Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: The combination of banana, espresso, and chocolate is a morning dream!
Texture: Ultra tender, moist, and gooey.
Ease: Super easy, made in less than an hour!
Pros: Some of the tastiest muffins I’ve ever enjoyed.
Cons: None!
Would I make this again? I’ve been making this recipe for over 7 years!
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As a kid I always heard adults talking about how fast time passes. It seemed like something that was said during every birthday, holiday, or family event. I never understood why until recently…
I originally published this Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe in 2009. Just a few weeks after I graduated high school. That is craziness!!! I remember living in my first place and my roommates thinking I was absolutely insane for taking photos of the muffins I had just made. “Food blogging” wasn’t really a thing yet and I had no idea what I was doing in any aspect of life.
Now, 7 years later, my blog is my full-time business. I’ve graduated from university AND culinary school. I’ve published a cookbook. We bought a house. We have two adorable dogs. It’s pretty crazy how much things can change in what feels like a simultaneously short but also long amount of time.
Throughout all those changes one thing has remained the same… this is one of our all-time favorite muffin recipes!
And I’ve realized I don’t make them nearly enough. Also, the photos I took for these muffins 7 years ago were HIDEOUS. So new photos and a reminder of how good this recipe tastes was definitely in order.
You can pick up espresso powder online, or in the coffee aisle of some grocery stores. It’s the perfect way to add lots of bold coffee flavor in a pinch. I always keep some on hand because a small amount of espresso flavor also simply enhances the flavor of chocolate in many recipes.
If you can’t get your hands on espresso powder, you can substitute instant coffee powder. Use dark roast if you can and you may need to increase the amount to match the intensity of espresso powder.
More Recipes You’ll Love:
- The Best Classic Banana Bread
- Double Chocolate Banana Bread
- Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
- Bakery Style Banana Muffins
- Chocolate Chip Scones
Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (354 grams) mashed, very ripe bananas (about 4 medium bananas)
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/4 cup (57 grams) whole milk
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the 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 until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Fill each cup about three-quarters full. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack, and let cool for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, remove the muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.
- Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Can this banana espresso batter be refrigerated overnight?
Hi Janice! Feel free to experiment with that, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, as these are leavened only with baking soda. Tessa’s overnight resting for tall muffins trick is designed for muffins leavened with baking powder. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
I bake for family and friends all the time. This recipe, followed exactly as written, is a fan fav! I have made them so many times I know the recipe by heart. I highly recommend them.
Can I use heavy cream of the milk?
Hi Gail! We haven’t tried using heavy cream in place of milk. Feel free to experiment and let us know how it goes!
Our banana tree broke & I needed to use the bananas quickly. I bake all the time & this is the Most Amazing recipe for banana muffins I’ve ever tried. My son ate 5! Thanks for sharing
I love this recipe and have made it twice for guests who raved about them! They are so moist and flavorful. Thank you!
Delicious!!!
These muffins were absolutely amazing! They were packed full of flavor and moisture. I didn’t have whole milk on hand so I had to use buttermilk substitute, but it was perfect! So glad I came across this recipe. I will definitely be making these again.
Love this recipe! I added an extra tsp of espresso powder and it was delicious!!
I made these with slighly less sugar (I almost always reduce it, here I used 10 grams less brown sugar and 20 grams less white sugar. I also omitted the coffee and used slightly less salt.
->the sweetness was good (more sugar would have been okay, but not as good)
+the consistency was amazing (they stayed very moist after 3 days in an airtight container with roomtemperature)
+they smelled and tasted delicious
-they were nearly too salty, I would almost call them something like Salted Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes because the salt level was similar to that of salted caramel
-I would bake them again and recommend others to try them with the recommendation to cut the salt in half (I think the cupcakes the instructed amount of sugar wouldn’t “even out” the saltiness) and reduce the sugar if they usually don’t eat very sweet things
–>overall very good cupcakes, some of the best I have made so far (of any kind)
Have a nice day
Not even kidding. The BEST banana recipe I’ve ever used. I used milk chocolate chips and ordinary espresso coffee grounds because I didn’t have instant. I could eat the whole batch.