Double Chocolate Banana Muffins and the Food For Plastic KIDZ Challenge

Ben over at What's Cooking is hosting a Food for Plastic (Kidz) Challenge. Noooo, not plastic kids! Silly...hehe. Tupperware!

What's it all about, you ask? April is Children's Month at Tupperware, and to celebrate, they're donating $1 from the sale of certain items to the Boy's and Girl's Club. What a great cause! Tupperware has a lot of kid's items on sale for 30-50% off, as well. To see them, go take a look at Ben's Tupperware store. Check out those awesome lunch boxes--get a head start on back to school shopping (really, it'll be here before you know it! I'll duck now so you can throw your shoes at me.), and cross one of those off your list!

What is a Food for Plastic Challenge? Well, let me tell you! Ben sells Tupperware, so he hosts these themed challenges. You submit a recipe to the challenge, and they get voted on. The winner usually wins some Tupperware. Pretty cool, right? This one is food for kids. Something you enjoyed as a child, or something your kids love today--you get the idea. Oh, and Ben's blog is packed full of amazing recipes and tons of info, so get your butt over there check it out. Please. :)

My entry is Double Chocolate Banana Muffins. My kids absolutely love these, and really, unless you hate chocolate and/or banana, you'll love them, too. Moist, chocolatey, banana-ey--mmmm! And a tip: you can pop a cooled muffin in the microwave for 30 seconds and get the chocolate chips all melty again. Grab your glass of milk and you're all set for a chocolate break.

Muffins are usually easy to make and these are no exception. You'll have them in the oven in no time. I usually have to set some bananas aside (that means HIDE them from my four monkeys...I mean...kids) to ripen up if I want to make these. I got this recipe years ago in some e newsletter.

Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/3 cups mashed ripe banana
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips


Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the first six ingredients.
2. In a small bowl, combine bananas, oil and egg.
3. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. The batter is quite thick, but keep folding it gently, making sure to get the batter on the bottom of the bowl, and it'll all come together.
4. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups three fourths full.
6. Bake at 350 deg F for 20-25 minutes or until muffins test done.

My husband was watching me scoop the batter into the pans, and he suggested I sprinkle some walnuts on top of some of them. Nice addition, and those seemed to be "overlooked" by the kids. So finally, we got to enjoy some, too, and didn't have to fight for a measly crumb, hehe. Oh! An ice cream scoop is a great way to get your muffins all the same size, and makes scooping the batter in the pans really easy.