Kid-approved Banana Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

January 8, 2013

I have decided that one of my goals this year is to focus a little more on better nutrition for my two kids. I probably love healthy eating more than the average person – I feel my best when my days are full of green juice, chia pudding, and kale salads and truly enjoy eating this way. But over the past year or so, I have found that while I’m experimenting with new recipes for myself to enjoy, I am falling back into old habits and feeding my kids more processed foods during the day than I would like. So, I’d like to work on swapping out some of their packaged snack foods for more nutritious, real foods.

I am a busy parent of two kids with time and budget constraints just like everyone else. I realize just how convenient it is to toss a granola or cereal bar in the backpack for a snack. But a recent review of the approximately 45 different ingredients in Kellogg’s Nutri Grain Bars (8 of them being different forms of sugar, many ingredients that I cannot pronounce, artificial flavors, and artificial food colorings) leaves me feeling like I can easily do better than this. With just a little effort, I can have make a homemade snack that is not full of an entire day’s worth of sugar, genetically modified foods, and unrecognizable ingredients and still gets the thumbs up from my family.

So, this week I baked up a batch of one of our favorite muffins to pack as a snack throughout the week. My kids love these mini banana chocolate chip muffins based off of the Oil-free Vegan Banana Bread by the vegan cookbook author Dreena Burton of Plant Powered Kitchen. I love that these muffins are full of REAL food ingredients – with no white flour, no white sugar, and no oil. With the addition of a few chocolate chips, my kids think they are getting a treat when in reality they are getting less sugar than a pre-packaged granola bar!

Mini Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from the recipe by Dreena Burton

1 cup white whole-wheat flour or whole-wheat pastry flour

3/4 cup oat flour (oats finely ground in a blender or coffee grinder – grind first, then measure)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup pureed overripe banana (puree bananas in deep cup with an immersion blender, or in a blender or mini food processor. Puree first, then measure)

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/2 cup plain unsweetened non-dairy milk (I like almond milk, but you can use soy or other)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine mashed banana, maple syrup, almond milk, and vanilla. Add wet mixture to dry, fold in chocolate chips, and stir until just combined (very important not to overmix). Lightly grease a mini muffin pan (I use a Misto sprayer filled with grapeseed oil) and fill 2/3 of the way full. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, just until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes approximately 2 1/2 dozen mini muffins.

My kids will be enjoying a couple of these mini muffins with a few apple slices as their afternoon snack this week! I hope you enjoy them too.

Posted in Breakfast, Vegan | Tagged kid friendly, snack, vegan, vegetarian