Recipe Recap: Banoffee Muffins & Brownies (from scratch!)

Another banana recipe. What can I say, we like our bananas not-too-ripe and when they show their age with those brown speckles, the McHusband and I aren't touching them. So they either get sliced and frozen for smoothies, or else I just HAVE to find some way to include them in a baked good. This time around, Banoffee Muffins won out over smoothies.





















I made mine into mini muffins so that there would be enough to share with the doctor's office here in our building. I think their two-bite size worked out really well because they had a lot of flavor - the banana was strong and then there was plenty of chocolate and toffee along for the ride.

The chips and bits were baked into the muffin...
















...AND sprinkled on top.
















These muffins were pretty good. They were very dense, which I liked. If you have extra-ripe bananas and just happen to have chocolate chips and toffee bits in your pantry (What, those aren't pantry staples?), give 'em a try.

Now on to dessert! I've never made brownies from scratch before. I guess I never felt I had to; those boxed mixes make some pretty darn delicious brownies. But I wanted to try my hand at truly homemade brownies so I picked up some of Nestle's new Dark Chocolate Morsels and used this recipe that I found on Allrecipes.

I compared Nestle's recipe to one that's gotten rave reviews in the food-blogging world (here's just one post from a blog I read), and it's similar so I tweaked it to make it a bit more like The Baked Brownie. Since I haven't had the original (yet), I can't compare the two, but my brownie was tasty so I have no complaints.
















My changes:
--Add 1 T. cocoa powder to the flour-salt mixture and stir to combine
--3/4 c. white sugar and 1/4 c. brown sugar
--Sprinkle flour mixture over wet ingredients and use a spatula to fold it in until just some flour streaks remain

I like the extra bits of gooey chocolate from the chips that are mixed in.
















All in all, it wasn't THAT much more difficult to throw these together than to make brownies from a box. I want to try The Baked Brownie next and see if it's as awesome as I've been led to believe. I mean, it IS one of Oprah's favorite things and she wouldn't steer me wrong, right?

If you don't like dark chocolate, use milk chocolate chips. And if you prefer cake-y brownies, this recipe isn't going to work for you. Oh, one more thing: watch that you don't overbake them. I baked mine for a couple minutes less than the minimum bake time suggested, and I still think they could've come out of the oven a minute or two earlier. But I like my brownies almost underdone so if that's not your thing, stick with the recipe's cook time.