Healthy Chocolate Banana Muffins

Super satisfying, insanely delicious, Healthy Chocolate Banana Muffins. Fluffy, perfectly sweet and moist, not dry and no mixer required!

Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread? I see you. And I adapted your very popular self into muffin form.

Healthy muffin form that is.

"Healthy muffins" might sound like an oxymoron (ah..I love that word) but in the case of these Healthy Chocolate Banana Muffins it's very true and if you've tried my afore mentioned Chocolate Banana Bread you will know exactly what I mean.

I'm still on the kind of healthy train, shall we say 80% of the time? I think thats about accurate, and healthy for me, needs to be "comfort food healthy".  A pre-requisite of my life is that I have to enjoy my food. If I don't then I am not good company.

Some personal stuff that's been going on of late, has me thinking that life's far too short to not be enjoying every single little thing, and that includes food. And it is perfectly possible to eat crazy good food while still also nourishing our bodies.

And these muffins embody all of that. Just sayin'

These muffins are nutritious - Made with wholegrain flour,  fruit, nut butter (or sunflower seed butter if you don't do nuts), unrefined sugar if you so wish, or whatever other kind you have in your pantry (as well as being nutritious these muffins are very forgiving), and they are not made with oil or vegan butter, and obvi no eggs or dairy because they are vegan.

They are super easy to make - The hardest part of making them is mashing the banana. No special equipment is needed, unless you class a fork as special that is. They can be mixed up and in the oven within 10 minutes. Perfect for when you are having a need muffins & need chocolate kind of moment.

They don't taste healthy - My kind of healthy food! They taste like fluffy, slightly fudgy, banana bread-y chocolate muffins. That is all. There are no healthy undertones. If you're going to the trouble of making and eating a chocolate banana muffin it needs to taste good. Mission accomplished. You can have the best of both worlds. Healthy. Muffins. With chocolate. Because we all deserve a treat!

So, to be clear, my message is, you know those times when you really want to bake? Because it's fun and all that. But you don't want to have to eat super-not healthy cake for days after? Well Healthy Chocolate Banana Muffins are your solution.

In fact, they are healthy enough for breakfast, second breakfast (am I the only greedy being who has a second breakfast? - please tell me I'm not), packed lunches, afternoon snacks, dessert, supper, or just anytime you need a chocolate-y comfort food hit.

WHAT DO I NEED TO MAKE HEALTHY CHOCOLATE BANANA MUFFINS?

These muffins need absolutely no special equipment. No mixer or blender. Just a bowl, a fork and a spatula or spoon. A balloon whisk is nice but not essential.

Here are the ingredients you need:

And you will also need a 12 well muffin pan, or 2 6 well muffin pans.

I can't recommend this USA Pan Muffin Pan enough:

I had always used muffin liners until I got it, and I haven't had to use liners since which is a great way to cut down on unnecessary waste. I grease the wells lightly, just in case, and the muffins pop right out. It bakes so evenly too.  I absolutely love it.

And, as with all of my baking recipes where precision is key to excellent results, I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to measure your ingredients, rather than using cup measurements. This one is cheap (under $10) and works brilliantly:

It has a tare function which is really handy. This means you can place any bowl on the scale and reset to zero so it doesn’t include the weight in it’s calculation, plus you can reset to zero when adding multiple ingredients to the same bowl which saves on washing up. If you do a lot of baking and want optimum results a scale really is a great investment.

HOW TO MAKE HEALTHY CHOCOLATE BANANA MUFFINS

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SEE MY VIDEO FOR A VISUAL GUIDE. FOR INGREDIENTS & FULL INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE SEE THE RECIPE CARD AT THE END OF THIS POST

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These Healthy Chocolate Banana Muffins are really quick and easy to make.

Here's how:

STEP 1

Mash the bananas up with a fork, then add some nut butter (or sunflower seed butter), maple syrup, vanilla extract, sugar and salt.

 STEP 2

Whisk or stir it all up until well combined.

 

STEP 3

Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and chocolate chips and stir well.

  STEP 4

Dollop evenly into a greased or lined muffin pan, sprinkle with some more chocolate chips for good measure, and bake!

 And here's Chester staring at the spot on the floor below the muffins, waiting and wishing for me to drop every single one of them on the floor....

MY TRICK FOR PERFECTLY FORMED MUFFIN TOPS?

Ever bought a muffin in a bakery and admired it's beautiful perfectly formed muffin top because yours always turn out flat and not well risen?

Then tried to recreate the effect yourself at home and ended up with overflowing muffin batter in the bottom of the oven and 399 swear words?

Well swear no more.

The trick to a perfectly domed muffin top is oven temperature. They need an initial, very hot blast, which creates steam that will raise those muffin tops right up from the inside out. Then you need to turn them down after 5 minutes, so that the insides cook through more gently.

I have always advised to do this in my muffin recipes, but I've been told by a few readers that they have ignored me because they thought it was a waste of time and too much faff.

Well, I'm here to tell you that the faff is worth it. It really does make a difference. Not only do they end up taller, they end up fluffier and lighter too because of that extra puffing action.

And so to recap:

• Healthy muffins that taste like dessert
• Um, chocolate cake for breakfast!
• Super easy to make with no special equipment.
• Oil-free and wholegrain
• Perfect for breakfast, lunch boxes, snacks or dessert.

Your day just got a whole lot tastier!