter into greased muffin tin until a 1/4 inch from the top.
- Bake 3 minutes at 400 degrees. (Low Altitude: 375 degrees.) Do not open the oven door.
- Drop oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, while leaving muffins in the oven. (Low Altitude: 350 degrees.) As soon as you set the new temperature, start timing again. Continue baking muffins for 18-20 minutes (low altitude: 22-25 minutes)--watch for brown to start creeping up the sides of the dome.
- Remove from oven and pull muffins out of the tin to cool on a rack as soon as possible.
- Store in tin foil or in a airtight container on the counter.
Notes
I only used about 2/3 of the milk, because my banana mush was quite mushy/liquidy. If your banana mash is stiff, you'll use more of the milk.
Comments