Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

I love baking banana bread or muffins. It's pretty fast and easy to come together, makes a great snack, and I almost always have a couple of bananas that I have left too long and don't care to eat anymore.

All these reasons gave way to my decision bake them for work. To be honest, I had almost forgotten I signed up for this week's snacks and was kind of scrambling (I also needed to do groceries but it was hubby's soccer night so I wasn't going anywhere!).

I pulled up my go to recipe to make sure I had everything (you can find it here: Banana muffins ) and got on my way. As it turned out, I didn't have enough yogurt but I did have a little bit of sour cream so I used both in place of the yogurt; I think it was a bit more than I normally use (of course I didn't measure!). I also was craving chocolate so I added 3-4 tbsp of cocoa (which I also didn't measure but went till it looked chocolate-y enough for me). 

The result: really moist and delicious banana muffins. They seemed more moist than I remembered (now this could be because they really were OR because I hadn't had a gluten muffin in so long that I truly forgot how amazing and moist baked goods can be!) and the cocoa was a great addition. They were a ht at work and with my hubby and child!

I literally just tweaked a couple of things from my original post (Banana Muffins), but here is the recipe in its entirety. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup plain (Greek) yogurt
3/4 cup sour cream
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3-4 tbsp cocoa (Dutch, unprocessed)
3 bananas, mashed
1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

Directions:

1. Mix oil, sugar, egg, vanilla, yogurt and sour cream in a large bowl.  Set aside.

2. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and soda, and cocoa.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. (At this point, if it doesn't look chocolate-y enough, add another tablespoon of cocoa.)

3.  Add the mashed bananas and fold in.  Add the chocolate chips.

4.  Place the batter in lined (or greased) muffin tins, about 3/4 full. Bake in a preheated 365F oven for 20 minutes.

Makes 24 muffins.

Chocolate Banana Bread

You may not know that I have been going gluten-free for about a month now.  While I haven't been diagnosed with anything, it is likely that the gluten has been causing (or at least contributing to) my thyroid problems as well as digestion problems.  So I've tried to cut it out.  Needless to say, I have been miserable, miss my foods and haven't seen a difference.

A few days ago I hit up my bulk barn and bought a bunch of different flours that are gluten free.  I love baking, and as I've come to realize, baking gluten free is definitely not the same.  Substitutions don't work and you need several different ingredients to mimic flour and gluten.  Today was my first attempt at gluten free baking.  I've had these ripening bananas sitting on my counter and banana muffins and bread are kinda my thing, so I was determined to keep it as my thing.

I have this book called Nourishing Meals so I decided to work with one of their recipes.

Dry Ingredients:

1 cup teff flour

3/4 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour or arrowroot powder (I did about half and half)

6 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:

2 tbsp ground flax seeds

1/4 cup warm water

1-1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 5-6 for me)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup melted coconut oil (or any oil really)

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

Optional:

chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease a loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl whisk together the dry ingredients.

3. In a separate (large) mixing bowl, add the ground flax and warm water; whisk together so the flax doesn't clump up.  Then add the remaining wet ingredients and whisk together.

4. Pour the wet ingredients in to the dry and mix together with a large wooden spoon.  Fold in your optional ingredients above (I did both!).  Pour batter into your bread pan.  Bake for about 45 minutes.  Cool for 20 minutes and then remove from pan and continue to cool on a wire rack.

My little one helped me with the baking and had a blast.  We also enjoyed licking the batter!  Surprisingly that batter didn't look all that much different from other batters I've worked with.  All my reading online caused me to think it wouldn't look "normal" but it did; maybe it was a little thicker than I'm used to. I probably kept the loaf in for about 50 minutes, but it could have used another 5-10 more as the middle still seemed a little moist.  Since it was my first time, and the batter is dark, I didn't want it to turn out too dry or hard.

The loaf turned out amazing!  You would never know that there wasn't flour in it.  The cocoa adds a richness to it that is almost fudgey or like a brownie!  It is definitely a hit in my house and my banana bread loving friends!