These banana muffins made with 100% whole wheat will fill your house with a wonderful aroma. They are perfectly sweetened with ripe bananas and coconut sugar, very moist and have a crunchy exterior when they are fresh out of the oven.
Although I’ve given up white flour, refined sugar, AND breakfast, I can never give up banana muffins.
That’s how much I love them.
They are easy to make, and ripe bananas are always available around the house.
The banana muffin recipe I use has evolved better and healthier over time.
Nowadays I buy non-GMO, non-radiated whole wheat berries, store them in the freezer, and ground the amount I need using a Vitamix dry-grain container.
It took only 1 minute to ground 1 cup of wheat berries.
Freshly ground whole wheat flour may be a little coarser than the store bought, but tastes much better and more nutritious. My kids used to complain about whole wheat baked goods, but now they cannot even taste the whole wheat in these banana muffins.
Whole wheat flour contains germ and oil, which make it easier to go rancid than refined white flour. In this case, the freshness of the flour can determine the taste of the baked muffins.
If you cannot ground your own flour, try to buy the freshest whole wheat flour you can find, and keep it in your freezer until you are ready to use them.
One thing I want to make clear is this recipe can be baked in muffin tins or a loaf pan. Whichever you’d prefer.
I like to bake mine in muffin tins.
Because:
- It takes less time to bake. (baking time for muffins is about 20 minutes and for bread is about 55 minutes.)
- We get more crispy edges since there are more surface areas touching the metal tins. (We used to fight over who gets the end pieces if it is baked in an oblong bread pan.)
- Portion control is so much easier.
- I hate to clean bread crumbs. (And you have to wait much longer before you can cut into a big loaf of banana bread)
Of course, I also thought of the inconvenient parts:
1.You have to fill 12 tins instead of one. But you can easily remedy it by using an ice cream scoop to fill the pan with even portions.
2.You have to clean 12 small wells instead of a big loaf pan. I use sometimes the cupcake liners to make cleaning a breeze, but you won’t get the same kind of crispiness all around each muffin.
These muffins are banana-y, perfectly sweetened, moist, and have a crunchy exterior when they are fresh out of the oven.
The baked goods are as good as the ingredients you put into them. These banana muffins are not only blessed with freshly ground whole grain flour but also sweetened with ripe bananas and coconut sugar.
Coconut sugar is dark as brown sugar and aromatic but does not add a distinctive coconut flavor to the finished muffins. It has a much lower glycemic index, only 35, in comparison to 65 of refined white sugar. (The Glycemic Index (GI) is a scale that ranks food rich in carbohydrates by how they affect blood sugar levels in the body compared to glucose, whose index is 100).
Coconut sugar is truly an easy replacement for white refined sugar in almost any baking recipes. We have been totally off refined sugar for quite a while now and have not at all missed it.
A word on the chocolate chips, those are definitely not sugar-free chocolate chips, they are not essential to the recipe so you can totally omit them. I made the half of batch with them and the other half without. They just add a little bit of excitement for the kids. I ask my girls to help to push the chocolate chips into the muffins one by one and they loved it. Adding 2 chips per muffin is quite enough to satisfy my little ones, so no need to put more.
Even homemade baked goods without refined sugar and white flour are healthier, I still think they should stay as treats instead of what you consume every day.
I feel with age we have less tolerance for carbohydrate. Before I had children, I could eat a bunch of bread, rice and don’t notice a big impact on my weight. These days those refined carbohydrates just show up very easily on my waistline.
So I trust you to decide how often you will make these treats.
But enjoy them every time you do.
Qi
100% whole wheat banana muffins without refined sugar
Prep
Inactive
Total
Yield 12 muffins
Ingredients
- 1.5 cup (210 g) whole wheat flour (store bought or ground from 1 cup of whole wheat kernels)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 cup (70g) coconut sugar
- 1 cup walnut, toasted
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 ripe bananas (previously frozen ones are ok)
- 2 eggs
- 1 stick butter
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Some chocolate chips for decoration (optional)
Instructions
- Put the oven rack in the middle position and heat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC).
- Break walnuts into small pieces and toast them for 3-5 minutes. Let them cool.
- Melt the butter, and let it cool slightly.
- Sift whole wheat flour, baking soda, coconut sugar, and salt together. Then add walnut pieces, coat them well in the flour mixture.
- Beat lightly the eggs, add the vanilla extract and mashed bananas (can have small chunky pieces). Pour melted butter into the egg mixture and blend everything well.
- Add wet mixture into the dry mixture and mix until no dry spots are visible.
- Divide the batter into 12 muffin tins.*
- Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes and after that, remove them carefully.
Notes
*The batter can also be baked in a 9”x5” metal loaf pan, for 55-60 minutes.
If you want to support me, you can purchase these printable Thanksgiving cards from my Etsy shop. Click the images below to be directed to Etsy.
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