The Best Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe, with Love.

Is your muffin vegan?

Would you like us to assign someone to veganize your muffin?

Excuse me, are those non vegan muffins bothering you?

Jason, why aren’t your muffins vegan?

.

Well, I’m here to veganize your muffins, and though we’re not here to discuss a millennial classic such as Mean Girls, we will be indulging in a clean and delicious vegan muffin recipe together.

I know what you might be thinking: Are vegan muffins ever as good as regular muffins? Will my non vegan husband and picky kids even like this muffin? Is it really worth my time if they don’t. Plus, I’ll probably need all kinds of fancy vegan substitutes that I don’t have on hand.

I hear you on all of those concerns and I’ll let you in on a little secret; no one will know these muffins are vegan unless you tell them.

I’m positive your picky kids will love these muffins, unless they don’t like chocolatey, sweet, and fluffy treats. In that case, you might be out of luck.

Your non vegan hubby will love these muffins too because they’re filling and taste just like a good banana chocolate chip muffin should, and better.

It’s definitely worth your time because they don’t actually take too long and whoever you serve them to will likely be fighting over the last one. It always feels great to make something where everyone is left wanting more right?

Best of all, you don’t need any fancy substitutes and you’ll see through the recipe how easy it is to make them with ingredients you likely have in your pantry.

As a kid, I always loved waking up on occasional school mornings to the sweet smell of banana chocolate chip muffins baking away in the oven. It was a guaranteed good day when the morning started off sweet.

My mum was a great muffin baker and over the years her recipe has improved a ton. Now she includes healthy fibres, wild blueberries, vegan chocolate, and protein packed nuts and seeds in each batch.

I won’t be sharing her recipe with you today because kids aren’t always a fan of fruits and nuts in their muffins and like I said, I’m positive your kids will like these ones. I always loved my mums muffins because they were made with her love and nothing tastes quite as good as something your mama makes for you with love, so be sure to include a loving intention as you make these for your special someones and they'll be sure to love it.

Over the years, my mums muffin baking skills have gone from Betty Crocker muffin mixes to nutritiously filled, from scratch, baked with love goodies and I’d like to think I played a role in that lifestyle upgrade.

When I decided to go vegan I learned to experiment and explore with my creativity in the kitchen. I was determined to make all my non vegan comforts just as comforting and delicious with my new way of cooking and baking. That meant creating the perfect muffin was on my list of "to bakes".

During this process, my mum got to try a lot of my creations and always supported my desire to explore plant based cooking and baking. She was always curious about how to make things healthier and how to use different ingredients to create the same effects we were looking for.

Now, she has me to thank for her better tasting and more nutritious muffin recipe and I have her to thank for my willingness to explore and be creative in the kitchen.

If it weren’t for that, we wouldn't be here, sharing in this decadent vegan banana chocolate chip muffin recipe.

Enjoy creating and savouring this treat, and remember; cook with a loving heart for best results.

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas

2 heaping tablespoons of almond butter

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 cup coconut sugar

6 tablespoons of almond milk

1 cup of flour (I used Bob's Red Mills 1:1 Gluten Free Blend)

1/2 cup of coconut

1/2 cup dairy free chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees and grease muffin trays with a bit of healthy oil, such as avocado oil. You can also use paper muffin cups if you’d prefer.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mash all three bananas until most lumps are gone. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just want them nicely mashed together.

3. Stir in the salt, vanilla, baking soda, and coconut sugar. Mix for a minute or two untill it looks well combined.

4. Add flour and coconut to the mixture and stir until fully combined.

5. Stir in the chocolate chips until they appear evenly distributed in the batter.

6. Scoup the mixtue into your muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing and storing.

Notes:

1. You can use any type of flour. I used Bob’s gluten free flour mix but this recipe will work with any flour you choose. It might not taste great with chickpea flour so don’t go using that and blaming me when it tastes weird.

2. You can sub the almond butter for any other kind of nut butter you might prefer or wish to experiment with. You could even do applesauce if you want to keep the nuts to a minimum.

3. You can use any kind of sugar here as well. I like to use coconut because it’s nicely sweet and not as intense for the body as white sugar. It’s a healthier option in my opinion but still helps with binding and stickiness.

4. You can use any kind of plant based milk and it won’t effect the recipe at all.

5. If you didn’t want to put coconut in the recipe you could add something like flax meal to increase fibre, or simply add some extra flour.

6. Feel free to add any other mix ins that you want to taste in your muffin. Maybe some wild blueberries and walnuts like my mum enjoys or some chopped nuts and extra chocolate chips.

You can get really creative with this recipe and I encourage you to do just that. The kitchen can become a very fun place when you start to explore the plant based way.