Muffins for peanut butter lovers

I love peanut butter, especially freshly ground peanut butter.

Although we always have commercially processed big-name peanut butter in the house (Auntie loves Skippy), I use it only in a pinch. Most brand-name peanut butter has added oils and sugar, watering down the natural peanut flavor. So I always have peanuts on hand to grind, or peanut butter like Laura Scudder's Natural Peanut Butter — just peanuts and a bit of salt — for a backup. I also love virtually all foods with peanut butter as an ingredient.

One example, though, has my Auntie saying "hard pass" because the combination is just too strange for her. When I was in my 20s, I had a roommate from Texas who introduced me to new foods; many were Tex-Mex, and others were recipes her family had been making all her life. We usually fended for ourselves for mealtime during the week, but we often cooked for each other on weekends.

One day, my roommate said she was making spaghetti chili, which had me and our other roommate scratching our heads. We sat at the counter drinking our wine while she cooked, declining our offer of assistance. She pulled out a couple of cans of chili and dumped them into a pot. I am no stranger to using store-bought ingredients and doctoring them to freshen them up and give them more depth, so when she proceeded to add heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter, it was a light bulb moment for me. Having grown up watching my mother make mole where she added peanut butter, I knew that peanut butter and chiles complemented each other well. Our other roommate was a dance student from Mexico, so she, too, was not thrown off by this ingredient. Spaghetti chili is now one of my favorite comfort pantry meals.

I recently shared a banana bread recipe that I started making years ago, in which I added grated Mexican chocolate. That recipe and my love of peanut butter inspired today's share. One evening, I felt a bit peckish and went into the kitchen searching for something to satisfy my sweet tooth. I lived alone then and rarely had ready-made snacks in the house. If I really craved a snack, I’d have to take the time to make it. Often, that was enough to deter me, and I’d settle on a piece of fruit or crunchy sugar snap peas to munch on.

This particular evening, I was determined to make something. Eyeing my container of freshly ground peanut butter on the counter got me thinking of cookies. But I wasn't really in a cookie mood. Then I realized I had a nice black banana in the refrigerator that I needed to use soon. So I decided to experiment, and these banana, peanut butter and bourbon muffins were the result. And as is my norm, whenever I experiment with new recipes, I took my efforts to work the next day. They got two thumbs up all around.

I’m calling these "muffins," but I didn't use a muffin tin. I rarely do, as my guilt from eating a large muffin in one sitting is often too much for me to handle. I use cupcake tins. Plus, for years, I didn't have the space for both cupcake and muffin tins, and that's probably the case for many folks. A cupcake-size muffin is more manageable and less guilt-inducing. If you prefer full-size muffins, you’ll find no judgment here. Just remember to adjust the baking time.

If you don't want to use the bourbon, up the water to ¾ cup and use 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. I used a 1:1 sugar substitute for the granulated sugar and sugar-free chocolate chips; use natural sugar if you prefer or your favorite cup-for-cup alternative. I mix this by hand, but it does take a bit of strength to make the peanut butter mixture smooth after incorporating the liquids, so if you must, use an electric mixer just for this part and switch back to hand mixing when you add the flour. For the best texture, try not to overmix the batter. My oven heats up quickly, so I wait until I’m halfway done with the batter before preheating; if yours takes longer, preheat at the start.

Makes 18 cupcake-size muffins

1 large overripe banana¾ cup peanut butter2 large eggs, preferably room temperature½ cup water¼ cup Maker's Mark bourbon or your favorite brand4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly½ cup granulated sugar½ cup light brown sugar, packed½ teaspoon salt½ teaspoon cinnamon¼ teaspoon ground allspice1 teaspoon baking soda½ cup mini chocolate chips1¾ cups all-purpose flour

Mash the banana with a fork in a large bowl. Add the peanut butter and combine well with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula.

Whisk the eggs, water, bourbon and melted butter in a small bowl, beating well. Pour into the peanut butter mixture and mix until smooth (this might take some elbow grease). Toss in the sugars, salt, cinnamon and allspice and mix well. Sprinkle baking soda over wet ingredients and stir to incorporate well.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a separate bowl, toss the chocolate chips with the flour. Add 1 cup of the flour to the peanut butter mixture, stirring to combine. Add the rest of the flour ¼ cup at a time, mixing after each addition until just incorporated.

Coat two cupcake tins with baking spray (My tins have 12 cups, so I prepped one completely and 6 cups in the second one). Fill each cup ¾ of the way. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes before removing to a rack to finish cooling.

Recipe is copyrighted by Anita L. Arambula and is reprinted with permission from "Confessions of a Foodie."

Arambula is the food section art director and designer. She blogs at confessionsofafoodie.me, where the original version of this article was published. Follow her on Instagram: @afotogirl. She can be reached at [email protected].