Thursday, December 31, 2009

Vegan Spelt Banana Nut or Chocolate Muffins


What's a gal to do when there are too many nanners in the house to eat up? Duh.

These are so scrummy! I just love whole spelt flour...tastes so much better than whole wheat in my opinion.  Finally, a banana bread recipe that is pretty darn healthy compared to most.  I think it tastes way better than the butter laden ones to boot.

If you'd rather bake up a loaf, this fits nicely in an 4.5" x 8.5" loaf pan and would cook in about 42 minutes according to the original (pre-tweeking) recipe I found on Recipe Zaar.

Update: This has been my go-to banana bread recipe since the first time I made it. I know they're not vegan when made this way, but I now usually add 3/4 of a bar of Lindt "Touch of Sea Salt" chocolate; chopped, and about 1/3-1/2 cup nuts (if the Monster lets me get away with it).
This usually yields more like 9-10 muffins.

Vegan Spelt Banana Nut and/or Chocolate Muffins:

4 medium ripe bananas (I like to freeze the bananas in the peel, thaw them, pull off their bums and squirt out the innards, then whiz them up with a stick blender to smooth them out.  You might have to heat them in the microwave after blending to warm them enough that your coconut oil doesn't seize up, if using)
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
3 Tbs grapeseed, canola, other healthful neutral flavored oil, or even hazelnut or walnut oil if you want to play up the nuttiness of the muffins (I've been using extra-virgin coconut oil lately...yum!)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups whole spelt flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
~3/4 cup walnuts or pecans (I've made this recipe so many times now and settled on using a combo of 8 squares chopped Lindt Touch of Sea Salt dark chocolate bar + a generous 1/3 cup walnuts)

Heat oven to 350.
Oil muffin tin (or loaf pan...cooking for ~42 min).
In a bowl, mash bananas then add maple syrup, oil, and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, sift together spelt flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
Blend the wet and dry mixtures, then fold in nuts or chocolate chips.
Pour into oiled muffin tin and bake for about 23-25 minutes, or until tops just spring back upon applying gentle pressure and or a toothpick comes out cleanly.
Remove from oven and let cool in tin for about 5 minutes.
Remove from tin and place on a rack to finish cooling.
I do highly recommend at least one or 2 "sample" muffins eaten warm.

2 comments:

Recipeas4u said...

Omg the best! Think even my monster will love these muffins. Chocolate definitely made them out of this world. Thanks for breakfast and good conversation!

Anonymous said...

These are amazing! Thank you!