Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

I’ve always found people love you best if you can laugh at your own foolish misfortunes and keep mum about everyone else’s.
— Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer
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Does anyone else still have mixed feelings when it comes to overripe bananas? A slight feeling like damn, I can’t believe I didn’t eat these fast enough combined with nice! Now I can freeze these babies for smoothies or chuck them in some baked good!! because that’s exactly how I feel every time.

Now that our little almost one-year-old (what the heck!!) is eating like a full-grown adult, he can down a full banana to himself! We have gone through being able to buy a bunch or two of bananas for the week to it now only lasting a few days, honestly, we just need our own tree in the yard! Last week, I went overboard and bought 4+ bunches because I reallllyyy didn’t want to go to the grocery store more than I truly needed to, but then the joke was truly on me. Surprisingly, that many bananas doesn’t last long in this house either because we can’t eat them fast enough! Moral of the story, suck it up, go get a new bunch every few days, and deal with the fact that you no longer have a tiny babe anymore! Ugh. The tears!

And so, here we have this recipe. I froze maybe 4-5 bananas for smoothies, and then I took a couple of very ripe ones and made them into these vegan muffins! Bananas are an incredible replacement for eggs, by the way! They are also very lightly sweetened, just some maple + the bananas, oh and some chocolate chips (duh!). You can add in whatever mix-ins you want—we learned that Oliver is not a walnut fan at the moment—and voilà! What’s the best part?! Because these are egg-free, you can feed the batter to your little one! I gave O the tiniest taste and it was so exciting!! He still isn’t eating chocolate, so we had to pick out the chips from the baked muffins (I didn’t think of this beforehand!), and they were a huge hit!!

With a husband who doesn’t love overly sweet things, a one-year-old who doesn’t consume much sugar at all, and me, who is trying to slightly cut back on my sugar obsession, these are PERFECT. Seriously, they check every single, delicious box! Now is the time to say bye to the banana bread you once knew and loved and up-level with these vegan muffins instead!

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ingredients

Flour—10 oz, or 2 C

Oats—7 oz, or 2 C

Baking Powder—2 tsp

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Cinnamon—3 tsp

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Salt—1 ½ tsp

Walnuts, chopped—4 oz, or 1 C

Maple Syrup—5 oz, or ½ C

Oat Milk—6 oz, or ¾ C

Bananas, mashed—2 medium

Vanilla Extract—2 tsp

Coconut Oil or Butter, melted—4 oz, or ½ C, or 8 TBL

Chocolate Chips, mini—7 oz, or 1 C

 

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

In a large bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and walnuts; mix.

In another bowl, combine your wet ingredients: maple syrup, oat milk, bananas, vanilla extract and your oil of choice.

Add in your wet to the dry and mix until just combined.

Fold in your chocolate chips.

Fill your muffin cups about ¾ of the way full; bake for 15 minutes, rotate, bake another 10-12 minutes. Because these are vegan, and have no eggs, if you want the center softer, then reduce the time!

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan and eating!

 

Bon Appétit!