Chocolate Banana Strawberry Muffins

This idea for this recipe came about from a need to use up some bananas and a large container of strawberry yogurt in the fridge. The original recipe, for banana chocolate chip muffins, came from Tammy's Recipes. They were unusual in that they called for mayonnaise instead of oil. When I made them awhile back, I didn't have any mayo on hand, so I used oil and applesauce as a substitute. From reading the other comments, people said they had used sour cream or yogurt also as substitutes. Soooooo, that leads me to the other night. I was lying in bed thinking about making muffins the next day, and I remembered I had this unopened container of organic strawberry yogurt in the fridge. Hmmmmm....that sounds interesting. Well, what goes better with bananas and strawberries than chocolate? I should add some cocoa powder and make chocolate muffins. I couldn't wait to try them. Turns out, they're fabulous! If I do say so myself.

If you do not have 1/2 cup strawberry yogurt, feel free to use vanilla yogurt, sour cream, mayo, or my combination of 1/4 cup oil + 1/4 applesauce. Any of those will yield a moist and tasty muffin. And if you don't want chocolate muffins, just leave out the cocoa powder. Modify as you will!

Note: I just made 12 regular muffins out of this, filling the tins almost completely....and they overflowed a bit....so next time, I'll not fill the tins so full and make a few mini-muffins as well.

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour (I use white whole wheat)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 heaping Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 egg
1/2 cup strawberry yogurt
3 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, yogurt, and mashed bananas. Gently stir into dry mixture until just combined.

Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins 3/4 full. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake at 375 for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool 5 minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack.

I would recommend storing any leftovers in the fridge, just to prevent molding on such moist muffins. That would be a crying shame!