©2017 Food Cookture – Super Healthy Muffins

My friend Gabi sent me a simple, gluten-free muffin recipe, knowing I would love it – and she was right! But I also love tweaking recipes to make them even healthier, when possible.  So for this recipe, I added an extra banana to make it into a “banana muffin” (for a subtler flavor, remove 1 banana from the recipe) and added lots of extra nutritious ingredients (hemp seeds, turmeric, nuts, oats) to make it even more of a guilt-free treat.  I also substituted honey and maple syrup for the sugar and added spices to “sweeten” the flavor without adding extra sugar.  My friend’s recipe called for apple-cider vinegar and baking soda as the leavening agent, but I substituted them for baking powder.  If you use vinegar + baking soda as your leavening agent, you need to bake the batter right away.  Since I often bake 2 separate batches, my batter sits for a while, so in this case it’s always best to use baking powder since it’s a more stable leavening agent and can stand to wait a little before baking.  The original recipe called for 1 ½ cups of almond butter, I mixed it up by adding almond meal, oats, hemp seeds and walnuts to the almond butter for extra flavor.  I tried adding some protein powder to one batch but I could taste it in the muffin and didn’t like it, so I’ve added other good sources of protein, but feel free to experiment, this recipe is very flexible.  You can also substitute peanut butter for the almond butter and add raisins or chopped prunes, or even chocolate chips if you need it to be a richer treat.

Super Healthy Muffins (High Protein, Gluten-Free)
Yields: 2 dozen muffins
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Temperature: 400◦F (200◦C)

Ingredients

• 3 bananas, mashed (use 4 if you want banana muffins)
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup of almond meal (ground almonds)
• ½ cup of almond butter
• ½ – ¾ cups of walnuts, in pieces
• ½ cup of oats (gluten-free, steel-cut, not instant) – ground/powdered to use as a flour, plus extra whole oats for decoration
• ½ cup of hemp seeds
• 2 TBL of melted coconut oil, organic (more for greasing if not using muffin baking cups)
• 1 TBL of organic honey
• 1 TBL of maple syrup
  • Note: you can use 2 TBLs of honey or maple syrup instead of a combination of them
• Dash of pink Himalayan salt
• ½ TBL of baking powder
  • Note: you can substitute the baking powder for 1 ½ tsp of unfiltered apple cider vinegar with ¾ tsp of baking soda (but entire batter will need to be baked right away)
• Dash of turmeric (optional)
• ½ tsp of cinnamon (optional)
• ½ tsp of pumpkin spice (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400◦F (200◦C).
2. Grind almonds and oats if needed ahead of time, chop walnuts, mash the bananas and set aside.
3. Add the eggs to the mashed bananas and mix well until eggs are incorporated. Add the melted coconut oil and almond butter and mix until combined. Mix in remaining ingredients.
4. Line muffin pan with baking cups (or use coconut oil to grease the pan).
   • Note: if greasing the pan with coconut oil and not using muffin baking cups, you will need to carefully remove the muffins (with a rubber spatula or a knife) as soon as they come out of the oven, otherwise they will stick to the pan as they cool.
5. Fill muffin pan and sprinkle whole oats on top for decoration (optional).
6. Bake 400◦F (200◦C) for 15 minutes or until muffins are golden brown.
7. Since this recipe uses natural and more perishable ingredients, it will not last more than a couple of days outside of the fridge. You can also freeze the remainder of the muffins if not serving them all right away (wrap them well and freeze, you can thaw it out in the fridge overnight or at room temperature for several hours).

I hope you enjoy this super healthy muffin recipe!