Chocolate Banana Muffins

There is a brief stage in a banana's life when nobody wants to eat it but everybody suddenly has plans for it. Once the peel is heavily spotted and the fruit has gone soft, the starches have converted enough that those bananas bring sweetness, moisture, and stronger banana flavor to batter. Three very ripe bananas do the work here, backed up by brown sugar, melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla, and enough semisweet chocolate chips to keep this from being mistaken for a wellness initiative.

The mixing is deliberately simple: dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another, then combine only until the flour disappears. Overmixing develops gluten and takes muffins from tender to weirdly bouncy, which is an impressive amount of damage to accomplish with a wooden spoon. Fill the cups about three-quarters full and bake at 375°F until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs rather than wet batter. These land somewhere between banana bread and a chocolate-chip muffin, with a soft crumb, crisp little edges, and melted chocolate throughout. Let them cool for five minutes before moving them to a rack. Or burn your fingers peeling off the paper immediately. History suggests somebody in the house will choose that option.