A healthier version of banana chocolate chip muffins, these muffins contain no butter or oil! They’re also made with white whole wheat flour.
My family and I have been trying to clean out our refrigerator and freezer recently. We found (and threw away) several leftover sauces and frostings that I had from various baking projects. There are still unidentifiable things in the freezer.
Among some of the things we found in the freezer were unopened boxes of ice pops, ice cream sandwiches and pints of ice cream (can you tell that we enjoy frozen desserts??). I also happened to see 3 frozen bananas.
Immediately, my light bulb went off and I knew it was time to make some banana bread. This time, however, I decided to turn them into muffins. And similar to my previous muffin recipes, I swapped out several ingredients to make this healthier. First, I omitted the streusel topping (which you can obviously add back in). Second, I swapped out all-purpose flour for whole wheat. Third, I cut down on the sugar. Fourth and finally, I subbed out butter and oil with unsweetened applesauce.
The resulting muffin is nothing short of amazing. If I hadn’t have told you about all those substitutions, you would never have known the difference. My family enjoyed eating these right after they were baked. We’ve been enjoying them for breakfast and mid-day snacks.
Enjoy!
Banana chocolate chip muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups white whole wheat flour can substitute with all-purpose
- 1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 3 ripe bananas mashed
- ½ cup brown sugar packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Generously grease or line two standard muffin pans and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, mix together the bananas, sugars, applesauce, eggs, vanilla and buttermilk. Slowly pour this into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until a few dry streaks remain.
- Fold in the chocolate chips and gently mix until no dry streaks remain.
- Evenly distribute the batter into your prepared baking pans, filling each well about ¾ full.
- Bake in your preheated oven for 8 minutes. Without opening the oven door, turn the temperature down to 350 degrees F and bake for another 7-8 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.
- Decorate with additional chocolate chips on top if desired. Allow the muffins to cool before serving.