Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ryan's favorite thing to eat for breakfast is mini chocolate chip muffins. I usually buy the Betty Crocker packets for 88 cents, add water, and call it good, but thought I should try to look for something with a small amount of nutritional value if I'm really going to use these as a breakfast food and not a snack.

After scouring the 'net (that's what I hear the kids are calling it these days) for a decent chocolate chip muffin recipe, I ended up veering in another direction, starting with this Banana Oat Muffin recipe from allrecipes.com, using the top commenter's suggestion for the applesauce substitute, and threw in the chocolate chips because I'm sorry...have we met? The result tastes nothing like my cheap packet mix, but my two-year-old loved them and they worked well for little hands (homemade muffins tend to crumble in little fingers but these were dense enough to hold up to the abuse).

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg (have heard you can substitute 2 egg whites, but did not try)
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 large bananas)
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (less if you want, but your loss)

Directions

1. Combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat the egg lightly. Stir in the milk, applesauce, and vanilla. Add the mashed banana, and combine thoroughly. Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined. 
3. Fill muffin tins 1/2 to 2/3 full. This recipe makes 12 regular-sized muffins (use paper liners) AND 24 mini muffins (spray well).
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 18 minutes (large muffins) or 10 minutes (mini muffins).
5. Cool in tins for a few minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the mini muffin cups (I use an offset rounded-tip spreader) and cool muffins completely on wire rack.

I'd like to see how these hold up in the freezer so I can make a large batch and just pull some out the night before to thaw for breakfast, otherwise these are about 15x the work of the Betty Crocket packet and definitely more expensive, but have slightly higher breakfast-credentials.