Description
These luscious, fluffy, Vegan Chocolate Banana Muffins are an easy snack or dessert especially when you've got some ripe bananas just chilling on the counter. Fun for kids to make too and easily customizable, these muffins are free of refined sugar, soy, gluten, nuts (leave out walnuts) so enjoy!
Vegan, Oil-free, Gluten-free, Refined Sugar-free, Soy-free, Can be Nut-free
Ingredients
Wet
- 2 spotty bananas, mashed (about 2/3 cup)
- 1 cup unsweetened nondairy milk
- 2/3 cup maple syrup (see note 1)
- 1/3 cup coconut sugar (see note 1)
- 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flaxseed + 6 tbsp water) (see note 2)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Dry
- 2 cups 1:1 Gluten-Free Flour (use all purpose flour if not GF, or see note 3)
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 4 tbsp cacao powder or cocoa powder (see note 4)
- 1 tsp salt (or less, but the flavor is so good with chocolate)
- 1/3 cup walnuts, peanuts, or dairy-free chocolate chips + more for topping, optional
Instructions
- Make your flax egg and place it in the fridge. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (or 177 degrees C).
- Mix your wet ingredients together in a bowl. Don't forget the flax eggs once they've cured (within 5 minutes of placing in fridge).
- Shake your sifted flours over the top so they cover the majority of the liquid. BEFORE YOU STIR, sprinkle on your other dry ingredients. Use your spatula to gently fold and mix the ingredients, scraping the sides and the bottom of the bowl as you mix so you're not over mixing and compromising the batter's ability to rise. If using any add-ins like walnuts or chocolate chips, fold them in now.
- I HIGHLY recommend using a silicone muffin tin to avoid using oil or liners.
- Use a quarter cup measurement to add batter to each muffin slot. I like this silicone and metal muffin tin hybrid as it's got the structure of a metal muffin tin but the cups are made of food grade silicone.
- Lightly press a few walnuts, peanuts, or dairy-free chocolate chips into the top of each muffin if desired.
- Bake the muffins for 30 - 35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- Let them cool in the pan for about 20 minutes. The centers will solidify a bit more. This is a crucial time for the crumb to form.
- Pop out each muffin and enjoy!
- Store in an airtight container up to 4-5 days.
Notes
Note 1: To replace some of the sugar, you could use up to two extra bananas and reduce the coconut sugar and maple syrup by 50 percent. If using regular cane sugar, I'd just use 2/3 cup and omit the maple syrup since cane sugar is sweeter than coconut sugar.
Note 2: If you don't have flax for the eggs, you could use chia seeds, an additional banana, applesauce, pumpkin, aquafaba, or a powdered egg replacer.
Note 3: You can use regular all purpose flour or 1:1 gluten-free flour. You could also grind oats into a fine powder and use those, or use a mixture of almond and oat flour like I did in my banana bread (link).
Note 4: The difference between cacao powder and cocoa powder is in the processing. Cacao powder is ground cacao beans. Cocoa powder is processed in addition to being ground. Totally up to you which you use.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Category: Breakfast, Snack
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Vegan, Oil-free, Gluten-free, Refined Sugar-free, Soy-free, Can be Nut-free, Muffins, Breakfast, Meal Prep