Banana chocolate chip muffins

I've been into muffins lately, but I wanted one with whole grain (and preferably with not too many calories). I made one I've been eye-ing for a while in the Cook Yourself Thin Cookbook: banana chocolate chip muffins.

I had been holding off on making any of the baked recipes in the cookbook because my friend Faron's mom said that they were kind of lackluster - not very moist or flavorful (mainly due to lack of butter). I have to say, I was thrilled with these.

There are good whole grains in there - whole wheat flour, rolled oats - and also some out of the box stuff, like buttermilk, walnuts, cinnamon, and banana. And, of course, typical muffin stuff - regular flour, baking powder, oil, eggs, and vanilla extract.

I absolutely love the flavor of chocolate and banana together, especially in muffins and cupcakes (as I've had this flavor at Swirlz and Sweet Mandy B's in Chicago). There isn't much chocolate in this one, and I suppose you could up the amount of chocolate chips. As it is, you have four chocolate chips on top of each one, and that's it (none inside).


Still, they are really tasty and moist, with lots of banana and chocolate flavor, despite the low amount of chocolate. And, you can't go wrong with that much cinnamon, either. Mmm.