I’ve pilfered oodles of muffin tops in my day, leaving behind only the stumpy muffin cores. No shame.

The muffins are moist and soft in the middle with a slight bit of chewiness around the edges of the muffin top. Throw in the texture from the sugar granules, and it’s a perfect bite.

The muffin tops remind me of snow-capped mountains. They’re are as close to snow as I prefer to come.

I hit the jackpot when I recently snagged a big bundle of discounted bananas. Beat up and tired, practically free, and perfect for banana muffins, banana bread, and banana smoothies. When I saw Nikki’s muffins, I knew I had to try a version of her recipe with my banana bounty.

I’m sure everyone knows this tip, but you can peel overripe bananas, break them into chunks, place in a Ziplock, and freeze. That way anytime you need ripe bananas for baking or smoothies, you’re set.

It’s an easy, no mixer recipe, with the perfect amount of chocolate to satisfy your chocolate cravings without being too intense for a breakfast muffin, and the chocolate dominates the banana flavor. No complaints there.

There’s both cocoa powder and mini chocolate chips in the muffin batter and although you can use regular-sized chips, I love mini chips in muffins because they melt much more evenly and don’t sink to the bottom as easily.

The recipe makes 13 or 14 muffins, or 1 dozen plus a mini loaf. I love my mini loaf pans for that extra little bit of batter that I hate throwing out, but refuse to dirty another muffin pan for a couple muffins. The loaf pan fits perfectly next to the muffin pan on the same oven rack so everything bakes evenly.

Chocolate-banana cake disguised as muffins. Definitely a keeper.