Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins...

One of my favorite cookbooks is "The Martha Stewart Cookbook".  I've had it well over 15 years and it's very well used.  

One of my favorite and most used recipes is her banana bread recipe (that paper clip makes it easy to find, too).  It's super easy and really tasty.  Even with the 'changes' I make sometimes...

As I was trying to use up alot of what I had in my fridge the past couple of weeks, I knew I would be making this recipe because of the bananas that were ripe enough for bread.  I thought I needed to finish some sour cream too but upon further inspection I realized that the sour cream was not usable.  I still wanted to make this bread though and wasn't planning a trip to the market for sour cream.

This is why I love this recipe: while the sour cream is great I have found a few substitutions that work well.  They are:  1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 cup of plain yogurt (greek or regular) OR 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt.

The vanilla yogurt was what I used this time.  It was my first time and it was perfect.  I did use a bit less vanilla extract (about 3/4 tsp) since it was vanilla yogurt and not plain although I don't really know that it mattered.

I also had some mini chocolate chips I needed to use so into the batter they went!

And, since I didn't feel like I made enough changes, I made muffins, not bread. I will often make muffins instead of bread because they take less time to cook (25'ish minutes vs.  about an hour).  Plus, they are easy peasy to put into a lunch box.  And better portion control!

Yum!  (Star shaped plates from Michaels, this year.)

Martha Stewart's Banana Bread

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup mashed very ripe banana
1/2 cup sour cream (or unsweetened applesauce, plain yogurt, or vanilla yogurt)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (or mini-chocolate chips) (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter a 9 X 5 X 3 inch loaf pan or several smaller pans.  For muffins, you will need 12 muffin tin liners.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, beating well.

Sift the dry ingredients together, combine with butter mixture.  Blend well. Add sour cream, bananas & vanilla.  Stir well.  Stir in the nuts and pour into prepared pan (or muffin tin).

Bake 1 hour until a cake tester comes out clean. Turn out onto rack to cool. (Bake about 25 minutes or so for muffins.)

Enjoy!