This afternoon I got my first baking job as The Male Baker! A group of girls were having a breakfast party before they went skiing for the day and they wanted to fill their stomachs with some of my baked goods.

So I set off to find the best banana muffin recipe that I could find from a whole array of sources; friends, friends of friends, neighbours, baking books and of course the internet. I searched and searched but nothing was coming up. I was getting pretty discouraged and I even thought that I was going to have to cancel the breakfast party and my first baking gig would be gone forever. Luckily, not too long after I gave up, my friend Amy offered me her favorite banana muffin recipe in exchange for half a dozen muffins! I took the offer and went to the kitchen like a mad man because time was running out! So come follow me on my journey through the creation of these wonderful muffins and you will find out that it is definitely worth your time!

Makes 16 cupcakes

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups                      White sugar

½ cup                           Unsalted butter at room temperature

2                                     Large eggs at room temperature

4                                     Ripe bananas

½ cup                          Buttermilk

1 tsp                              Vanilla

2 ½ cups                     Unbleached all purpose flour

1 tsp                              Baking soda

1 tsp                              Salt

Toppings

¼ cup                          Chopped pecans

¼ cup                          Chopped dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Pinch                            Light Brown sugar

Method:

• Heat up the oven to 350 degrees F and grease two muffin pans, set aside.
• Mix sugar and butter in a large bowl. Mix one egg at a time with the butter mixture until incorporated.
• Add mashed bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
• In another bowl whisk the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the wet ingredients in two additions and mix until moist.
• Pour the batter into the muffin pans until level with the pan. Put more batter in each individual muffin hole if you want a bigger muffin top.
• Sprinkle each muffin with desired toppings
• Bake in oven for 22-25 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.
• Let stand in muffin pans for 5 minutes than takes out and let cool on racks for another 10 minutes before eating. Enjoy!