These jumbo, bakery-style muffins are rich and moist in the center with tender tops dotted with melted chocolate and crunchy sugar. Indulge your chocolate cravings early in the morning, or grab one as a satisfying afternoon snack that will instantly make your day better.

I’m admittedly on a muffin kick right now. There is something so freeing and exciting about going from craving to satisfaction in 30 minutes, and all freshly homemade.

So much of baking needs more premeditation, but I love that I can tear into a gooey, chocolaty muffin fresh from the oven whenever the mood strikes. The same can be said for my Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, which have the added benefit of using up any overripe bananas lying about.

Why Chocolate Lovers Make This Recipe

Quick and easy — this recipe is so forgiving. While muffins bake best after the batter has chilled overnight, there is something splendid about spontaneity. Whether you only have twenty minutes in your busy morning or you are hit with a sudden midday craving, this recipe works effortlessly within your schedule.

One bowl — quick breads are one of my favorite things to bake, chiefly due to the speedy cleanup that using just one bowl and one rubber spatula provide.

Make ahead — don’t need these muffins right away, or have too many leftovers? No worries! You can easily make these a day or two in advance, and as long as they are properly wrapped, can be frozen for up to three months!

Moist and decadent — these muffins are rich in chocolate flavor, yet light enough that you can easily (and happily) finish one without it ever becoming too much.

Ingredients and Variations

If you have 10 ingredients and 20 minutes, then these muffins will be on your counter within the hour! Some notes on key ingredients:

Melted butter — incorporating melted butter keeps each muffin fluffy and flavorful, while also helping to dissolve the sugar for more defined tops (that are everyone’s favorite part, anyway)!

Whole eggs — the egg whites provide structure and lift to the muffins, while the egg yolks add fat and moisture, making for a wetter, richer interior.

Buttermilk — using real buttermilk adds a distinct, “breakfast-y” flavor, as many quick breads and griddle cakes rely on buttermilk for added richness. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, stir together 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes, or until the milk has visibly curdled and is then ready to use.

Cake flour — cake flour, also known as “pastry flour,” is perfect for making muffins due to its low protein content, which means the muffins’ crumb will remain light. However, overmixing the batter will eventually develop the gluten in the flour, resulting in a gummy, dense final bake.

Storage and Reheating Instructions

For best results, wrap each muffin individually in a sheet of cling film, then store in either a resealable bag or in an airtight container for 4-5 days.

While you can eat these muffins straight from storage, I found that placing them in the microwave for 10-15 seconds gave that fresh-from-the-oven feel, especially when the chocolate chips just start to melt. Simply irresistible!

One of my all-time favorite recipes, these muffins are fluffy, tender, and bursting with banana and chocolate flavor. Naturally-sweet brown bananas mix with warm notes of cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts for the coziest way to start your morning!

While I am usually a very patient person, I am currently struggling to wait for my bananas to ripen enough to make another batch of these amazingly addictive, tender, chocolaty muffins.

Seriously, these muffins bookend my days: it’s the first thing I eat when I come down in the morning, and a comforting, cozy “nightcap” that hits those sweet, caramel, chocolaty notes just before bed.

The interior crumb is moist yet light and full of natural banana flavor, which means only a minimal amount of sugar is added to this recipe (minus the chocolate chips, of course). The muted presence of chopped walnuts also brings a crunchy contrast while enhancing the sweetness from the bananas.

Serve these during busy school mornings or have these as something to look forward to during afternoon slumps at work. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll also grab one during a midnight Netflix binge session in addition to the aforementioned scenarios, which at that rate, means you’ll be baking these once a week– yes, please!

Methods for This Recipe

This recipe can be made in two ways, depending on the overall ripeness of your bananas:

Option 1 – Yellow/Brown Bananas: As with most banana bread-style recipes, these muffins call for bananas that are still yellow with brown spots (see “Ingredients” for a reference picture). If your bananas are at this stage of ripeness, proceed with the recipe below as written.

Option 2 – All-Brown Bananas: If you bananas are completely browned without any yellow pigment remaining, use 250-300g of bananas (about 1 1/2-2 bananas) and reduce the buttermilk to just 3 tablespoons. The extra natural juices and sweetness from the bananas will only add further depth of flavor and a fluffy interior that you will crave again and again.

A Note on Ripening Bananas

There are many methods that supposedly help bananas ripen faster, either by baking them in the oven, by storing them in brown paper bags, or by simply allowing them to sit and ripen naturally.

It seems that the general consensus is that while some of these other methods will yield similar results, nothing beat the rich banana flavor and moist texture of waiting for the bananas to ripen naturally on the counter. So I will leave it up to you as to which ripening method you prefer, but I strongly recommend the delayed gratification approach; I promise the results will be more than satisfying.

Why Chocolate Lovers Make This Recipe

• One bowl recipe — these muffins require just two dishes–a mixing bowl and a spatula–which means you can reallocate the time it would have taken to clean up to instead accomplish other items on your to-do list, and have delicious muffins afterwards as a reward!
  
• Lower-sugar recipe — as mentioned above, the use of overripened bananas drastically cuts down on the added sugars in the recipe, since browned bananas are full of natural sugars.
  
• Tender and moist — since I’m not really much of a cake person, a muffin must be light and full of moisture, without exception. These muffins contains lots of wet ingredients with just enough flour to bring them together, resulting in a tender, craveable crumb.

Ingredients and Variations

These banana chocolate chip muffins come together with lots of kitchen staples, including:

Bananas — as mentioned previously, use browned bananas for the sweetest flavor and their high juice/water content, both of which lend to the muffins’ natural flavor and light texture. And if you are just bursting to make these muffins sooner, you can bake these bananas in the oven on low heat (around 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20-30 minutes, but know that this caramelizes the bananas instead of ripening them, so the flavor and texture won’t be the same.

Melted butter — incorporating melted butter adds to a richer texture, a more decadent flavor, and tenderizes the interior crumb for an unforgettable bite.

Sour cream — much like melted butter, sour cream adds moisture and fat to the recipe, preventing the muffins’ interior from drying out during baking. You can also substitute 1-1 with plain Greek yogurt.

Buttermilk — using real buttermilk, as opposed to whole milk, adds an acidic depth of flavor that balances the natural sweetness from the bananas and prevents the muffins from becoming too rich. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, stir together 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes, or until the milk has visibly curdled and is then ready to use.

Walnuts (optional) — bananas and walnuts have been a signature combination in cooking and baking forever, and this recipe is no exception. Finely chop the walnuts to create tiny pockets of crunch that, in conjunction with the chocolate chips, lend some toothsome-ness to the final product. If you don’t like walnuts, you can substitute with pecans or another type of nut, or omit altogether for those with nut allergies.

Turbinado sugar (optional) — not originally calculated in this recipe’s sugar content, professional bakers often add a light sprinkle of turbinado sugar just before baking for last-minute caramelization and crystalized crunch. Feel free to omit this step, if desired.

Storage and Reheating Instructions

For best results, wrap each muffin individually in a sheet of cling film, then store in either a resealable bag or in an airtight container for 5-7 days.

While you can eat these muffins straight from storage, I found that placing them in the microwave for 10-15 seconds warmed the inside enough to melt the chocolate chips, resulting in decadent, gooey goodness.

Video

For those mornings where you simply MUST have a New York-style bagel. A golden, crispy exterior gives way to the chewy, fluffy center filled with gooey chocolate chips. Serve by itself for a perfect breakfast-on-the-go, or smear on some butter, cream cheese, jam, or your favorite bagel spread for a decadent way to start the day!

The Northeast region of the United States has undoubtedly mastered one culinary achievement: crusty, artisan-style bread. Believe me, having moved to the Midwest– where they steam their bagels to soggy oblivion— I set out to replicate the same puffy, chewy bagels with crispy, aerated crusts from back home.

The golden crusts are dotted with tiny air bubbles that provide a crispy contrast to the warm, fluffy interiors speckled with gooey chocolate chips, making these bagels unique to the Tri-State Area.

How to Serve

These bagels are divine on their own, especially when lightly toasted and the chocolate chips melt slightly into pools of chocolate– yes, please!! Otherwise, pair these bagels with salted butter, cream cheese, your favorite jam, marmalade, or even Nutella for a unique dessert!

Why Chocolate Lovers Make This Recipe

• Sweet and savory — the sugar from the dough and the chocolate chips are the only “sweet” elements, making this recipe perfect for those with a more savory palate.
  
• Breakfast for the week — while there is nothing like a fresh bagel right from the oven, these bagels actually last between 5-7 days; just run the entire bagel under cold water for a few seconds before toasting on low heat to return them to their Day 1 glory.
  
• Perfect pairings — chocolate has timeless pairings with all sorts of coffee and tea blends. Next time, put the kettle on before sitting down to enjoy these scrumptious bagels to really start your day right. And if you’re looking for toppings, butter, nut butters, cream cheese, marmalade, and several fruit jams all take these bagels to the next level (though I actually prefer these on their own, they’re that good ;)).
  
• Great for kids — serve these at your next picnic, or pop these bagels into your kids’ lunchboxes for a lunchtime treat.

Ingredients

This recipe comes together with just a handful of simple ingredients, keeping your weekend morning easy and fun. Some key ingredients include:

Bread flour — bread flour contains the most protein for proper gluten formation. While you can technically use all-purpose flour instead, know that the bagels won’t rise as much or have the correct structure as pictured above.

Yeast — no matter what type of yeast you use in this recipe, ensure it is still active so that the bagels properly rise. See “Tips for Success” if you need help determining the activity of your yeast.

Barley malt syrup — often confused with molasses, this syrup is the secret ingredient used in New York-style (or Jersey-style, in my case 😉 ) bagels. It has a similar flavor profile to molasses, but far less sweet, and you can definitely taste the difference in the final product if you choose to omit it. I couldn’t find a jar in stores around me here in the Midwest, but I found Eden Organic Traditional Barley Malt Syrup on Amazon and have since exclusively used this in all of my bagel recipes.

Baking soda — do not eliminate! Baking soda is what gives the bagels those crackly air bubbles that are characteristic of bagels.

Chocolate chips — I used semi-sweet chocolate chips so they paired well with the rest of the savory ingredients, but you can use milk or dark chocolate morsels if you wish.

Storage and Reheating Instructions

Store the bagels in a paper bag either on the counter, in the microwave, or in a bread box for 5-7 days. To reheat, run the bagels under cold running water for a few seconds before heating in the oven (or toaster oven) on ~250 F until crispy.

Finally, a pancake recipe that works with your busy mornings! Create an irresistibly tall stack of the most tender and fluffy buttermilk pancakes loaded with chocolate chips in just 20 minutes. Add a sprinkle of powdered sugar, a drizzle of maple syrup, and a dollop of fresh fruit for an even more luxurious start to your day.

Despite the best of intentions, making fluffy, homemade buttermilk pancakes completely from scratch often seems too time-consuming for weekday mornings. At best, you feel like you can at least deep into a boxed mix for some time-saving assistance, but what if I told you that you can still make the freshest homemade pancakes in just 15-20 minutes?

These pancakes are so fluffy and tender and modeled after all of the best parts of those found at your local diner: a tall stack of thick pancakes, all uniform in color, and dripping with maple syrup and dusted with powdered sugar.

And of course, I have incorporated copious amounts of chocolate chips, because there’s nothing worse than expecting chocolate chip pancakes only to be presented with 1-3 measly chips resting dead-center on the top pancake. That’s not love where I come from.

So let’s get spontaneous this morning! Throw on a fresh pot of coffee and let everyone else in the house wake up to the wafting aromas of fresh pancakes and chocolate — I couldn’t think of a better way to wake up. 😉

Reasons Why Chocolate Lovers Make This Recipe

• Better than boxed — while it is arguably more convenient to use popular boxed pancake mixes, nothing compares to the fresh taste of homemade pancakes. Plus, you avoid consuming additives and other nasty chemicals.
  
• Ready in 20 minutes — whether you’re navigating hectic school runs or lazy Sunday mornings, these pancakes go from bowl to table in no time, making them effortless to work into whatever your schedule has in store.
  
• Doesn’t skimp on chocolate — because, from one chocolate lover to another, I know exactly how many chocolate chips you’re looking for in your pancakes. And no, it isn’t three…true story.
  
• Super fluffy — these pancakes meet the definition of “pillowy soft” with just the right amount of chew.

Ingredients and Variations

These pancakes can fit into even the busiest of mornings and use just a simple ingredients. Some key notes below:

Cornstarch — a secret ingredient in most commercial pancake mixes, cornstarch aids in creating fluffy, tender pancakes. Do not omit!

Baking powder and baking soda — the combination of both baking soda and baking powder provides lift to the pancakes without negatively altering their flavor by using too much of one leavener over the other.

Melted butter — butter is a key ingredient whose fat contributes to the pancakes’ overall flavor and texture, creating impossibly tall, fluffy, and tender results.

Granulated sugar — while obviously containing some level of added sugar, this recipe also leans on other natural sweeteners like vanilla extract and buttermilk to balance the flavors.

Buttermilk — using buttermilk in pancakes absolutely transforms their flavor to a new level of richness and sophistication. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, stir together 1 cup of milk with 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes, or until the milk has visibly curdled and is then ready to use.

Storage and Reheating Instructions

Store leftover pancakes in a resealable bag or airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

To freeze these pancakes, first allow them to cool completely before individually wrapping them in cling film, then stack into a resealable freezer bag. Store for 2-3 months.

When ready to reheat from the fridge, simply microwave on a plate in a single layer for 45-60 seconds, or until heated through. If reheating from the freezer, repeat the same process but heat for 60-90 seconds on both sides, flipping the pancakes halfway in between, or until fully heated through.