Athena Plichta Photography

I've posted banana bread on here before but this particular recipe (from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito) contains espresso and chocolate chips. Hello, enough said. I've made this banana bread 4 times in three weeks; the previous ones were made in a muffin pan and not as photogenic.

Nothing gives me more pleasure than giving away baked goods to family, friends, acquaintances. Still working on the presentation thing though. Today I stopped by a friend's house and dropped off one of these loaves, still in the aluminum disposable tin it was baked in, all tucked into a Ziploc bag.

No matter, she and her family enjoyed it. 

This bread will go very fast... give some away, but save a little for yourself too.

Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins* 

(very slightly adapted from: Baked: New Frontiers in Baking)

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup whole milk

1 large egg

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together bananas, sugars, butter, milk, and egg.

In another medium bowl, whisk together the flour, instant espresso powder, baking soda, and salt.

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir just until combined.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Fill each cup about 3/4 full.

Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack; let cool for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove muffins from pan and allow them to finish cooling on the cooling rack.

*For this shoot, I used 5 mini loaf pans, though you could easily use 4 for fuller loaves. I kept them in oven for 30 minutes. Ovens vary (mine loves to throw me off) so check for doneness if using something other than a standard muffin pan.