Sad Shibow and the Quarter-Life Crisis Muffins (Now With Bananas!)

You guys! Saturday morning I was brushing my teeth and found what I am desperately trying to convince myself was a blond hair sticking out of my scalp. I am brown. I have black hair. It’s black. It’s just black, and it doesn’t turn any other colors because I am not a mood ring. And yet…this.

Anyway, I had a weird weekend. Saturday was Record Store Day, which I like to check out despite the fact that I am, sadly, record player-less. I met up with a fellow vinyl enthusiast who owns an umbrella with a flashlight on the handle and who also has what is easily the most hooked-up entertainment system I have ever seen. I was florescent-green with envy. I have met my nemesis, and he carries a flashlight umbrella. Ella. Ella… oh also, my umbrella gave out pretty quickly in this weekend’s monsoon (I suppose since I cannot go to India, India has decided to come to me), which only brought me further down.

In all seriousness, I can’t really pinpoint why I got the blues, but it looks like it’s hit: the quarter-life crisis.

I am a nerd. Always and ever shall be. I’m used to blueprints, instructions and steps. Cramming + writing + timidly raising my hand once in a while + homeworking + stressin’ like whoa= diploma and honors and stuff (nerd!). It’s gotten me through high school, college, and graduate school, and I’m darn proud. But now…now what? There aren’t any more guarantees. There aren’t any more sure things. There are only muffins.

That was a poor segue. Still, this is a baking blog, so, you know…go with it. I’d promised my cousin Jenny, who is pregnant with her second child (Hi Jen! Yay!), something banana-and-chocolate-chippy. A couple of days post-freakout, I walked into the kitchen, breathed in the scent of hella-ripe bananas, and got cookin’. I’m kind of picky when it comes to recipes, and since I was in sort of a mood, I decided to go with a recipe I’ve trusted for years (also the very first entry in my recipe book), and build upon it. Here’s what I say you need, which means here is what you need:

4 very ripe mashed bananas

3/4 cup of brown sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of unsweetened applesauce

1 tablespoon of softened butter or vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Angrily sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar. Once it’s blended, mix in the eggs one at a time, then throw in your applesauce, butter or oil and bananas. Fold in the mini chips, but try not to overmix. You want the mixture to be mushy and lumpy. Sounds attractive, right?

Leave them in for 12-15 minutes. Mine were done in exactly 13 minutes, because I am Eyeore and the number most New York City buildings try to avoid seems to visit me pretty often. Uhh… anyway, take them out when the tops are slightly browned and a toothpick inserted comes out just a bit moist.

I kept a couple of these behind, just to test them/cheer me up. Here’s what the inside looked like before I devoured it.

Who am I kidding? Just looking at this picture makes me feel better. I’m going to go listen to some Phoenix and eat another muffin. Deuces, homies.