Banana Chocolate Swirl Muffins – Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

These banana chocolate swirl muffins hold all the delight of a moist, fluffy banana muffin with delicious ribbons of chocolate throughout!

Banana bread meets muffin meets perfect hint of chocolate. And the result is one incredibly tasty muffin! This recipe is so easy and the baked muffins are stunning.

Easy Method for Making Two Flavors of Muffin Batter

To get the delightful swirls of chocolate in the banana muffins, we need both regular banana muffin batter and chocolate muffin batter.

However, instead of making two separate batter start to finish, there’s a clever, quick way to choc-ify a portion of the batter. Here’s how to do it:

1. Make the regular batter per the recipe (spoiler alert: it’s a super easy one-bowl recipe).
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together cocoa powder and boiling water until smooth.
3. Scoop in some of the banana batter to the chocolate mixture and stir to combine.

And that’s it! Two flavors of banana batter ready to go!

How to Assemble Banana Chocolate Swirl Muffins

For the muffins, it’s helpful to keep in mind a few things:

• Don’t over think or over stress about how to layer the batter in the muffin cups. It doesn’t have to be perfect!
• Each muffin cup will have about 1/4 cup of batter total (I use a USA brand muffin tin {aff. link} – best muffin tin ever – if your muffin tin has smaller/different size cups, you may get more or less muffins out of the batch, and you may need to use less batter so the muffins don’t overflow).
• There is MORE plain banana batter than chocolate batter, which means each muffin cup will have about 3 tablespoons regular banana batter and a heaping one tablespoon of chocolate batter (layered in four parts).
• The layers go as follows: regular banana batter, chocolate, regular, chocolate.
• It’s ok if there is extra batter – just take a look at the muffins and add tiny scoops here and there until everything is evened out and the cups all have about the same amount of batter.
• Despite the name of the recipe, don’t swirl the muffin batters together once layered!

It’s ok if the muffins aren’t completely uniform with the exact same amount of batter in each muffin cup! They are delicious no matter how they’re layered, I promise.

A Tried-and-Tested Recipe

I tested these muffins out many times to get them just right. My kids were delighted each time.

“Oh, it’s THOSE muffins – yay!”

Not only are the muffins really fun to make (like, seriously, HAVE FUN WITH IT), but they are stunning in appearance.

The delectable banana muffin batter is made infinitely better by the tasty dark ribbons of chocolate batter running throughout.

Final Thoughts

You’ll notice that the chocolate presence in these banana chocolate swirl muffins is definitely not overpowering.

The chocolate swirls are a minimalistic but much-appreciated addition to the classic flavors of the fluffy banana muffin.

There’s just enough chocolate to keep things interesting while still keeping the muffins solidly in the “still-appropriate-for-breakfast” territory. Although, if we’re being honest with each other in this very safe corner of the internet, I feel there is nothing wrong with an all-chocolate muffin (ahem, or cupcake) for breakfast, either. But still, you get my point.

Basically, all you really need to know is that these muffins are exceptionally good. And you should make them. Like, immediately.

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Banana Chocolate Swirl Muffins

Yield: 18 muffins

Prep Time: 25 minutes mins

Cook Time: 16 minutes mins

Total Time: 41 minutes mins

• 1 ½ cups (425 g) mashed bananas, about 4 medium bananas (see note)
• ½ cup (106 g) granulated sugar
• ½ cup (106 g) packed light brown sugar
• ⅓ cup (61 g) neutral-flavored oil (like canola, vegetable, grapeseed, avocado)
• ⅓ cup (74 g) sour cream
• 2 large (100 g) eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 ⅓ cups (331 g) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ cup (22 g) cocoa powder (natural, unsweetened or Dutch-process)
• ¼ cup (55 g) boiling or VERY hot water
• Coarse sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. (If using a dark-coated pan, reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F.) Line a muffin tin with paper liners. This recipe makes about 18 muffins, so you’ll need to bake a second smaller batch (or use a second muffin tin).

• In a large bowl, add the bananas, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Whisk together until well combined.

• Add the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Mix until no dry streaks remain (batter will be slightly lumpy; that’s ok…don’t over mix).

• In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder and boiling water until smooth. Add 1 1/4 cups (325 g) of the banana batter to the chocolate mixture and mix until combined and no streaks of light colored batter remain (again, try not to over mix).

• Into each muffin cup: scoop about 1 1/2 tablespoons banana batter, followed by a scant 1 tablespoon of chocolate batter, followed by another 1 1/2 tablespoons of banana batter, and finishing with another teaspoon or so of chocolate batter. SEE NOTE BELOW FOR ADDITIONAL TIPS ON FILLING THE MUFFIN CUPS and what to do with extra batter.

• Sprinkle a light dusting of coarse sugar over the muffin cups, if desired.

• Bake for 17 to 19 minutes until the tops of the muffins spring back lightly to the touch.

• Remove the muffins from the tin to a wire rack to cool completely.

Bananas: use very ripe bananas for the best flavor and mash them thoroughly so there aren’t a lot of large chunks. 
Tips on Filling the Muffin Cups: don’t overthink or stress about this part. Just keep in mind that you want to layer, not swirl, the batters. There is MORE plain banana batter than chocolate batter, so each muffin cup will have more than half plain batter with a few small scoops of chocolate batter. You’ll need about 1/4 cup batter total for each muffin cup. I use a small (#80) cookie scoop for the chocolate batter and a medium (#60) cookie scoop for the plain batter (but I don’t fill the cookie scoops all the way since a #80 scoop is about 1 tablespoon and a #60 scoop is about 2 tablespoons). 
It’s ok if there is extra batter – just take a look at the muffins and add tiny scoops here and there until everything is evened out and the cups all have about the same amount of batter.
I use a USA brand muffin tin. If the muffin tin you are using has slightly smaller/different size muffin cups, you may get more or less muffins out of the batch. Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 or slightly fuller with batter (if you live at high altitude, don’t fill the muffin tins quite as full). 

Author: Mel

Course: Bread

Cuisine: American

Method: Bake

Serving: 1 muffin, Calories: 177kcal, Carbohydrates: 29g, Protein: 3g, Fat: 6g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 23mg, Sodium: 186mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 14g

Recipe Source: from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe (inspired by a recipe in Bake From Scratch magazine)