Banana Pumpkin Muffins with Chocolate Chips

 

    Another homemade fall treat for your autumn season! I went off of this original recipe: http://alidaskitchen.com/2012/09/12/pumpkin-banana-muffins/ and made a few changes. Like adding the chocolate chips for one! These muffins were delicious and very filling. My husband described them as more of a breakfast muffin than a snack muffin.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (or you can do all whole wheat or white if you choose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 bananas, mashed
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Chocolate chips

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray muffin tins with baking spray.

-Whisk together your dry ingredients in a large bowl: both flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice.

-In a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients: brown sugar, bananas, pumpkin puree, oil, eggs and vanilla.

-Add wet ingredients to dry, gently fold and do not overmix. Here's where you can add your chocolate chips- I added about half of a small bag of chocolate chips. You can add more or less than that depending on your tastes. I love me some chocolate. Fold into the mixture and once again, do not over mix.

-Add mixture to muffin tins and bake at 350. The original recipe says to bake for 11 to 13 minutes for mini muffins and for 13 to 15 minutes for standard muffins. Mine took almost 20 minutes to bake. Pretty much just bake them until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Experimental Oatmeal Banana PB "Cookies"

I was inspired by a few different recipes on Pinterest that I found (energy-bites, breakfast cookies.. etc) to make these "cookies" up. They are almost more similar to a scone than a cookie in my opinion, but you can make up your own mind as to what you would like to call them. This was my first time actually making up my own baking recipe, but there aren't many ingredients at all, no baking powder or anything like that to worry about. These are definitely on the healthier side of the cookie healthiness spectrum, and you can always add or leave out ingredients that you don't like (or don't have!).

Healthy Oatmeal Banana PB "Cookies"

2 ripe bananas
2 tablespoons flax seed
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup peanut butter (roughly)
1-2 tablespoons honey depending on how sweet you'd like them
chocolate chips (optional- they are obviously healthier with out or with a vegan substitue)

Preheat oven to 350.
Peel and mash the ripe bananas.
Add flax seed to bananas and mix well.
Add the oatmeal and mix well.
Add in the peanut butter and honey, mix well.
Lastly add your chocolate chips (I didn't even measure, I just poured. I like me some chocolate) and mix it up together.
Plop them onto a greased baking sheet. This recipe made 9 (odd number I know) large cookies for me. You could certainly make them smaller and get a dozen out of them. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes depending on how crispy you like them to be. Like I said earlier, they are almost more like a scone in my opinion, so don't expect the middle to get really crispy. They'll be nice and soft.

Note: You could try adding almonds or walnuts. Also some coarse sea salt might also be really good with these cookies to give it that salty sweet flavor. Let me know what you guys think!