I've been baking

I made cupcakes Saturday and muffins yesterday. The cupcakes were for a pot luck party my bunco group was having. The muffins were for the family.

I ate several of both batches.

The cupcakes were cheesecake brownie cupcakes. I used the recipe for Mrs Field's Cheesecake Brownie Cups found here at RecipeZaar.com. However, I am not sure what it is with me & measuring, but I ended up with 16 cupcakes instead of 12. They were very well received.

I had 2 bananas that needed to be used yesterday so I made muffins. I was going to make peanut butter banana muffins, in the hopes of tempting Mayhem to actually eat a muffin rather than just demand to make them. But he'd gone on a PB&J spree over the weekend & there was insufficient peanut butter remaining. I decided to replace it with Nutella. Chocolate, bananas, hazelnuts...yum!

Nutella Banana muffins

Preheat oven to 400 and prepare 12-18 muffin cups. (recipe claims 12, I made 18)

In a large bowl mix together

2 cups flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tblsp baking powder

1/4 teas salt

In a smaller bowl mix until well combined

1/2c Nutella

2 tblsp oil

2 eggs

3/4 c warmish milk

2 medium bananas mashed (or pureed like I did)

This will take some time if you do it by hand. The Nutella and the milk & the eggs do not want to combine, but they will if you keep at it. I don't own a hand blender so I stuck it out with a whisk.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. This will be a thick but liquid batter. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full with the batter. Bake for 20 minutes or so. Test with a toothpick.

These are very good banana muffins with a chocolate & nut background flavor. If you want a chocolate & nut muffin with a banana flavor I suggest omitting one banana and increasing your Nutella by a couple of tablespoons. And you can add some mini chocolate chips as well.