BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

I know some people may question eating chocolate in the morning or a more cake like muffin/bread versus an oatmeal/flax/bran kind of breakfast.  Eating something that has chocolate or is sweet in the morning has never been my problem.  Years ago I went to an all inclusive resort in the caribbean and the resort provided great food including bread.  One of the breads they made was a french loaf style chocolate chip.  It was amazing, so amazing that I would skip the other desserts they offered and have a slice of chocolate chip french bread for dessert with my meals.   I tried to make it when I got back home but I couldn't quite duplicate it.  It may have been the quality of chocolate I was using along with the smell of the ocean and the sand.

I recently made banana chocolate chip muffins.  They are good muffins and if you are following the point systems on weight watchers, each one is equivalent to four points.  You can cut the points down to two by using splenda instead of sugar and apple sauce instead of the oil.

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS:

1 ¾ cups flour

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 egg beaten

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup plain yogurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ripe banana mashed

¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1.     In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and powder and salt.

2.     In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, yogurt and vanilla.   Mix thoroughly.

3.     Fold in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until moistened.  Add the banana and chocolate chips and fold in.

4.     Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two thirds full.

5.     Bake at 350 degrees F for 22 to 25 minutes. 

OPTIONS:

You can also add chopped nuts, chopped dried apricots or other dried berries to the mixture.

Adapted from allrecipes.com