Butter-less Banana Muffins

We always have a ton of bananas in the house. They're cheap, healthy, delicious, and even if they don't get eaten they are always usable in muffins (or even frozen for later use in smoothies). 

I make these banana muffins probably about twice a month. They're slightly adapted from the Lion House Banana Bread recipe, and I'm always trying to make them a little healthier than what the original recipe is. I haven't tried reducing the sugar yet, but these are so sweet that I'm sure it's a possibility. What I have done is replace the white flour with whole wheat flour (tastes way better, in my opinion), and the butter with coconut oil. I've used applesauce in place of the butter before with great success, but after reading all about coconut oil, and realizing that I want it to be a bigger part of my diet, I think I'll stick with the coconut oil when I have it on hand. These were so so so yummy! I recommend making them, and making them often. If you don't like the flavor of coconut, rest assured that you really can't even taste the coconut once they're cooked, which was a little bit sad for me. 

Banana Muffins

Preheat oven to 350F

Ingredients:

1/2 c coconut oil (or the same amount of softened butter, shortening, or applesauce instead)

1 cup sugar 

2 eggs

1 cup pureed banana (see notes)

1/4 buttermilk (see notes)

2 cups whole wheat flour (white flour, or a combination of the two)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup chocolate chips (optional, but recommended - or substitute chopped nuts)

Instructions:

Cream sugar and coconut oil. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add pureed bananas and buttermilk (just add the water if you're using powdered buttermilk - see note below). Mix dry ingredients together in a separate bowl (here's where you'd add the powdered buttermilk). Add dry ingredients to wet mixture, and stir till combined. Stir in chocolate chips or nuts. 

Put about 1/4 c of the mixture into a prepared muffin tin (lined or not, but greased either way). bake at 350F for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Cool in the pan for a few minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack. 

Makes 12 muffins and one mini loaf.

I added a little dried coconut to the top of the mini loaf. Haven't tasted it yet, but I'm sure it's tasty.

Notes:

On bananas: I like to puree, rather than mash the bananas. It makes the sweetness really come out, and it's easier and quicker to use the blender than to mash by hand. Also, if the bananas aren't quite sweet enough, you can microwave them for 20-30 seconds before mashing to bring out the sweetness.

On buttermilk: If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can use 1/4 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, or 1/4 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of powdered buttermilk. Powdered milks may vary. so check the label just in case. I keep powdered buttermilk in my cupboard, and it's so easy and way cheaper than buying buttermilk. I prefer to use milk and lemon juice, but we ran out of milk today, and I was so glad I had the powder on hand. It gets really clumpy if you mix it with water, so the way to use it is to sift the powder in with the dry ingredients, and then mix the amount of water called for into the recipe where it calls for buttermilk.

Enjoy! They are delightful.