Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are a household staple. You just can’t go wrong with a yummy treat that can be used for breakfast, a snack, or even a dessert. 

When looking for a muffin recipe, I wanted to find one that had ingredients I already had at home. I found a recipe on Pinterest from a website called Love From The Oven. 

Love From The Oven was started by Christi Johnson in 2010. She is a cookbook author, blogger, and food photographer. She enjoys cooking and baking for her family. After reading about Christi and her story, I felt this recipe was worth a shot. 

At a first glance, the beginning of the recipe says that these are “ melt in your mouth” muffins. This sounded delicious. It then goes on to tell me five reasons why I would love this recipe. I liked that the author put this in so that I can get a little overview of why these muffins are so good. But she also states “ you know this recipe will turn out perfectly - every time.” This is a bit bold to say considering she can’t guarantee that. It continues, saying that the recipe includes simple ingredients that would most likely be kept at home. Lastly it says that these are quick and easy to make without an electric mixer. I think this is a great detail she added because we know that these can be made by hand which many people, including me, enjoy. I think being able to throw everything in a bowl and mixing it up quickly is most convenient.

Moving down on her website, she goes into detail about the ingredients and directions of the recipe. She gives a great diagram of the ingredients you will need that includes no measurements but still lets you know exactly what you will need. Then she dives into each ingredient and why they are important. She recommends ways to measure the ingredients and what you should look for when choosing certain foods. For example she states, “measure the brown sugar by packing it into the measuring cup”. This part is lengthy and unnecessary. If you have never baked in your life, this could be needed but when I make foods, I want to get right to the ingredient list and directions first.

I then got to the directions of the muffin recipe. She explains the steps in a numbered list and uses good detail. I thought they were easy to follow. She explains that 12 muffin liners are needed for this recipe and it makes 12 muffins.  The directions state, “ Divide the batter.” It gives no detail of how full the cups should be. when I used this recipe, I got way more than 12 muffins.This should definitely be clarified in the recipe so it is way more accurate. She also did not say if this recipe can be made into mini muffins which lots of people typically do. 

The recipe explains to preheat the oven to 400 degrees but then when adding in the muffins, the heat needs to be dropped to 350 degrees. She does not give any explanation, which would be helpful. My muffins cooked for 20 minutes like the recipe recommended. They came out a light brown on top. She says in her directions to let them cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the pan. After 5 minutes, the pan was still very hot and I needed to let them cool for another 5 after that. 

Once cooled I was able to remove them and set them on a rack to cool further. After giving them a taste, they were absolutely delicious. They were soft and moist and it didn’t overpower me with banana flavor. The chocolate was gooey and just melted in my mouth. 

Christi includes a section at the bottom of her website that explains some tips and advice for this recipe. It goes through ways to store the muffins and how long you can freeze them for. It also says you can reheat the muffins for 15-20 seconds in the microwave to get that first baked feeling back. This is a nice addition to this website so I know how long these muffins will be fresh. 

Overall I found this recipe to be easy to follow and overall created a delicious product. There were some unnecessary pieces within but she gave me a detailed direction checklist along with an easy to read ingredient list and even nutritional facts. Next time I need a sweet treat, Love From The Oven is exactly where I will go.