Flourless Banana Muffins
These are sweetened only with bananas and are dairy free, paleo, AIP, grain free and full GAPS compliant. My five year old daughter made these almost entirely by herself ( I helped with the oven part), and my seven year old calls them heavenly- especially when butter is spread over the top like icing!
GAPS
If you are interested in learning what the GAPS diet is please click HERE. My kids have been on full GAPS for 3 weeks now and I can tell their taste buds have changed. They no longer need things to be extra sweet to enjoy them. Before going on GAPS, I would have put a half a cup of maple syrup in our banana muffins. But now, just adding the extra ripe bananas is all the sweetness we need. My kids also enjoy their yogurt now with only a tiny drizzle of honey or just with some fruit. At first they were constantly passing the honey around to add more to their food. Now it’s rarely asked for, and at dinner time, they are so much happier and really enjoying every meal I make. Even a creamy tomato soup. This kind of soup was something I made in the past and it was highly rejected. Yesterday they ate it and made many “mmm” sounds!
We have tried quite a few GAPS recipes, and some of them have a more mushy texture that not everybody enjoys. But this recipe has the texture of a “normal” muffin. Next, we want to try adding shredded zucchini or blueberries!
Ingredients
Only 8 ingredients; bananas, eggs, coconut butter, coconut oil, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and vanilla. For the bananas, I highly recommend that they have lots of brown spots. If you want your muffins a touch more on the sweeter side, feel free to add 1/4 cup of honey or date paste. If using date paste, soak 6-10 dates in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain most of the water, (I like to leave 1 Tb or so in to help blend the dates) and process in your food processor until nice and smooth. Add this into the rest of your ingredients and combine.
Why Coconut Butter?
Coconut butter is a saturated fat. Saturated fats have been demonized for years, but the truth is they are incredibly beneficial! They play a vital role in the health of our bones. For calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal structure, at least 50 percent of the dietary fats should be saturated. Saturated fats protect the liver from alcohol and other toxins, they enhance the immune system, they have antimicrobial properties that protect us against harmful microorganisms in the digestive tract, they are needed for the proper utilization of essential fatty acids, and so much more.
If you’ve never heard of coconut butter, it is the meat of the coconut all blended into a creamy nut butter like consistency. It is delicious spread on anything, and baked into these muffins!
How To Make the Muffins
The process is actually quite simple. First you start off with a jar of coconut butter. This will be 15 oz or 425g. You can buy it HERE. In a deep pot, add water and bring to a simmer. Add your jar to the water and let simmer on very low for about 20-25 minutes. Carefully remove the jar and allow it to cool just enough to handle. The coconut butter is quite solid when its at room temperature, so in order to stir it into our other ingredients, we need it warm and soft. Then you simply add all the other ingredients, with the option of adding honey or date paste, combine, scoop into your muffin pans and bake for about 30 minutes.
I have made my own coconut butter many times for this recipe. Yes, that may seem bananas! But, it is a bit cheaper. I buy my shredded coconut from HERE and I blend it very well in my food processor. I use about 8 cups for each batch. I like it very creamy, so after that it goes in my food processor for a while, I add it to my Vitamix and blend some more. If at any point it needs a bit of help blending, I add a small scoop of coconut oil. When I’m satisfied with the consistency, I measure out 2 cups for my muffins. Usually my 8 cups is about perfect for this recipe. So after it’s all blended, I just add all my other ingredients to my vitamix and blend on low. Then I scoop into my muffin tray and bake! Yup, a bit of a process. So I make a lot all at once and store it in mason jars in my pantry. Or you can simply buy a jar!! Comment below if you’d like a video on how I do this, and please let me know how your muffins turn out and what changes you made, if any. I would love to hear from you!
Grain Free Banana Muffins – Full GAPS
Equipment
- 1 Muffin Pan
Ingredients
- 4 Overripe bananas, mashed
- 5 Eggs
- 2 Cups Coconut butter/Manna
- 1/2 Cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp Baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
Instructions
- Soften the coconut butter by putting the jar into a tall pot of simmering water. This takes around 20-30 minutes. Simmer it on low. (I like to check after 20 minutes. It needs to be creamy and smooth.)
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Prepare your muffin pan by greasing or lining with muffin liners (I love the parchment paper ones as I find they stick the least).
- Add all ingredients to a medium sized mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add any additional sweeteners if needed, such as honey or date paste, as well as any additions you might like to add, such as blueberries or shredded zucchini (optional).
- Scoop into your prepared muffin pan (I love using a good quality ice cream scoop for this step).
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.