Vegan Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I work at a bakery, which is pretty ironic considering that I can’t eat 99% of the product that we sell. Lucky for me we do have delicious gluten free and vegan muffins (yay!). Honest to God the vegan muffins that we sell are better than most regular muffins that I’ve had in my lifetime, no joke. Since I love these muffins so much I decided to have a go at making them at home. In my version I swapped refined sugar for maple syrup and I used a blend of chickpea, almond and buckwheat flour to make it not only gluten free, but grain free as well. The three flour blend gives the muffins a very nice texture, I’m quite pleased with how they turned out.
A Note on Alternative Flours
Playing around with alternative flours can be really fun. In this recipe I used some of my favourite alternatives, almond, chickpea and buckwheat, and I thought I should give you guys a little info about why these alternative flours are so great.
Chickpea Flour is made by grinding raw chickpeas and is a nutritional powerhouse as far as gluten free flours go. It’s packed with fibre, protein and iron. To give you a bit of perspective, one cup of chickpea flour contains 10 grams of fibre and 21 grams of protein and 25% of the daily iron recommendation, whereas one cup of standard all purpose flour contains 3.4 grams of fibre, 13 grams of protein and 8% of the daily recommended iron intake. Ding, ding, ding chickpea flour is our winner!
Almond Flour is made by blanching (removing the skins) of the almond and grinding them into a fine flour. Almond flour has a much higher fat content than standard flour (healthy fats of course) and keeps you feeling satisfied longer. For my fellow vegetarians out there, this is a great alternative because almonds are naturally high in both iron and calcium, two vitamins that vegetarians tend to be deficient in.
Buckwheat Flour is a product of finely grinding the buckwheat groats (the kernels of the buckwheat plant). Despite its name, buckwheat is not a member of the wheat family and is actually technically a seed, not a grain. It’s low in fat and high in magnesium and fibre. Buckwheat flour also provides a nuttier, richer flavour to baked goods.
I hope you’ll try playing around with some alternative flours to see what works where. I’d love to try working with teff or sorghum flour at some point. I have no idea what to use them in, but practice makes perfect.
Happy baking!
xx
Ashley
Ingredients
- 1 cup mashed ripe banana (approximately 2 large bananas)
- 1/3 cup neutral flavoured oil
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup almond milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup chickpea flour
- 1/2 cup almond flour
- 1/4 cup buckwheat flour
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup dark chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a muffin pan with muffin liners and set aside.
- In a blender, combine all of the wet ingredients and blend until completely smooth.
- In a medium mixing bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients. Pour in the banana mixture and stir well until completely combined. Fold in the chopped chocolate until evenly distributed.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared muffin pan, using a 1/4 cup measure for each muffin.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffin comes out clean.
- Allow to cool for about 10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a cooling wrack. The muffins will keep for up to 4 days in an airtight container.
