Honey-Sweetened Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Well, we made it! We're into the second week of back to school season and it's starting to feel like fall out there. We're still getting some sunny days, but it's also starting to get darker in the evening, chillier at night, and the leaves are starting to fall off the trees. Meanwhile, everyone is busily getting settled into new schools, new classes, and new activities.

With that in mind, we came up with these delicious (and relatively nutritious) banana muffins that are perfect to grab on your way out the door to school or the office. They are sweetened with honey for an added bonus, so you don't need to feel guilty about sneaking an extra one in your bag!

If you want to be completely virtuous and eliminate the sugar completely, you can skip the chocolate chips and turbinado sugar at the end of the recipe. We like to live on the wild side though and threw them in.

Either way you make them, the natural sugars of the ripe bananas lend enough sweetness to these muffins that you'll never know that there is no white or brown sugar in them.

Whip some up today and you'll be sure to have a great breakfast, snack, or even dessert for the rest of the week!

Honey-Sweetened Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup honey

2 large eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (we used 2 large)

1/2 cup milk (we used 2%)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. table salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

1 3/4 cup (220 g) all-purpose flour

1/3 cup old-fashioned oats, plus more for sprinkling on top

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 tsp. turbinado sugar or sugar in the raw, for topping

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease your muffin tin with non-stick spray. This recipe makes 10 muffins so you only need to grease 10 cups.

2. In a medium bowl stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, 1/3 cup oats, and salt.

3. In a large bowl, beat the oil and honey together. Add the eggs and beat well. Mix in the mashed bananas, milk, and vanilla.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix with a large spoon until just combined. Fold in your chocolate chips gently.

5. Divide the batter evenly between 10 muffin cups, filling each cup nearly to the top. Sprinkle the tops evenly with oats and turbinado sugar (if using). Bake muffins for 23-25 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted into a muffin comes out clean. Ours took 25 minutes.

6. Let the muffins cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then remove and place on a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Inspired by this recipe.