This has become a fav go-to way of using up ripe bananas. It’s so easy which apart from needing to melt butter, requires very little time from start to finish. You just throw all ingredients together and mix (love this sort of baking!). It’s a nice one for the very busy and for young children to get involved in.
This recipe is also extremely flexible, you can add chocolate chips, nuts, seeds, dried coconut, vegetables such as grated zucchini, cocoa or cacao powder. You can also use various flours and oils instead of butter.. for example coconut or olive oil. So many options!
Ingredients
- 3 ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla essence or extract
- 75 g (~1/3 cup) melted butter or oil of choice (e.g. olive, coconut or sunflower)
- 1 3/4 cups plain flour (I’ve tried using wheat, buckwheat and GF flours, these all work well)
- 2-3 Tbsp. sugar or alternative sweetener e.g. honey or maple syrup (these don’t need a lot of sweetener because of of the amount of fruit, but you can add more if you prefer sweeter muffins)
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 cup berries (frozen or fresh)
Recommended additional ingredients:
- Chocolate chips or dark chocolate pieces (I often break up a 100g block of 70% Lindt chocolate and add to the mixture of these muffins – a highly recommended addition)
- Nuts (walnuts are lovely!)
- Seeds
- Cocoa or Cacao (I suggest adding 2 Tbsp for a real chocolatey muffin)
- Coconut flakes or shredded coconut
- Oats (try substituting 1/2 cup of flour for 1/2 cup oats, this works really well)
Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
In a bowl, mix banana, egg, butter, sugar, cinnamon. Then add flour, baking soda, and baking powder fold through mix until all is combined. Then add berries and stir through (be careful not to overmix). Spoon into a muffin tin or paper muffin cups and bake for 10-15mins or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
If you love icing your muffins, a nice thick dollop of butter icing would work beautifully (soft butter mixed with icing sugar, lemon rind). I also suggest trying a mixture of natural or Greek-style yoghurt, a little icing sugar or maple syrup and lemon rind.
Gestational Diabetes –
These muffins are easy and very yummy. Due to the banana content, flour, sweetener and berries they are not super suitable for GDM however if you would like to make a batch I would suggest following the recipe and using only 1 Tablespoon of maple syrup plus only 1/2 a cup of mixed berries. If you make 12 muffins, half a muffin (only) with a cup of tea should be a suitable and safe snack for most women with GDM. If unsure however I recommend you speak with Dietitian or feel free to reach out to me via email or social media (there are also a few other more suitable snack recipes on here so you might like to have a browse).
Lara x
